Before its release, "The Longest Journey" received positive preview coverage and was heavily promoted in Norway. "Dagbladet" described the title as "the first big Norwegian computer game." Its target demographics were outside the industry's norm: Ragnar Tørnquist reported that Funcom wanted to capture "a more adult audience in addition to the usual teenage buyers". The game's high budget meant that 150,000 sales were necessary to break even. However, Norway's market for games was small. According to Herman Berg of Digi.no, it was rare for a game's Norwegian sales to reach 10,000 units. "The Longest Journey"s domestic sales goal was 15,000 units, while its global lifetime goal was 300,000 units. Funcom shipped 15,000 copies of "The Longest Journey" to Norwegian retailers in the game's first month and a half on shelves, and publisher IQ Media noted that sell-through and store re-orders were high through late December. Sell-in had reached 10,000 units in Sweden by that time. Based on the available data, IQ's Nickolay Nickelsen noted that it "looks as if half of the players are actually girls."