GDC: Braid cost 200k to make, says Blow

By Ellie Gibson Published 25 March, 2009

Plus: "It's hard to sell a turd."

Jonathan Blow has said it cost him USD 200,000 to produce Braid, the hit puzzle-platformer he made for XBLA and PC.

However, he reckons it's possible to produce games for much less than that. He spent most of the money on hiring an artist, and could have saved loads if he'd bothered learning how to draw. "The game wouldn't have been as good, but it would have made a profit," Blow said.

"Also, a lot of that 200k was spent because I didn't want to live in a shack somewhere... It doesn't require USD 200,000 to make a game. It requires a PC, a dev kit and enough money to live on for the time it takes to develop, plus extra time because it will always slip. If you can live for three years at your Mom's house, you can make a game for free."

Blow was speaking at the Game Developers Conference, during a panel discussion titled "Braving the stormy waters of XBLA and PSN: Smaller is NOT Easier." But it's not really harder, according to Blow.

"[Braid] was a lot of work, but the process is structured such that it's very easy. Now I'm about to ship my game on the PC and it's much more nebulous," he said. "Put it this way: I worked an average of three or four hours a day on development, with a few self-imposed crunch periods. The development cycle was around three years. It was hard at times, but that's just because it's a lot of work for one person to do."

Towards the end of the cycle, Microsoft started focus testing Braid - and "it was terrible", said Blow. "The scores were terrible. And then you could feel the interest in this game at Microsoft evaporating rapidly. They stopped answering my emails quite so quickly."

The thing is, Blow continued, platform holders have a priority towards their platforms. As a result they rely on focus testing and the like - even though that's not always the best idea. "Any publisher who takes a gatekeeper role doesn't necessarily understand what makes a good or bad game in the first place," he said. "What they greenlight or turn down isn't necessarily in their best interests, even though they think it might be."

Blow went on to say that while marketing and PR can be useful, they won't help if your game's just not good enough. "It's hard to sell a turd," he observed. "If everybody can smell it, doesn't matter how many people you advertise it to."

Find out what Braid smells like by reading our review.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • stevetuck #1 3 years ago

    "It's hard to sell a turd,"

    not if its on the wii call it Turd Sports or Turd Fit and you got yourself a winner
    Edited by 1 at 25/03/09 @ 21:43

  • spenner #2 3 years ago

    somehow wee turd sports just sounds a bit...wrong

  • Tomo #3 3 years ago

    Insightful stuff there. Sehr interessant as they say all over Europe.

  • kangarootoo #4 3 years ago

    "Any publisher who takes a gatekeeper role doesn't necessarily understand what makes a good or bad game in the first place," he said. "What they greenlight or turn down isn't necessarily in their best interests, even though they think it might be"

    Well that is certainly true.

  • dominalien #5 3 years ago

    Sehr interessant as they say all over Europe.

    They don't say this at all.

  • WillyWanka #6 3 years ago

    :D

  • ComradePete #7 3 years ago

    Sehr interessant as they say all over Europe

    er...trente percente?

  • steviepunk #8 3 years ago

    "Towards the end of the cycle, Microsoft started focus testing Braid - and "it was terrible", said Blow. "The scores were terrible. And then you could feel the interest in this game at Microsoft evaporating rapidly. They stopped answering my emails quite so quickly.""

    He goes on to criticise the focus testing mentallity but he could at least have given some info on how exactly he turned it around from being 'terrible' to being very highly regarded at release. Microsoft would not have been pushing as part of their summer promotion with the likes of Galaga 2 and Geometry Wars 2 and Castle Crashers if the focus testing was still saying it was rubbish.

  • estoo #9 3 years ago

    You can easily sell a turd, how else would Need for Speed sell so much every year?

  • chrisjm #10 3 years ago

    I'd of bought it but it was overpriced & now ive lost interest. should of been 800pts.

  • metalangel #11 3 years ago

    Can this cunt and his dull, pretentious, overpriced game please just fuck off somewhere and not come back until he's got something NEW and INTERESTING to show us? Going on and on about how hard it was being a developer (oh yeah, admitting you lived a luxurious life only doing four hours work a day building a game - yeah, we really feel for you, you lazy bastard. I'm sure many modders do more work, for longer, for free) and how much it cost and so on and so on.

    How about you tell us how after all his griping about how EVIL MICROSOFT FORCED HIM to charge so much... he then decided that he'd made so much profit off the XBLA version that he immediately cut the price of the PC version on release?

    PLEASE, games media, STOP GIVING HIM A SOAPBOX TO TALK BOLLOCKS ON.

    (and yes, the irony of 'it's hard to sell a turd' when he did, ha ha haaaa I see what you did there)

  • steviepunk #12 3 years ago

    @beemoh - He said "The scores were terrible", so I'd assume that he is referring to the focus testing feedback scores.

    Though I'm sure the process of XBLA focus testing was terrible as well, but I suspect that Blow just likes to whine about things a bit, so if he did get good feed back that changed the game from 'terrible' to great (at least in terms of giving MS confidence to promote the game), then the XBLA obviously can't be quite as bad as he makes out.
    Edited by 1 at 26/03/09 @ 10:49