Chances are, if you’ve spent any number of years in the gaming fandom then you’ve at least heard of (or even played) a Tale of Tales game. From a vignette featuring an old woman with The Graveyard to the pleasurable action of Luxuria Superbia, these developers have always strayed from convention in fantastic ways. When they jumped on Kickstarter for the first time with Sunset it seemed like a smart decision. Now fans would be able to fund the next great Tale of Tales title and newcomers would be made aware of their work in the most “gamer friendly” means possible.
As it turns out, Sunset was not a big hit. In total there have only been a little over 4,000 copies of the game sold so far. That includes sales from “pre-orders” on the Kickstarter itself and even the Steam Summer Sale copies. For reference, there were a total of 2,228 backers on the Kickstarter. With the lowest tier ($15) granting a copy of Sunset, and the fact that many people don’t back below reward tiers… Well, it doesn’t paint a particularly pretty picture. At minimum, half of all current Sunset sales are based off the Kickstarter backers themselves. 2,000 people finding and adoring your game is far better than 100 or so, but it definitely doesn’t speak well as to the financial sustainability of a product.
The latest blog update on Tale of Tales’ site reveals that they’re moving on from video games. They’ve been seen as outsiders to the industry for years and are now free to pursue their creative needs in all sorts of other fields. They may even make a video game in the future, but not with any expectation of commercial success again. Please note that both members of Tale of Tales, Auriea and Michaël, now have Patreon accounts if you want to fund their future endeavors.
Can’t say I’m sad to see them go. Indie developers need to learn that while games are, indeed, a powerful tool for storytelling, you still need to combine storytelling with compelling gameplay. You can make gamplay primitive if you really don’t like that part, but it still needs to be compelling. Otherwise you get a bad videogame.
A non-mainstream period piece with a non-sexualized female protag relying on Steam for sales… err… in a perfect world, I guess that’d lead to sales.
The game sounds fantastic though and I’d probably check it out if my rig were better.
I think this is a pretty important point you bring up, the games performance. Having a game with such a narrow niche with the performance problems that it has is a bit of a killer. I’m all for artsy games and all, but you shouldn’t need a nice rig to run them; if you expect to make a lot of money that is.
The fact that they wasted there funds on ads and PR didn’t help either, 4000 including the backers is a horrible result for any company 🙁
I was a backer of the game and i told them twice the same thing which i think is a point that mattered in the end and also is a part of the explanation. Aka the date of the release. It was the EXACT same day as Witcher 3.
Launch for a game like in a KS will result in either success or failure. If you choose the same date as one of the most anticipated game of the year..you aren’t for sure increasing your rate of success.
Oh wow, yeah the more I read about these people the more I feel like its marketing they failed at like crazy. I mean aiming this game at hardcore gamers instead of trying to capture the off-the-wall interest in “Gone Home” type indie games. Listing an ad on RPS as a means of getting the word out? I dunno who they paid to do PR but yeesh.
Maybe they should give games another go but drop the obviously too expensive 3D aspect.
Wow! What were they thinking?
[…] Sunset from Kickstarter a few years ago. You may also remember its developer, Tale of Tales. They announced that Sunset was a financial failure, and that they felt they had no choice but to walk away from […]