Outlast creator says publishers preferred funding mobile games
Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin says publishers preferred ten small mobile bets to funding the horror game that became Outlast.
Outlast did not arrive with a publisher willing to take a conventional bet on horror. Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin says potential partners told the studio they would “rather invest $50,000 in 10 mobile games than $500,000 in [Outlast]”. 1
The comment comes from a GameSpot interview revisiting how Red Barrels got its first game made. Morin had left Ubisoft and formed a small team with developers from other large studios, but the group quickly found that publishing interest did not match its confidence in a single-player horror project. 2
How Red Barrels funded Outlast
With publishers unconvinced, Red Barrels turned to the Canada Media Fund, a publicly funded programme supporting Canadian media projects. The fund ultimately provided a $1 million investment, according to the interview reported by PC Gamer. 1
That still did not cover the full development risk. Morin says the team also used personal savings, credit cards and home mortgages while working towards release. The approach left the studio racing to launch before its money ran out, rather than following the slower, better-capitalised path available to larger developers.
The gamble paid off. PC Gamer reports that Outlast reached its target of 400,000 copies sold in five months, later reaching 15 million copies sold by 2018. The franchise has since expanded through downloadable content, a sequel and the multiplayer game The Outlast Trials. 1
What this says about horror games
The story is less a simple tale of publishers “getting it wrong” than a snapshot of how difficult niche genres can be to finance. Red Barrels had experienced developers and a clear concept, but horror was still treated as a smaller commercial bet when the team was pitching Outlast. The studio’s eventual success shows the audience was there; the harder question was who would accept the risk early enough to find it.
Our opinion
Red Barrels’ funding story is a useful reminder that a genre’s perceived size can lag behind its actual audience. The publishers’ comparison was understandable as a risk calculation, but it also reveals the blind spot: ten cheaper mobile bets are not automatically safer if none can build the identity that made Outlast endure. Public funding and personal sacrifice bridged that gap here, though neither should be mistaken for a sustainable substitute for a healthy publishing ecosystem.