Fragments of Him drops price by 50% - now available for $9.99May 28, 2016
Hello dear players,
As of today, Fragments of Him will be reduced in price by 50%. That means that you can get it right now on Steam for $9.99 or €9.99 or £6.99. This pricing will also apply to the Xbox One release due soon and the PlayStation 4 release that we intend to release later this year.
We released Fragments of Him on Steam (available here) three weeks ago, and have since then been on a rollercoaster of emotions. As you know, Fragments of Him is a interactive narrative experience that we have meticulously crafted over the last 2,5 years with limited resources and a mountain of passion.
Not long after the release of Fragments of Him on Steam I became aware of what a post-launch depression feels like.
The Emotional Duality and Reality of the Situation
While players and press are generally positive about Fragments of Him and the press coverage has been more than we ever could have hoped for, the reality is that the sales numbers are incredibly disappointing.
The feeling of people playing through Fragments of Him and writing about what they enjoyed and how they felt is immensely heart-warming and often seems unreal. It really makes us feel like we are on top of the world. The feeling of realising that we have a few months, at best, before we need to close the studio is heart breaking, soul crushing, surreal, and makes me want to not get up any more in the morning.
While we believe that Fragments of Him is similar in pricing and content to narrative experiences such as Gone Home and That Dragon, Cancer, it didn’t reach enough people willing to jump in and make the purchase. Sadly, the truth is that lowering the price is the only realistic chance we have to keep Sassybot open until the end of the year and release Fragments of Him on PlayStation 4.
Despite this blow, we are constantly evaluating our options in bringing Fragments of Him to PlayStation 4. Right now, lowering the price seems to be our best shot at achieving that.
What about people who bought Fragments of Him at full price?
It is with sincere regret and despair that we bring you this news. More so, it is understandable that you feel the price reduction is unfair and believe me when I say I wish it hadn’t have to come to this. To those that have pre-ordered or purchased Fragments of Him, I thank you for being an early adopter and a believer in our work. We are truly sad that this blow in sales mostly affects people that believed in Fragments of Him from the start, as we did.
If you have bought Fragments of Him on Steam before June 1st we intend to give you a Steam key of Fragments of Him that you can give to someone you hold dear. It is the least we can do. Ideally, someone at Valve is awesome enough to help us send you that key. If that doesn’t happen you can also forward us your Steam receipt from the same email you used to purchase Fragments of Him with (so that we know it’s you) and we will send you an extra key as a token of appreciation. Either way, we will keep you posted via this blog and via the Steam community hub.
So what is next?
While the current situation is bleak, we still hold hope for the future. If the Xbox One launch does well, it could mean that we can bring Fragments of Him to PlayStation 4, pay our partners and collaborators their fair share, and perhaps even continue our dream of independently developing games for you to enjoy.
You can help make this happen by
With your help we can bring Fragments of Him to PlayStation 4 and keep Sassybot around for long enough to show you what we are working on next. :’)