Schell Games’ puzzler I Expect You To Die is the latest VR game to join the $1 million or more in revenue club.
The studio announced the news today, clarifying that the revenue was gained across sales on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR (PSVR) headsets. The team also released a new mixed reality video to celebrate the news, which you can see below.
Speaking to UploadVR, Schell Games CEO Jesse Schell said that the company was “very pleased” with what the game has earned so far. While not confirming exactly how profitable it had been, Schell did say that the revenue was helping to fund new VR projects. The game was built by a team of around 20 developers.
I Expect You To Die is a secret agent-themed puzzle game in which you search secret bases and evil lairs, often finding yourself up against vicious traps that will require quick thinking to overcome. We quite liked the game, awarding it 7.5 in our full review and praising its use of motion controls.
“We tried, from the very beginning, not to copy existing game genres, but instead to invent a game that takes advantage of what VR is best at,” Schell said of the game’s success. “Whenever a new platform appears, the people who succeed are the ones who create things for it that couldn’t really work on older platforms.”
Earlier this month, Schell Games confirmed that the game will be getting additional add-on content.
The game joins a growing list of VR titles that have been confirmed to have generated more than $1 million, including the likes of Job Simulator, Arizona Sunshine, and Raw Data. Recently, UploadVR also confirmed that Fantastic Contraption belonged on that list. The install bases for these headsets may be comparatively low to popular gaming consoles and PCs, but success stories like this prove that profitability is possible.
I Expect You To Die was one of a handful of games recently confirmed for launch on Microsoft’s new Windows 10 VR headsets, which should be arriving soon. Schell said that the system’s tracking and controllers were “fairly comparable” to pre-existing headsets. Following its release, the team is working on even more VR and AR titles, with Schell confirming that “about 2/3” of the team’s work is with these technologies.
