Unless you’ve lived under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard about the indie sensation known as Fall Guys. And now it looks like we’ve got some substance to all of the hype we’ve seen in the media lately.
CNN is reporting that Fall Guys has sold about 7 million copies on Valve’s Steam service and an “undisclosed” number on Sony’s PlayStation 4. Even without knowing the PS4 numbers, Fall Guys is one of the most successful games, of any genre, to have released this month and is posting numbers like a triple-A, big-budget game.
Though we don’t have numbers, Sony’s UK arm has confirmed via social media that Fall Guys “is the most downloaded game of all time, worldwide, on the PlayStation Plus subscription service.”
Being compared to other battle royale titans like Fortnite, Fall Guys is posting big numbers but not quite Epic Games level stuff just yet. A cutesy take on the genre, Fall Guys is about 60 characters that each compete with one another in a game show-like format that is reminiscent of Mario Party. The characters, which CNN describes as looking like jelly beans, are already somewhat iconic so it looks like Devolver Digital has all of the makings of a series here.
However, Fall Guys isn’t free – it costs $19.99, unlike Fortnite’s free-to-play model. That said, the game does show some inclination towards the battle royale monetization and iteration model as there are microtransactions present. This could also point to further content development and updates as well.
Jeff Tanton, creative director at Mediatonic Games said of Fall Guys, “When you launch a mass multiplayer game, one of the things is you just don’t know how many people are going to show up. And you can’t start a game because you need at least 60 people…It seems ridiculous now, when you look at the numbers we’ve got.”
Game designer at Mediatonic, Joe Walsh, told CNN that, “we decided that it was better to have a much more focused, more polished experience than to spread ourselves too thin and have something that starts to fall apart… I think the numbers that you’re seeing is a testament to that.”
As for what the success of Fall Guys could mean for other indie games, the jury is still out. But this release definitely has to give some studios out there hope that all of their efforts could pay off in the end.
Another thing is the staying power of Fall Guys as a game. Will it remain as relevant six months from now? It is one thing to come onto the scene with all lights flashing, but often those end up fading over time. Still, there’s a lot of good stuff going for Fall Guys. It has some pretty iconic design already and welcomes all types of gamers. Some battle royale games may seem like nothing more than glorified FPS deathmatches and consumers wary of online FPS could be lured in by Fall Guys seemingly anodyne appearance.
