Million Sales

"Thank you all players for your support—Undertale sales have surpassed 500,000."

After Chen Xu's official blog post went out.

Some indie game designers and media who followed Chen Xu were stunned.

Why?

Because they'd seen this same format of official blog news before.

Breaking 100,000 in three days online, and now only a week had passed, and sales had already hit 500,000?

This growth rate was terrifying, right?

So another wave of articles about Undertale popped up online.

"10-Day Sales Break 500,000! Rating as High as 9.7!"

"A Must-Play for Gamers! An Indie Game Masterpiece!"

"Turning Players' Understanding of RPGs on Its Head! A Unique RPG"

"An Utterly Stunning Game!"

For indie game designers in the industry, some hadn't really cared before, but now they all started diving into research on Undertale.

If good reviews didn't mean much, the hard sales numbers for Undertale were right there, proving this model had market potential.

As for the media, they'd already written similar articles before, so they just reused them, tweaked the titles, and called it done.

These gaming outlets were all singing praises, because Undertale was just too explosive.

It had word-of-mouth, it had sales—the overall quality was flawless.

Plus, the unique meta-game setting left countless players and designers amazed.

With a game like this, even if you wanted to trash it, it was hard to find an angle.

Under the media's relentless bombardment, Undertale's fame began to skyrocket.

Even though game sales had already broken 500,000.

With this kind of reputation and special buzz, 500,000 sales clearly wouldn't be the end for this game.

At the same time, this massive popularity drove many players who'd been watching the drama to Zhong Mei's official blog.

But unfortunately, his earlier blog posts had already been deleted.

And he'd directly closed comments on his blog.

You could say this guy had terrible public goodwill.

Now that Undertale was blowing up, players—whether they had a grudge or were just here for the show—naturally wouldn't let him off.

Especially some players who'd played Magic Mirror before were especially fierce.

Even though he'd deleted the posts and closed comments, Chen Xu's blog posts were still there.

So many players flocked to Chen Xu's earlier blog post and started tagging him all over.

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, hurry up and critique Undertale—games are art! How can you let this kind of game strut around!?"

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, come out and say something! Blossom can definitely crush Undertale, right? What, sales only broke 50,000? I don't believe it! Teacher Zhong's game is art—it must be that these players don't know how to appreciate it. It's not the game's fault, it's these players!"

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, keep going! You talked a big game back then!"

Under Chen Xu's few official blog posts, every single one was filled with tags for Zhong Mei, and some representative sarcastic replies had thousands of likes.

As for Zhong Mei now?

Two words: playing dead.

He really didn't want to.

But the key was, there was no other way!

In his original plan, his specialty was using his strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses.

You have higher sales than me? Then I'll talk about reputation.

You have better reputation than me? Then I'll talk about art.

You're more artistic than me? Then I'll talk about sales.

If that didn't work, I could thicken my skin and compare game length.

Basically, I'd compare whatever I was better at.

But now that wasn't possible!

Because he got crushed in every single category.

He couldn't exactly say his Blossom sold for 40 bucks, four more than your Undertale, could he?

So Zhong Mei decided to play dead!

He just didn't believe Chen Xu could make another game this good next time.

Across the entire gaming circle, Undertale's numbers kept climbing higher.

Thanks to Undertale's stellar reputation, the growth rate remained steady. When Chen Xu publicly announced that Undertale had sold over 500,000 copies, the sales trend was still pointing upward.

By August 15th, it had been exactly one month since Undertale's launch. Total sales finally broke through one million, achieving what the Magic Mirror had failed to reach before.

The news of one million sales in the first month stunned countless indie game designers. With Undertale's price of 36 yuan, even if most sales came from third-party platforms, it was enough to push Chen Xu's revenue past ten million in just one month.

Not to mention that during this period, the Magic Mirror DLC also launched and sold quite a bit. Setting aside the Magic Mirror, it was clear that Undertale's sales were driven entirely by its excellent story and design.

This led countless game designers to analyze Undertale's features and what made it successful. For Nebula Games, which was just getting started, Undertale's success was both a financial and reputational win.

Compared to its previous life, Undertale in this parallel world had reached one million sales in its first month relying solely on the domestic market. Chen Xu took a moment to reflect on why.

First was the environment of this parallel world. Just like in his previous life, console gaming was niche in China while PC and mobile dominated. The game market here was far larger than before. In his past life, China claimed 700 million players, but that number was inflated.

This parallel world was different. Even setting aside overseas markets, just looking at the domestic market was terrifying. After all, it was the world's most populous country.

Second, compared to its previous life, Chen Xu had optimized the visual presentation significantly. In his past life, Undertale was just an indie developer's project funded by crowdfunding. Manpower and budget were extremely limited.

For a game, good visual performance was always a plus, never a minus. Players might skip a game because the graphics were too poor, but no one ever said they didn't want to play because the graphics were too good.

Chen Xu was already very satisfied with Undertale's sales results. As for the overseas market, because this parallel world's policies differed from his previous life, he hadn't considered it in the short term.

The Magic Mirror hadn't passed domestic review and was only released on overseas official platforms. Although it was also an official release, its nature was completely different from Undertale's. Undertale, on the other hand, had already been released on domestic platforms.