GDC09: PixelJunk Eden profitable after one day of sales

by Andrew Yoon { Mar 24th 2009 at 3:22PM }

Publishers looking for a quick buck don't need to focus their efforts solely on the iPhone. Sony's Susan Panico touted the values of PSN development by providing a case study on PixelJunk Eden, Q-Games' third PSN-exclusive title. Panico told the GamesBeat audience that "PixelJunk Eden made its return on investment within 24 hours." Sales after that period become pure profit.

Of course, the success of Eden is a little unsurprising, considering the popularity of PixelJunk Monsters. Regardless, it's impressive that a small independent studio was able to create a trusted franchise exclusively through the PlayStation Network. With so much green made off of Eden, it's no wonder Q-Games is working on an expansion for the game. Eden Encore will be available in April.

Gallery: PixelJunk Eden Encore

Tags: gamesbeat, gdc-2009, pixeljunk, pixeljunk-eden, pixeljunk-eden-encore, playstation-network, psn, q-games, susan-panico

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Mar 24th 2009 3:30PM

Well DAMN!!!

I still need to get this, maybe it will go on sale in the near future

Hyams @ Mar 24th 2009 3:35PM

Get it, it's great fun, and looks absolutely beautiful on a large 1080p TV.

baby sea tuna @ Mar 24th 2009 3:37PM

But looks like tiny artifacted shit on Remote Play. :( Sucks considering it's the only PSN game I have that even works that way.

Hyams @ Mar 24th 2009 3:40PM

Then sell your PSP and buy a large 1080p TV. =P

Courtney @ Mar 24th 2009 3:42PM

It's been on sale once before, that's when I snagged it. Killer deal at the time.

baby sea tuna @ Mar 24th 2009 3:42PM

But I *just* bought the doggone PSP!

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Mar 24th 2009 4:42PM

damn it was on sale before and I missed it??? sucks ass...

Tuna get Pixel Junk Monsters it works Via Remote play pretty damn good.

Hyams I'm going to get a 1080p tv in a year or so....lol

Josh @ Mar 24th 2009 3:38PM

That's really, really encouraging.

baby sea tuna @ Mar 24th 2009 3:41PM

Eden is easily my favorite PSN game. I do wish there was a "casual" option to play it without a timer though. My girlfriend really enjoys it but gets super frustrated when time starts running out, and flat-out refuses to redo the level if we fail it up.

Boye @ Mar 24th 2009 5:20PM

I thought there was a patch that introduced that, I could be wrong though.

Exemplar @ Mar 24th 2009 5:51PM

I hear ya on that. I bought this game for my girlfriend because she doesn't enjoy 'scary' games (which excludes pretty much all but 10% of all games). Unfortunately for us, this game drives our frustration levels through the roof, so much so that it almost puts her off games entirely. Kinda shot myself in the foot with that one!

Now with that patch it's a little more forgiving, but we're still not really keen to get back into it. It's just too damn annoying with the trippy music (we've opted to turn it off) and those bloody stressful 'you're running out of time!' beeps. Ah well. Maybe we're just not hardcore enough?

Courtney @ Mar 24th 2009 3:41PM

Q-Games mastered branding with the PIxelJunk line. I don't see why more companies don't do this. Essentially, Racers, Monsters and Eden are all independent franchises. I think if they had tried to release each as a standalone title, they would have struggled greatly. But by uniting all of them under the PJ brand, they instantly communicate a certain level of quality and creativity in the title, regardless of what the game actually is.

Final Fantasy basically does the same thing. I think a lot more new IPs would find greater success if more companies would establish umbrella names to release titles under. Brand awareness is higher, loyalty is higher, trust is higher.

Mr Khan @ Mar 24th 2009 3:41PM

It is really encouraging for something of such quality. The single hitch is that its their 3rd game in the series, so development might be considerably lower than the first

Though i know nothing of the process, but PSN is certainly proving to be an excellent home for these sort of games. Really, all 3 services are.

PixelHustler @ Mar 24th 2009 3:55PM

Thank you for saying "all three services..." as it seems that the cool thing to do lately is hate all over WiiWare, but praise PSN and XBLA. PixelJunk Eden is one of my favorite downloadable games, right up there with Bit.Trip.Beat., LostWinds, the ArtStyle series, Braid, and Castle Crashers. It's uplifting to see that PJE made money so quickly. Hopefully that means we get more games of this ilk across all 3 platforms.

Vidikron @ Mar 24th 2009 3:57PM

Yeah, the online stores are one of my favorite additions this generation.

McWeen @ Mar 24th 2009 3:48PM

I picked it up when it was on sale. It is a pretty simple game and you can tell they spent quite a bit of time making sure the whole thing matched a specific aesthetic. I swear I am only going to play it for ten minutes, but I always zone out and end up playing for an hour or so.

343 Guilty Fart @ Mar 24th 2009 3:53PM

This is one of my favorite games of last year. Much better than Braid in my opinion.

Levi @ Mar 24th 2009 4:05PM

I love this game, I love Monsters, icaht wait for Dungeons, and I can't wait to see what their next project is!

Levi @ Mar 24th 2009 6:27PM

Random question: I got Monsters after the Encore expansion. What did Encore add? The trophy challenges?

why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 24th 2009 6:54PM

Trophy challenges were a free patch later.

Encore added the 2nd island (Toki Island). And the secret 3rd island. The original only has Tiki Island (and thus no island select screen).

Levi @ Mar 24th 2009 7:14PM

0_o island select? I'm gonna have to load up the game and take another look...

Dehshizknight @ Mar 24th 2009 4:22PM

I got this one a few months after it was released while it was on sale and I liked it a lot. I still need to get through all the Trophies, though.

DiRT @ Mar 24th 2009 4:54PM

But when do I get a new island in Monsters? Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen?

needmoregigs @ Mar 24th 2009 4:55PM

I bought this game at launch and still play it to this day. It is one of my favorite games on the PSN so far. PJE Encore is coming out soon and I can't wait to see what they have done to my grimp's world.

On a side note, PSN games are the only games I can play right now since my 60GB's blu-ray lens decided to crap out on me. I want to play Killzone :(

Levi @ Mar 24th 2009 6:26PM

You can! They released it on the PC, didn't you hear? It's called Team Fortress 2!!

I kid, I kid :P I do think the campaign is really where the game rocks though. I'm at the final battle on my second playthrough, this time on Hard mode. The game's difficulty levels are actually accurate for once. I don't feel like Medium should be the Easy mode, and Hard should be Medium, and so forth. Med is how the game should be played by the average player, Hard is actually hard, and I'm not even sure I want to try Elite...

Sorry bout your console though dude.

needmoregigs @ Mar 24th 2009 7:17PM

lol...i get you Levi. Funny thing is, I beat Killzone 2 already. I was playing the multiplayer when the ps3 went kaput. I like the campaign too. It was nothing special, but it didn't leave me with a let down feeling like R2. Last chapter was sick; i died so much.

No worries about the PS3. Data has been backed up and will be sent out for repairs soon. I was going to mess with the laser assembly, but I was hearing that there were a lot of crappy china made lasers circulating so I went with the sony repairs route.