naiwa 2026-05-29

The founder of Yacht Club Games spoke about the studio's expectations and the $20 price of the game.

Jason Schreier published an interview with Sean Velasco, co-founder of Yacht Club Games. The developer admitted that Mina the Hollower became the studio's most expensive project — the budget amounted to five million dollars, which significantly exceeds the costs of Shovel Knight. The $20 price was chosen deliberately: the team did not want players to postpone the purchase until sales.In the first hours after the release on May 29, 55 thousand copies were sold on Steam. For comparison, Shovel Knight sold 75 thousand copies in the first week on Steam, Wii U, and 3DS combined. Velasco expects that the new game will eventually surpass the one million copies mark. Back at the end of 2025, the studio warned: if the release fails, layoffs are possible.The next project will be Shovel Knight in 3D — development was paused while the entire team worked on Mina the Hollower, and now it is about halfway done. The studio promises that the next release will not take six years to wait for: the parallel work of two teams in 2020 only prolonged the process, so this practice was abandoned.