In October, Swedish developer Hazelight Studios announced its co-op game It takes two had 20 million copies sold. It takes two is no small release – it was supported by publisher Electronic Arts’ EA Originalsand won Game of the Year at the 2021 Game Awards. But the sales figures still came as a shock to many who read about it.
It takes two is a cooperative platformer in which a married couple planning to divorce becomes magically trapped inside a pair of dolls by their daughter’s tears, and must work together to overcome a series of obstacles. It’s a small game that was well reviewed upon release, but disappeared from mainstream gaming media quite quickly. But here are sales figures posted that almost any AAA blockbuster would be jealous of; 20 million is just shy The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom‘s sales, for example, are correct and would probably be set It takes two somewhere just outside the list of the 50 best-selling games of all times.
It’s also interesting that It takes two reached this sales milestone more than three and a half years after its release. A little digging into Hazelight’s public announcements about the game’s sales tells an even more remarkable story.
In the first seven months, It takes two sold 3 million copies. It took another four months to reach 5 million. Five months later it was 7 million. Ten million in February 2023. Sixteen million in March 2024. There is a clear pattern here: It takes two has sold at an unwavering, consistent pace of about half a million copies per month since its release.
It hasn’t slowed down. In fact, it has accelerated slightly. The average sales rate in the seven months after launch was approximately 430,000 copies per month. In the seven months to October 2024, it sold an average of around 570,000 copies per month.
This is an incredibly unusual sales pattern, usually reserved for the most perennial hits, such as Minecraft. What went well?
“First of all, the game turned out really well, we are extremely proud of it and the overall reception to its quality is remarkable,” Hazelight’s chief operating officer Oskar Wolontis told Polygon via email. He then made the usual qualitative statements about the ‘lively and enormously varied adventure’, the ‘captivating story’, the ‘unique concept’, and so on. But he did reveal a few interesting tidbits.
Firstly, It takes two achieves these sales figures without significant marketing support. The initial marketing budget was “low,” Wolontis said, and “there was no meaningful marketing spend on it.” It takes two for quite some time.” He also noted that the reported sales figures do not include downloads from subscription services such as Game Pass and EA Play.
Secondly, winning the Game Awards certainly helped, and not just in the US; it had a global effect. “It did have an impact, we saw a substantial increase in sales in all markets,” said Wolonits. He also noted that the GOTY win prompted many streamers and influencers to choose It takes two which further increased the reach.
Third, “It has found a large audience both in Western markets and in Asia,” Wolonits said. He was probably talking It takes two‘s reported huge success in China, where it’s not officially available for purchase (but, as with many games from outside China, that’s not a major barrier to success). Director Josef Fares claimed on a December 2021 podcast that “almost half” of the game’s audience was in China, and that the game won Game of the Year at the Bilibili Game Awards based there. In a 2022 article, GamesIndustry.biz Theorized that the game’s accessible co-op gameplay, uncontroversial style, and divorce theme might have helped its success in a country where multi-generational households are common and divorce rates are soaring.
Finally: it’s the co-op, dumbass. Wolontis noted that Hazelight’s brand of forced co-op adventures – split-screen games designed for two players, no more and certainly no less – satisfies a wide appetite but remains virtually unique and guarantees a level of word-of-mouth advertising. “There are a large number of players in the world who love co-op gaming, and there are a large number of games with co-op gameplay on the market. But that’s the kind of cooperative that plays It takes two offers (en A way out too), is very rare or doesn’t even exist outside of these games,” he said. “We saw that early on It takes two is experiencing very impressive growth through word of mouth (which has also been adopted to some extent). A way out), and we attribute the quality and uniqueness to that.”
There you have it: if you want to sell 20 million copies of your game, identify something that large numbers of players want but that no one else does, preferably with a multiplayer component for added virality. Also make sure it is globally digestible and can penetrate any market. That is far from easy. But it is, surprisingly, quite simple.