Content Warning Sells Over 700,000 Copies on Steam

It was certainly a bold strategy: not many people would build word-of-mouth marketing for their game by giving it away for free on its launch day. Especially if said launch day is April 1st and many might think it’s a joke. As it turns out, though, over six million people answered the call and grabbed Content Warning. Which, in turn, means platforms like YouTube, Twitch and TikTok were flooded with videos from the game. That’s great news, but did it translate into actual sales?

Apparently, yes! You’d think that you’d be well and truly up the creek financially if over six million got your game for free. Instead, Content Warning has sold almost a quarter of a million copies in under two weeks, which means odds are good they’ll get to one million by the end of April. Granted, I don’t know how many people that snagged the game for free and then went back and actually bought it. Or, in more corpo-speak, I don’t know what the conversion rate is.

Want to know the funny part, though? It doesn’t matter. The actual question one needs to ask is: would seven hundred thousand people have purchased the game without all the eyeballs Content Warning earned by being free? Did it have a chance to have this many users without tons of influencers of all sizes playing it because it was free and everyone was talking? Maybe, over time, but certainly not in less than half a month. And it probably wouldn’t have reached millions.

So, yeah; it was certainly a gamble, but boy howdy, it paid off. Of course, you still have to make a good game, which the developers have definitely done. The clashing art styles and the satire of the content grind are just some facets that make Content Warning worth playing. If you haven’t already, and have some friends to share the experience with, give it a shot!