Million Sales

"Thanks to all players for your support. Undertale has surpassed 500,000 copies sold."

After Chen Xu posted this on his Official Blog,

some indie game designers and media outlets following Chen Xu were stunned.

Why?

Because they seemed to have seen an Official Blog post in the exact same format before.

It had surpassed 100,000 sales within three days of launch, and only a week had passed since then—yet sales had already broken 500,000?

Wasn't that growth rate terrifying?

As a result, another wave of articles about Undertale appeared online.

"Over 500,000 Sales in Ten Days! Rating as High as 9.7!"

"A Must-Play for Gamers! A Masterpiece Among Indie Games!"

"Redefining Players' Understanding of RPGs! A Truly Unique RPG!"

"An Incredibly Stunning Game!"

For indie game designers in the industry, even those who had not paid much attention before began studying Undertale.

If positive reviews alone did not mean much, then Undertale's very real sales figures showed that this model had market potential.

As for the media, they had published similar articles before anyway. They could simply reuse them and change the headlines.

These gaming outlets unanimously praised it, because Undertale was simply too explosive.

It had both critical acclaim and sales, and its overall quality was virtually flawless.

Combined with its unique Meta Game elements, it left countless players and designers amazed.

For a game like this, it was hard to find an angle to attack even if someone wanted to smear it.

Under the media's relentless bombardment, Undertale's popularity also began soaring.

Although the game's sales had already surpassed 500,000,

with such acclaim and such distinctive buzz, 500,000 was clearly not going to be the end for this game.

At the same time, the immense attention also drew many players who had previously just been watching the spectacle to Zhong Mei's Official Blog.

Unfortunately, he had already deleted his previous post.

He had even shut down comments on his Official Blog altogether.

It could be said that this guy had truly terrible public goodwill.

Now that Undertale had become a massive hit, whether players had grievances against him or were simply there for the show, they naturally could not let him off.

Especially the players who had played Magic Mirror back then—they were particularly battle-ready.

Though he had deleted the post and disabled comments, Chen Xu's Official Blog post was still there.

So many players flocked beneath Chen Xu's earlier post, tagging people left and right.

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, hurry up and criticize Undertale! Games are art! How can a game like this be allowed to strut around so arrogantly!?"

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, come out and say something! Blossom can definitely crush Undertale, right? What, its sales have only just broken 50,000? I don't believe it! Teacher Zhong's game is art. These players must just lack the taste to appreciate it. It's not that the game is bad—it's that these players are bad!"

"@Zhong Mei, Teacher Zhong, keep going! You spoke so well back then!"

Under Chen Xu's few Official Blog posts, the comments were filled with tags directed at Zhong Mei. Some of the more representative sarcastic replies had received thousands of likes.

As for Zhong Mei now?

Two words: playing dead.

In truth, he did not want to.

But the key is, he had no choice!

In his original plan, his ultimate move was to use his strengths against his opponent's weaknesses.

If your sales were higher than mine, then I'd talk to you about critical reception.

If your reputation was better than mine, then I'd talk to you about art.

If you had more artistic merit than me, then I'd talk to you about sales.

And if all else failed, I could shamelessly compare game length with you.

Anyway, I would only compare the areas where I was better than you.

But now he could not do that anymore!

He had been crushed in every single category.

He could not possibly say that his Blossom sold for forty yuan, four yuan more expensive than your Undertale, could he?

So Zhong Mei decided to play dead!

He refused to believe that Chen Xu could make another game this good.

With the entire gaming world watching, every metric for Undertale continued climbing.

Thanks to Undertale's excellent word of mouth, its subsequent growth remained remarkably steady.

When Chen Xu publicly announced that Undertale had surpassed 500,000 sales, its sales curve was still trending upward.

By August 15, exactly one month had passed since Undertale launched.

Its total sales finally surpassed one million, accomplishing what Magic Mirror had failed to achieve.

One million sales in its first month—the news instantly stunned countless designers in the Indie Game Circle.

At Undertale's price of thirty-six yuan, even if most of those sales had come through third-party platforms, Chen Xu's revenue had still surpassed ten million yuan in just one month.

Not to mention that Magic Mirror's DLC had also launched during that period and sold quite well.

And setting Magic Mirror aside, Undertale's sales could be said to have come entirely from its outstanding story and design.

This prompted countless game designers to analyze Undertale's defining traits and the reasons for its success.

For the still-nascent Nebula Games, Undertale's success brought both fame and fortune.

Moreover, compared to his previous life, Undertale in the Parallel World had reached one million sales in its first month by relying solely on the domestic market. Chen Xu had also given the matter some thought.

First was the environment of the Parallel World. Just as console platforms had been relatively niche domestically in his previous life, while PC and mobile platforms were mainstream,

the Parallel World's gaming market was far larger than that of his previous life. Although his previous life's domestic market claimed to have seven hundred million players, there had been far too much inflation in that number.

The Parallel World was different. Even without counting overseas markets, its domestic market alone was already astonishingly large.

After all, it was the most populous country in the world.

Second, compared with his previous life, Chen Xu had greatly improved the visual presentation.

After all, Undertale in his previous life had only been the work of a single indie developer, funded through crowdfunding.

Both manpower and funding had been extremely limited.

And for a game, good visual presentation was absolutely a bonus, never a drawback.

After all, players might be unable to get into a game because its graphics were too poor, but no one ever said they did not want to play a game because its graphics were too good.

It could be said that Chen Xu was already very satisfied with Undertale's current sales performance.

As for overseas markets, because the Parallel World's policies differed from those of his previous life, he had not considered them in the short term.

Magic Mirror had not passed domestic review at all and had launched only on overseas official platforms. Though they were official platforms as well, their nature was completely different from Undertale's.

Undertale, on the other hand, had already launched on domestic platforms.