A recreation known as Bongo Cat has been consistently appearing at the top of Steam’s concurrent players chart in the previous few months, sitting alongside long-time heavy-hitters like Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG within the prime 5. But regardless of recurrently attracting over 150,000 concurrents, the sport would not really make any cash, its developer has revealed in a latest interview.
Marcel Zurawka is the CEO and co-founder of Irox Video games, the studio behind Bongo Cat. In a latest interview with Eurogamer, Zurawka pulled again the curtain on the sport’s viral success, revealing that the excessive participant numbers have not translated to earnings for the studio.
“Some folks mentioned, ‘Oh you are now wealthy.’ That is bullshit. I did not make it for the cash in any respect,” Zurawka mentioned. “So the primary month of March, we made $2000 internet, after Steam cuts and every thing.” He shares all of Bongo Cat’s month-to-month income–$4050 for April, the height of the sport’s virality, $3800 in Could, and all the way down to $2800 for June to date.
“It isn’t even paying a developer for us,” he provides. “When you simply have a look at the numbers, it is really shedding us cash in the long run.”
Bongo Cat is a free idle game that is actually extra of a desktop app than an precise recreation. It places slightly cat on prime of your activity bar, who faucets his paws on a counter for each key press and mouse click on. Bongo Cat can uncover completely different hats because the counter goes up, and these things will be traded on Group Marketplaces for actual money–which has additionally resulted in elevated bot exercise within the recreation.
Zurawka says that the cash comprised of market transactions is usually lower than half of Bongo Cat’s complete earnings, with the majority of its gross sales coming from paid cat skins obtainable within the recreation as microtransactions.
Earning money was by no means the aim of Bongo Cat, nevertheless. “I wish to have it as a straightforward companion software for everyone and don’t desire anybody to pay something,” Zurawka explains. “For me, it ought to at all times be as accessible as doable. I do not wish to pay-wall something.”
The sport’s success has had a special form of optimistic impression on the studio, nevertheless, appearing as a advertising software that is pushed views and wishlists for the studio’s subsequent title in improvement, Oku.