Jonatan Soderstrom and the rest of the crew at Dennaton Games aren't rich by any strech of the imagination. In fact, while the game was being pirated to Tartarus and back, Soderstrom was nice enough to the pirates to let them know that a patch would be arriving and that it would be cool to update the torrent to include the latest patch, so pirates experience the best the game has to offer. Recently, Dennaton's Soderstrom tweeted about his dire financial situation and later said that he hopes they make enough from Hotline Miami to keep making bigger and better games.
From an upcoming interview with VG 24/7, Soderstrom states...
“I’m not making games to make money. I do want to make money, but it’s not my major intention with my creativity. I just like expressing myself, making cool stuff, and like, if you don’t want to pay for the game but want to play it anyway, I’m not going to stop people from doing that.”
I like the attitude because building fans is imperative for a game as niche as Hotline Miami. As I mentioned in an article about the game, it's not something for everyone and it deals with some pretty dark themes that would probably have landed it close to an AO rating had it been fitted with, say, Heavy Rain's graphical presentation.
Still, Hotline Miami was a good game for what it is. The tactical mix of melee and gun-based combat really mixed up the playing experience to something refreshing and different from every other action game out there, which seems weird given that it's designed as a top-down 16-bit title from the SNES/Sega era.
Soderstrom admitted on Twitter that he had been broke and wasn't all that big on aiding pirates, but again, fans who pirate your game are better than enemies who pirate your game, right? Jonatan also has big ideas for the future of game design, assuming a game like Hotline Miami can actually turn a profit, saying...
“I want to make enough money to make bigger games, and that’ probably not something I’m able to do if I have to get a job, and of course I want to be able to pay rent and buy food from what I do. So, we’re looking to make another game as soon as possible, and hopefully it will turn out as good as Hotline Miami.”
Great news.
I'm hoping Hotline Miami at least makes Steam Top 10 at some point because despite its dark themes, the creativity at least deserves to be rewarded. Besides, if Soderstrom and crew can churn out another game with the same kind of gameplay ingenuity as Hotline then I'm all for it.
