"Thanks to all the players for your support—Undertale has now sold over 500,000 copies."
Right after Lucas posted that on his blog—
A bunch of indie game devs and media folks who followed him were stunned.
Why?
Because they'd seen a similar post not long ago.
The game passed 100,000 sales just three days after release. Now, barely a week later, it was already at 500,000?
That growth was insane.
And just like that, the internet was filled with a new wave of articles about Undertale.
"500,000 Copies Sold in 10 Days! Rating Hits 9.7!"
"A Must-Play! A Masterpiece of Indie Gaming!"
"Breaks the Rules of RPGs! A Whole New Kind of Game!"
"A Game That Hits You Hard!"
For many indie game developers in the industry, some of whom hadn't paid much attention before, this was when they started seriously looking into Undertale.
Good reviews alone might not mean much, but now the game had real sales numbers to back it up. Clearly, this kind of game had a market.
And for the media? Most of them had already written about Undertale, so they just reused the same articles with a new headline. Done.
All the gaming media were full of praise—after all, Undertale was just that explosive.
It had both great reviews and strong sales, and the overall quality was basically flawless.
With its unique meta-game design, it amazed countless players and game designers.
A game like this—people couldn't even find a way to criticize it if they tried.
Thanks to the media buzz, Undertale's popularity started skyrocketing.
Even though it had already sold over 500,000 copies.
Still, with that kind of reputation and buzz, 500,000 sales clearly wasn't the end for this game.
And with the growing hype, even the bystanders who were just watching started flooding Bell's official blog.
But unfortunately, all of Bell's past posts had already been deleted.
He even turned off comments on his page.
Basically, he wasn't exactly well-liked by the general public.
Now that Undertale had gone viral, whether people liked him or just wanted to stir things up, they weren't going to let him off the hook.
Especially those who had played Mirror before—they were ready for war.
Even if Bell had deleted his posts and closed comments, Lucas' old posts were still up.
So, a bunch of players started spamming replies under Lucas' posts, tagging Bell.
"@Bell, Mr. Bell, hurry and criticize Undertale! Games are art, right? How can a game like this be allowed to show off like that!?"
"@Bell, Mr. Bell, come out and say something! Blossom should be able to crush Undertale, right? What, it's only sold 50,000? No way! Your games are true art. The problem must be that these players don't understand them—not that your games suck!"
"@Bell, Mr. Bell, keep going! You talked so big before!"
Under Lucas' few blog posts, it was all @Bell comments. Some of the more sarcastic ones had even racked up thousands of likes.
And Bell right now?
Two words: playing dead.
Honestly, he didn't want to.
But he had no choice!
His whole strategy had always been "hit where they're weak."
If your sales are better than mine, I'll talk about reviews.
If your reviews are better, I'll talk about art.
If you're more artistic, I'll talk about sales.
And if that fails, I'll shamelessly compare game length.
Basically, I just compare whatever I'm better at.
But now? That doesn't work anymore.
He'd lost in every single category.
What's he gonna say—his Blossom costs 15 dollar, 5 dollar more than Undertale?
So, Bell decided to play dead.
He didn't believe Lucas could make another hit like this anyway.
...
With the whole gaming scene watching, Undertale's numbers just kept going up.
Thanks to Undertale's great reputation, sales growth remained steady.
Even when Lucas announced that Undertale had sold over 500,000 copies, sales kept climbing.
By August 15th, exactly one month since launch—
Total sales had passed 1 million, something Mirror had never achieved.
One million in the first month—this news shocked indie game devs everywhere.
At 10 dollar per copy, even if most sales came from third-party platforms, Lucas still easily made over 10 million in revenue that month.
Not to mention, during this time, the DLC for Mirror also came out and sold pretty well.
But putting Mirror aside, the sales of Undertale clearly came from its strong story and clever design.
That got tons of game designers trying to break down what made Undertale work so well.
For a new studio like Nebula Games, the success of Undertale brought both fame and profit.
Compared to the previous world, the version of Undertale in this parallel world managed to hit a million sales in its first month just from the local market alone. Lucas made a few notes about that.
First is the environment. Just like in his past life, where console games were niche in the country and mobile and PC dominated, the same thing applies here.
But the game market in this parallel world is way bigger than in his last life.
Even though the old world claimed to have 700 million gamers, that number was full of fluff.
In this world, even ignoring overseas markets, the local numbers are already crazy.
After all, this country still has the biggest population in the world.
Second, compared to the old version, the graphics in Lucas's Undertale got a big upgrade.
In the past, Undertale was just a solo indie project funded by crowdfunding.
He had little money and few people to help.
But for a game, good visuals are always a plus, never a minus.
There are definitely players who'll skip a game because it looks too bad—
but there's no one who avoids a game because it looks too good.
So far, the sales of Undertale have already made Lucas more than happy.
As for the international market, since the rules here are different from his past world, he hasn't really thought about that in the short term.
Mirror didn't even pass the local review process, so it could only be released on overseas platforms. Even though it was official, it was a very different case from Undertale.
Undertale had already been released on local platforms.
(End of The Chapter)
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