Goofy co-op games, which are now endearingly referred to as “friendslop,” continue to go viral on Steam. The latest example of how successful this style of game can be is Gamble With Your Friends, which sold 1 million copies in a single week.
Published by a relatively unknown game company called Tenstack, Gamble With Your Friends wasn’t on many people’s radar before it came out on May 1. But by May 4, the game had caught on and sold over 500,000 copies, going on to surpass 1 million copies sold by May 9.
Gamble With Your Friends leans into its ridiculous title, letting up to six players work together to gamble and earn money in a virtual casino. Every round of the game lasts only five minutes, and you have to use that time to gamble virtual money on casino games like blackjack and roulette. If you don’t earn enough money in that time span (or lose it all), the loan shark you owe money to kills you.
Having played the game myself, I find that it falls right in line with other co-op games that have become popular recently. The gameplay is simple but provides a large enough sandbox to mess around in. The cute aesthetics are welcoming, and its cheap $8 price tag makes Gamble With Your Friends not feel like a massive investment. Gamble With Your Friends feels tailor-made for the current friendslop craze on Steam, so I’m not that surprised it has been a massive hit.
In a Reddit thread about the game’s success, one of its developers shared that they think the game has been successful because of effective marketing, catching on with streamers, and the fact that it’s generally enjoyable to go to a casino with friends. Gamble With Your Friends was developed in under nine months, with a full reboot mid-development and lots of experimentation on what the game could be.
The gambling angle was a clever hook, especially when you consider that real-world gambling is drawing attention away from the gaming industry right now. Thankfully, no real-world money is on the line when you’re playing Gamble With Your Friends.
The fact that a game like Gamble With Your Friends can rival the opening week sales of Pragmata reinforces that this emerging niche of co-op games is here to stay and will continue to produce some of the biggest hits on Steam each year.