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‘Hellblade’ Breaks Even, Final Dev Diary Released
As great of a game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice turned out to be, it was undeniably a gamble for developer Ninja Theory to release what they called an “independent AAA game”. Thankfully, the gamble has paid off.
In the final Developer Diary released by Ninja Theory for Hellblade, the team reveal that in the three months since the game was launched, they reached 500,000 in sales (three months ahead of their predictions), and put Ninja Theory in the black with over $13 million in revenue. Breaking that down further, 250,000 units were sold in the first week at $29.99 USD, with over 75,000 units in pre-orders across PlayStation 4 and PC. Overall, about half of the sales were on PC.
This all comes from a team of 20, working over three years to develop a game that was sold only digitally.
So, what does this all mean? Well, it proves that in a world where bloated budgets and corporate meddling of a big-time developer can cause a game that’s well-received to be hopelessly behind the 8-ball in trying to break even, or an game made by a small team which receives ridiculous hype but unfortunately fails upon its release, there’s a happy medium. Is it for every game? No, but it’s a feel-good story for a game that definitely deserves your attention.
All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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