Everybody’s favorite grappling hook simulator has been doing just fine, thank you very much. Better than fine, in fact — since its release into Early Access two years ago, the game has generated $3.25 million in sales. And now it can count official endorsement as an esport among the honors it has received.
“SpeedRunners as an eSport just makes sense, and the velocity at which our community has rallied behind this important next step for the game has been incredible,” said tinyBuild’s CEO, Alex Nichiporchik, speaking to GameIndustry. “Our pro players can’t wait to get involved.”
If you’re one among those number of pro players, signups are available on the ESL website for a summer 1v1 league, beginning August 9th.
It hasn’t always been milk, honey and accolades for this game and its makers, though. SpeedRunners started its commercial life as an Xbox Live Indie Games release of a flash game known then as SpeedRunners HD. DoubleDutch, the game’s developers, were burned out from development and disappointed in the way that the game failed to gain traction. TinyBuild themselves were facing similar issues, having had issues with promised funding.
The two small teams ended up meeting and pooling their resources, and the advent of Steam Greenlight and Early Access allowed them to release a reworked version of SpeedRunners HD, now just SpeedRunners, and polish it up to the slick, frenetic standard that we now have.
Currently, SpeedRunners is still in Early Access, with an expected release date of “mid 2015”.
