Myst Sequel Gets Off To Strong Start; Initial Sales Exceed Expectations More Than 147,000 Copies Of Riven Were Sold During Its First Two Days Of Release

Initial sales numbers for Riven show that Spokane-based Cyan Inc. hasn’t lost its mysterious magic touch.

The sequel to Myst - the best-selling CD-Rom entertainment title of all time - sold 147,282 copies in its first two days of release, according to PC Data, a Reston, Va., market research firm.

Eric Winkler, senior marketing communications manager at Broderbund Software, the publisher of Myst and now Riven, offered some perspective on that sales figure.

“If we sell 100,000 units of a title in a lifetime, we’re thrilled,” Winkler said. “We’ve already passed the 100,000 mark. We’re way beyond thrilled.”

The people at Cyan are thrilled, too.

“We are real excited about this,” Chris Brandkamp, Cyan’s vice president of operations, said Wednesday. “As you know, we put everything we had into this, and the comments back have been much more positive than we could have imagined.”

Brandkamp said Cyan has received several early sales reports, but hasn’t been able to verify the numbers. PC Data, however, is the industry’s most authoritative voice, he said.

Broderbund officials said the sales represent one-fourth of its initial shipment of Riven during its first week, beating company expectations. The maker of entertainment and educational software released Riven worldwide on Oct. 31.

The game is the sequel to Myst, in which players explore deserted island worlds to solve a puzzle. Myst has sold more than 3 million copies.

Broderbund is gambling that Riven will pay off big as part of the company’s shift to making more entertainment products instead of educational and productivity software. The company spent heavily to market Riven, reporting a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss before charges in October.

“This is likely to be the fastest launch of a game of all time,” said Ann Stephens, president of PC Data. “It was the No. 1 game that week and it was the No. 1 piece of software that week. Doom 2 was the No. 1 game launch in 1994, selling 300,000 units in its first month. This one (Riven) is looking like it’s 300,000 in two weeks.”

Myst was produced on a shoestring budget by brothers Robyn and Rand Miller along with Brandkamp and a handful of employees working out of Brandkamp’s North Spokane garage.

Almost immediately, fans clamored for a sequel. Broderbund, buoyed by the profits from Myst, was also anxious, but the Millers took their time. They assembled a large staff of artists and technicians, invested in state-of-the art equipment, built a new building, and labored over Riven for years.

The result, Brandkamp says, was all worth it.

“People are just taken aback by the game, by its beauty and by its challenge,” Brandkamp said. “The comments we hear over and over are, ‘We’re glad we waited,’ and ‘We’re glad you took the time.”’ Novato, Calif.-based Broderbund initially shipped 600,000 copies of Riven to stores and distributors before its release, spokesman Rudy Porchivina said. The company is trying to fill more orders from distributors who already sold out their allotments, he said.

The extraordinary demand for the highly anticipated game resulted in some odd scenes: shouting matches between consumers vying for the last copy in some stores, customers rummaging through storerooms for copies and long lines snaking through stores, according to the company. Some stores sold copies of the game four days before the official Oct. 31 release date, based on demand, Porchivina said.

Riven also sparked a retail price war, as some stores sold the game, which has a $50 suggested retail price, as low as $39.99 to attract customers.

“Riven is the biggest hit since Windows 95, and sales have exceeded our expectations,” said Larry Mondry, executive vice president of merchandising at CompUSA. The electronics chain store declined to give sales figures.

The company spent about $15 million to develop and market the game, with one-third going to marketing, Porchivina said. Broderbund declined to give sales figures.

Analyst Lawrence Marcus of BT Alex. Brown said he expects Broderbund to sell half a million copies during the holidays, which would make the game the best-selling title in the fourth quarter. He also expects the company to sell 1 million copies during its fiscal year, which ends in August.

“In interactive entertainment, the initial sell-in is less important than seeing the legs of the title,” Marcus said. “Myst is unique because it’s always had an evergreen nature. What we really need to look at is the sustainability of how the title is doing, given the world has changed so much since Myst.”

Brandkamp said Cyan didn’t go into the release with any specific sales goals in mind.

“Sequels are always difficult to call,” he said, “so we really tried to put any of those kinds of numbers behind us and not even think about it. We wanted to just toss it out there and hope that people were as pleased with it as we were.

“And it sure seems they are.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo