In October, Swedish developer Hazelight Studios introduced that its co-op recreation It Takes Two had offered 20 million copies. It Takes Two will not be a minor launch — it was backed by writer Digital Arts’ EA Originals label, and gained Sport of the Yr on the 2021 Sport Awards. However the gross sales tally nonetheless got here as a shock to many studying about it.
It Takes Two is a co-op platformer by which a married couple who’re planning on getting a divorce are magically trapped in a pair of dolls by their daughter’s tears, and should work collectively to beat a sequence of obstacles. It’s a small-ish recreation that reviewed nicely on launch however pretty swiftly disappeared from mainstream video games media. But right here it’s posting gross sales figures that might be the envy of just about any AAA blockbuster; 20 million is simply shy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s gross sales tally, for instance, and would in all probability put It Takes Two someplace simply outdoors the checklist of the 50 bestselling video games of all time.
Additionally it is fascinating that It Takes Two reached this gross sales milestone greater than three and a half years after its launch. Certainly, a bit of digging into Hazelight’s public bulletins of the sport’s gross sales tells an much more exceptional story.
In its first seven months, It Takes Two offered 3 million copies. It took one other 4 months to achieve 5 million. 5 months later, it hit 7 million. Ten million in February 2023. Sixteen million in March 2024. There’s a transparent sample right here: It Takes Two has offered at an unwavering, constant price of round half 1,000,000 copies per 30 days because it got here out.
It hasn’t slowed down. In reality, it has sped up barely. Its common gross sales price within the seven months after its launch was round 430,000 copies per 30 days. Within the seven months as much as October 2024, it was promoting roughly 570,000 copies on common each month.
That is an extremely uncommon gross sales sample, normally reserved for essentially the most perennial of hits, like Minecraft. What went proper?
“To begin with the sport turned out very well, we’re extraordinarily pleased with it and the general reception of its high quality has been exceptional,” Hazelight’s chief working officer Oskar Wolontis advised gamerlifemedia over electronic mail. He went on to make the same old qualitative claims concerning the recreation’s “vibrant and massively assorted journey,” “participating story,” “distinctive idea,” and so forth. However he did reveal a couple of fascinating tidbits.
Firstly, It Takes Two is reaching these gross sales figures with none advertising and marketing help to talk of. The preliminary advertising and marketing price range was “low,” Wolontis mentioned, and “there’s been no significant advertising and marketing spend for It Takes Two for fairly a while now.” He additionally famous that reported gross sales figures don’t embody downloads from subscription providers like Sport Go and EA Play.
Secondly, the Sport Awards win undoubtedly helped, and never simply within the U.S. — it had a worldwide impact. “It did have an effect, we noticed a considerable uptick in gross sales in all markets,” Wolonits mentioned. He additionally famous that the GOTY win prompted many streamers and influencers to choose It Takes Two up, which additional elevated its attain.
Thirdly: “It has discovered an enormous viewers in each the Western markets and Asia,” Wolonits mentioned. He was probably speaking round It Takes Two’s reported runaway success in China, the place it’s not formally licensed on the market (however, like many video games from outdoors China, that isn’t a significant obstacle to success). Director Josef Fares claimed on a December 2021 podcast that “nearly half” of the sport’s viewers was in China, and it gained Sport of the Yr on the Bilibili Sport Awards based mostly there. In a 2022 article, GamesIndustry.biz theorized that the sport’s accessible co-op gameplay, uncontroversial type, and divorce theme may need helped it reach a rustic the place multigenerational households are frequent and divorce charges are hovering.
Lastly: It’s the co-op, silly. Wolontis famous that Hazelight’s model of enforced co-op adventures — split-screen video games designed for 2 gamers, no extra and undoubtedly no much less — satisfies a broad urge for food, however stays nearly distinctive, guaranteeing a degree of word-of-mouth success. “There’s a big variety of gamers on the planet who take pleasure in co-op gaming, and there are a lot of video games with co-op gameplay on the market. However the type of co-op play that It Takes Two provides (and A Approach Out as nicely), may be very uncommon and even non-existent outdoors of these video games,” he mentioned. “We noticed from early on that It Takes Two has a really spectacular development by way of word-of-mouth (which has additionally rubbed off considerably on A Approach Out), and we attribute its high quality and uniqueness to that.”
There you might have it: If you wish to promote 20 million copies of your recreation, establish one thing that enormous numbers of gamers need however that no person else is doing, ideally with a multiplayer element for added virality. Additionally, be sure it’s globally palatable and might penetrate any market. That’s removed from simple. However it’s, surprisingly, fairly easy.
