Nick Kaman of Peak co-developer Aggro Crab predicted the friendslop “fad” will surely fade, just as previous genre booms have petered out over time. But for now, friendslop is still going strong, and co-op gambling game Gamble With Your Friends is the latest short-and-sloppy game to hit it big on Steam.
Gamble With Your Friends, you may have deduced, is about gambling with your friends. Up to six people “share one bank account and one massive debt,” and head to the one place where all debts are consistently resolved: the casino.
“Gamble, buy sketchy items, make terrible decisions, and climb an ominous casino tower to hit your loan shark’s daily quota in 5 minutes – or face the consequences,” the game’s four developers (SkyBrave, blazitt, Gevizz, and Kiwick) challenge players.
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In case there’s any confusion, the devs previously said: “Our game is NOT A VIRTUAL CASINO. YOU WILL NOT SPEND ACTUAL MONEY TO WIN/LOSE MONEY FROM IT. You will only pay once and that’s when you buy the game. There will be no in-game transactions that will require real money.”
For $8 – which, as we all know, is basically $5, and it’s literally $5 on sale – and “around 2 – 3 hours of playtime with 3 endings,” Gamble With Your Friends had all the makings of the next friendslop success story.
It launched on May 1, and on May 4, the devs announced it had sold over 500,000 copies.
“We’re soooo happy and speechless by the positive reception our game has gotten so far, and we would like to celebrate the fact that 500k+ gamblers have entered Jeff Booth’s Paradise since last Friday with you all!!!” a Steam news post reads. “We’re also aware of the bugs you’ve been reporting, and the team is hard at work addressing them as soon as possible.”
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Published by Tenstack, whose second top-selling Steam release is Pullback Racers with 34 user reviews, Gamble With Your Friends has blown all expectations away. It’s brought in millions in revenue, and is holding at 89% “Very Positive” after 2,247 user reviews. SteamDB shows its all-time Steam player peak was just under 37,000, putting it in the upper echelons – albeit not the stratosphere – of the friendslop wave.
Peak co-dev says games like its iconic friendslop hit “wouldn’t exist” if the studio tried to turn everything it makes “into the next Fortnite” with endless content updates.
