Yet it's these updates that are accelerating the game's commercial performance. In fact, Whitney says the company's biggest challenge is avoiding issues of feature creep and bloat when adding to its flagship product. The updates themselves are far more complicated than we might think, too. Today, the company consists of 12 employees (all still working remotely), who spend their time developing business partnerships, licensing deals, new games and - of course - all those Terraria updates. Six years later, and Terraria's issues are quite different. "There were lots of frustrating moments where I worried that Terraria might be a waste of time" Andrew Spinks, Re-Logic "Would people enjoy and want to play the game? Would it turn out the way I envisioned?" "There were lots of frustrating moments where I worried that Terraria might be a waste of time," says Andrew. Between them, they had to overcome technical challenges, art issues and - of course - that indie developer curse: self-doubt. Spinks created most of the original game in his living room, and the team was just a few people and a handful of volunteers who all worked remotely. The sandbox action adventure game was the brainchild of Andrew Spinks, who taught himself programming and went on to build something that combined the likes of Zelda and Super Metroid with Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft. The game began on PC, and now exists on practically every device imaginable. Terraria has sold 20.5m units, and 8.5m of that have come in the last 18 months. The data suggests that Re-Logic's approach has worked. Business-wise, we truly feel that this will yield long term support for our company, which will allow us to make awesome games for a very long time - even if we didn't make every single dollar that we could have along the way." Given that, and the fact we have never been all about maximizing the money at the expense of customers, we have stayed true to our core principals. Fortunately, we are not in this situation. "Perhaps if our studio needed the extra funds to stay independent or to fund our other projects, we would have been forced into pursuing some of these things - we are cognizant that this route is not going to be possible for everyone. Deep down, it just feels to us like the right thing to do. In this situation, we are just meshing that with the modern ability to update and add to that game over time. Namely, you bought a game and enjoyed it. Secondarily, it harks back to the way games were sold when we were coming up as gamers. "Primarily, this speaks to our core philosophy of games and gamers first. However, we strongly feel that forgoing those quick gains was and is the right path to take. This is what I was referring to in regards leaving money on the table. "To give a small example, we could have charged some very small amount for the massive 1.3 update - let's say a dollar or less - and would have likely made several million dollars without much community blowback. "We have had discussions around this topic in a variety of ways over the years," Andrew adds. That's not to say that the Re-Logic team hasn't considered charging for updates. That would be our reputation and the unwavering good will that we have built with our amazing fans." Terraria costs $9.99 and nothing more Re-Logic president Andrew Spinks adds: "In all honesty, as successful as Terraria has been, it isn't even what we consider to be the most valuable asset that Re-Logic has. We support them by adding to the game that they love to play, and they support us by spreading the word, sometimes buying more than one copy, showcasing more amazing potential in the game with the content that they create, and just by being awesome." Perhaps it would be different if our fans weren't as supportive of us as they consistently are. "That said, we wouldn't have it any other way. It more than likely leaves money on the table, as many players would gladly pay, especially for larger updates. "Some updates produce more new players than others, and it is often hard to tell what will happen with any given update. "Giving those updates away was a bit risky without a doubt," admits Re-Logic VP Whitney Spinks Developer Re-Logic didn't charge anything for these updates. Six years of updates later, and Terraria now has 3,800 items, 25 NPCs, 350 enemies, 16 bosses, a new ending, new areas, an expert mode and a load more nice extras. Players could get all of that for the reasonable sum of $9.99. When sandbox game Terraria first launched in May 2011, it had 250 items, a handful of playable characters and bosses, and a few nice extras.
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