Following its inclusion in the Steam Summer Sale, minimalist bleakness simulator Dear Esther has sold over a quarter of a million copies. So tweets grateful co-director and composer Jessica Curry. That's a phenomenal amount of attention paid to an experimental Source mod gone retail, and a reassuring indicator of a demand for gunless, thoughtful, edifying game experiences. That, or people really like the outer Hebrides set to piano music.
Developer thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck adds: "We always said we'd celebrate if we shifted 20,000", suggesting that the bulk of sales arrived in the wake of Dear Esther's 75% discount last week. The Brighton-based studio are currently working on an open-world Dear Esther follow-up entitled Everybody's Gone To Rapture. They're also working with Frictional Games on Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Here's a creepy trailer for that: