30,000 Sales Later, Sektori's Solo Dev Can Finally Pay Rent

Four and a half years of work with zero salary. That was the reality for Kimmo Lahtinen, the solo developer behind twin-stick shooter Sektori and a 13-year veteran of Returnal studio Housemarque, even after the game launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox last November. Back in January, Lahtinen wrote on Bluesky that he'd barely recouped his indirect costs and overheads, with nothing left over to actually pay himself.

That changed last week. Following Sektori's Switch 2 launch on 14th May, Lahtinen posted an update: "I'm happy to now report that with the Sektori Switch 2 launch, I've pretty much recouped a living salary for myself too. Total sales are at about 30,000. The Switch 2 launch has been very well received, so thank you everyone who's jumped aboard!"

Thirty thousand copies across five platforms over six months, and the developer only just hit a living wage. I think about that number every time a publisher calls 2 million sales "disappointing." Lahtinen left a stable role at one of Finland's most respected studios to build something of his own, a Geometry Wars-inspired arcade shooter that pulses with electro house energy and layers on its own ideas through boss encounters, power upgrades, and varied game modes. The game is excellent, and the fact that "excellent" still almost wasn't enough to keep one person financially afloat says everything about how brutal the indie market is right now.

The Switch 2 launch clearly made the difference here, and it's a pattern I expect we'll see more of as the console's install base grows. New hardware means new storefronts with less competition, and for a small game that might get buried on Steam or PSN, that visibility matters enormously. Sektori is available now on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2.