So from Carpe Fulgur's (the publisher behind Recettear) blog, the RPG has made 100,000 sales (including the indie bundle sales) since its initial release on the 10th of September, 2010. Apparently, this is the first doujin game (Japanese indie game) that has ever been on Steam and sales have exceeded their expectations, which may perhaps be a sign of things to come. 
 
Carpe Fulgur has also announced, near the end of the previously linked blog post, another game developed by EGS (same developer behind Recettear) that they'll release in 2011: Chantelise. 
 
Recettear's a cool game that I'd recommend. It's a very unique RPG and I think everyone should at least try the free demo.

Definitely a great game.
 
I only played it for about 5 hours, I plan on finishing it soon though.

They were super excited about how much they sold, I can tell you that much :P I'm also pretty interested in Chantelise as well

" I'm also pretty interested in Chantelise as well "

That's million dollars

I really hope Recettear's success evolves into more games from that genre appearing on Steam. I wrote to valve about them adding Rockin' Android's games to steam, because I would of liked to see Crescent Pale Mist on Steam some day. As well as a few other titles that fit that catalog.  
 
Steam could use these new titles too. I'm tired of seeing the same things being featured over and over in these sales.

" @Laketown said:

" I'm also pretty interested in Chantelise as well "

I'm not too sure if I'd enjoy Chantelise as much as Recettear, though. I'm interested, but Recettear really is unique and I like the concept of it and the mechanics of handling your little item shop. Sure, there are the dungeon aspects as well, but the core of the game is focused on the shop. With Chantelise, it seems that it's simply an RPG like many have been made before. "

I'm downloading the demo right now. Looks interesting. 

My copy only cost $1, though. They had it in an indie bundle during the thanksgiving sale, I wonder how many people snatched it up then.
 
Still, congrats to Carpe Fulgur, hopefully I get around to playing your game soon! I just finished Mass Effect, but I think ME2 and Dead Space are up before anything else...

" My copy only cost $1, though. They had it in an indie bundle during the thanksgiving sale, I wonder how many people snatched it up then. "

This is great news! And after reading the blog post it's great that it means these guys are getting more attention and hopefully releasing more awesome japanese indie games. 
 
Recettear was one of my favourite games of 2010, so much so I practically recommended it to everyone I knew, so I can't wait for  Chantelise or anything else they get deals for!

" Recettear was one of my favourite games of 2010, so much so I practically recommended it to everyone I knew, so I can't wait for  Chantelise or anything else they get deals for! "

" @Psycosis said:

" Recettear was one of my favourite games of 2010, so much so I practically recommended it to everyone I knew, so I can't wait for  Chantelise or anything else they get deals for! "

But was it mostly the localization that made Recettear great for you (assuming that that's most of what Carpe Fulgur's involvement with Recettear was)? The localization is actually quite well done, but I loved Recettear for its concept and gameplay and not specifically because of the English translation. I'll pay attention to whatever Carpe Fulgur's ivolved with next, like you, though. "

I just bought a copy myself a week ago. Really like it, though it seems this game is gonna get real hard real soon. Which means I'll probably stop playing. 0_0

Looking forward to Chantelise.

" I just bought a copy myself a week ago. Really like it, though it seems this game is gonna get real hard real soon. Which means I'll probably stop playing. 0_0 "

The japanese indie guys should try to sell on Steam more often because of this good news.  They may just find the gold mine they are looking for in Steam due to the large consumer-base alone, especially the portion of us who buy some cheap indie games to see if they could be hidden gems.

" @Lavapotamus said:

" My copy only cost $1, though. They had it in an indie bundle during the thanksgiving sale, I wonder how many people snatched it up then. "

They talk about that quite a lot in the blog post. The head business dude of the company is quite frustrated by the fact that they didn't put Recettear for sale for $5 individually before having made it part of a bundle. "

I actually thought it was a little too easy. I finished the last week with over 1,000,000 Pix and honestly I didn't do anything. I pretty much sold everything at 100% unless it was a scarce item and I sold it at 225% or so. Actually, most of the money was made when food went expensive and I just bought up all the melons, curry and mont blanc. They sold like wild fire. 
 
That said, it is a good game, I'm going to do New Game + here and maybe actually do somethings with the dungeon. I didn't really bother the first time.

One of those is me! Well, technically my friend who gifted it to me when it was on sale for $8. I played until I went into a dungeon, and then the game started running incredibly slow for me. I think it's because my computer is garbage, but I'm getting some new parts in a couple of weeks so I'll definitely play some more then.

They got my money twice. Slightly discounted at launch, and then way discounted as part of the crazy bundle. So that's close to full price in total, I think? Even though they didn't get much from the individual purchases during the bundled discount, that's still a good deal of people who now know about Recettear and Carpe Fulgur. And that's very good for Carpe Fulgur, Chantelise, and whatever other games they decide publish in the future.
 
English voice acting sounds pretty costly, and I'd rather see CF use their profits to further their other publishing efforts, including getting console/handheld devkits. Unless they plan on localizing games with considerably more voice acting than Recettear has, it's just not that important.

Just started playing it after Ryan talked about it on the Bombcast. I did have to pay the full 20 but it is worth it, damn ingenious little game with an amazing english localization, like its almost Treehouse good. Reminds me of that section of Dragon Quest IV where you played  Torneko and have to work at an item shop for a while to get enough money together to buy equipment so that you can go questing. 
 
"Capitalism, ho!"

" thats million bucks "

@benpicko said:

" thats million bucks "

fixed. 
 
Anyway, I saw this and was going to get it on sale, but thought it wasn't an indie game and was from ages ago (and re-released on Steam). Damn, sounds cool now.

" Dude come on put more doujin games on steam. i dont even care if there not in english it is a bitch to import them. Come on this shows that they can sell. "

I want this game $10 worth.  Not $20 worth tho.

Not sure if I'll ever get around to playing the game, but I love success stories for smaller niche games. It's good for all of us gamers when they do well.

That's good news. Hopefully this will help spur more Japanese publishers to sell their RPGs or whatever on Steam.

I'm glad that Recettear was able to sell well - even if, as that blog stated, it sold mostly on sale price (I admit I pre-ordered it on sale price myself), I'm sure breaking 100,000 will be a feather on CF's cap. They did a great job localizing Recettear and I'd be glad to support them in the future. I wouldn't mind paying full price for Chantelise, myself. 
 
I really hope they don't spend their resources on English voicing, though. I don't think that'd end well for them and I'm sure they'd do a lot better committing their resources entirely on just localizing new games. I feel like Recettear already made a good run and they won't have much to gain from it. I actually like having the Japanese voicing retained, too.

Just completed the main story of Recettear, I have fallen in love with this game. It just makes me smile, I'm gonna keep playing it now that the debts are paid off to go dungeon crawling and just upgrade my shop etc. I can't wait for the new one Fortune Summoners that comes out on Steam this week, more Japanese games on Steam please!!!

It's on a Steam sale right now, alone and as part of a Carpe Fulgur bundle.