In two months, Train Valley Origins was purchased only 4,300 times
On June 12, the studio Flazm and publisher Polden Publishing released the railway economic puzzle game Train Valley Origins on Steam. According to Polden Publishing co-founder Kirill Oreshkin, “the game didn’t succeed at all.”
Train Valley Origins
Oreshkin wrote a post on social media revealing Train Valley Origins' metrics as of mid-August. Here are some of them:
- gross revenue — $39.3 thousand with a development budget exceeding $100 thousand;
- sales — 4.3 thousand copies with a refund rate of 7.7%;
- top 5 markets by sales — USA (16%), Germany (12%), Russia (10%), China (10%), and the United Kingdom (7%);
- the highest sales were at release. Currently, Train Valley Origins sells 4-5 copies a day.
According to Oreshkin, Train Valley Origins failed to attract either fans of the series or new players. Fans found it not challenging enough, while newcomers were not drawn to the train puzzle genre. Additionally, the title faced promotional difficulties even before release.
The Train Valley series debuted in 2015 and includes three other games besides Train Valley Origins: Train Valley, Train Valley 2, and Train Valley World. The first two parts were published by META Publishing (on PC) and BlitWorks Games (on consoles), while Train Valley World was published by tinyBuild.
Initial sales of all predecessors to Train Valley Origins are unknown. However, at least Train Valley 2 performed significantly better. In 2018, Flazm reported that more than 10,000 people bought the sequel within the first week of early access. By the end of 2023, the total audience of Train Valley 2 reached 7 million people, including those who acquired the puzzle game during free giveaways.
According to VG Insights, at the time of writing this news, Steam sales alone for Train Valley totaled 347 thousand copies, for Train Valley 2 — 75.2 thousand copies, and for Train Valley World — only 7.6 thousand copies. Whether Train Valley Origins can ever reach such numbers remains to be seen.