Torchlight and the Power of Digital Distribution

According to internal figures Runic Games' popular action RPG Torchlight has managed to move an estimated 600,000 units - and most of that movement occurred via digital sales. The company, which was bought by MMO publisher Perfect World earlier this year, was so impressed with sales of the game that it decided that a sequel was a necessary and logical next step. Runic Games is also working on a Torchlight MMO, but the company stresses that the sequel to Torchlight will have a separate design team dedicated to bringing a new game with new character classes, a new story and cooperative play.

CEO Max Schaefer told Gamasutra in a recent interview that he was surprised at the number of digital downloads the game had sold when compared to retail sales:

"I would say it's almost four-to-one," he said when asked to estimate the ratio of digital downloads to boxed sales. "I think that will even up as time goes on, just because there are different markets -- I think boxes last a little longer in terms of their sales curves -- but right now it's four-to-one, and that's conservative."

"We expected that things had moved to digital downloads from boxes since the last time we published and put [out a game]," Schaefer added. "But we were kind of struck by just how far that's gone now.... That's something we have to realize, that that's where the market is for this type of game, and we should really be playing towards that."

The 29 strong development team at the Seattle-based Runic Games is currently hard at work on Torchlight II and the Torchlight MMO. Torchlight II will be released in Spring 2011.

Source: Gamasutra