Beat Games, the Czech Republic-based indie developers behind Beat Saber (2018), announced they’ve sold over one million copies of their popular block-slashing rhythm game—a figure calculated across all supported VR platforms.
Beat Games CEO Jaroslav Beck announced the news in a video blog, saying he optimistically expected the game to reach 150,000 copies before its release, a number three times larger than the team’s pre-launch estimation.
“What happened, nobody could have ever predicted. Even guys from the industry who we spoke with [including advisers and long-time industry professionals] told us we’re freaks if you think we can get this number,” said Beck.
Speaking to Variety, Beck further said Beat Saber’s success wasn’t the result of a prolonged PR campaign, attributing its popularity to word-of-mouth.
“We did zero PR whatsoever,” Beck told Variety. “We didn’t expect that it would blow up that crazy.”
The one million figure includes consumer sales only, the studio confirmed with Road to VR, and not sales from location-based facilities. Beat Saber is available on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows VR headsets (early access), and on PSVR.
We haven’t heard specific numbers from other VR developers for comparison, although it’s possible Beat Saber could be the first VR game to reach the one million sales mark.
Notably, Beat Saber was ranked the second most downloaded PSVR game of 2018, vaulting to the slot within only one month before the close of the year. It’s also been featured in a bespoke PSVR hardware bundle with Borderlands 2 VR (2018).
The announcement came alongside the studio’s recent release of Beat Saber’s first paid DLC music pack, dubbed ‘Monstercat Music Pack 1,” which adds 10 EDM songs to the game across all platforms.
