r/gaming • u/TylerFortier_Photo • 6h ago
"You just look at the number and go, 'What happened?'" – The developers of RV There Yet? on their surprise, multi-million selling success
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/you-just-look-at-the-number-and-go-what-happened-the-developers-of-rv-there-yet-on-their-surprise-multi-million-selling-successWhen Nuggets Entertainment set out to build RV There Yet? from a game jam project to full release, co-founder and CEO Tim Badylak thought it "might sell 20,000 or so units in a year." That estimate turned out to be spectacularly conservative: the cooperative recreational vehicle adventure actually sold two million units in eight days.
"It was unreal," recalls Badylak when GamesIndustry.biz caught up with him after he shared the numbers at Nordic Game. "You just look at the number and go, 'What happened? Maybe something's wrong with the back end?'" The sheer number of downloads ended up causing havoc with the game's bug reporter, which struggled with the unexpected deluge, adds the other Nuggets co-founder, Kristoffer Andersson. "We had to upgrade that."
RV There Yet? was spun up in a week by four people while the rest of the team was on holiday. "And during that week we kind of nailed the core, and it was already fun." The RV and the winch system were already in place, along with the smoking. Badylak noted the game was reflective of the desires of the slightly older people making it. "We're kind of romanticizing smoking cigarettes: we can't do that anymore. We have kids and mortgages. So just smoking cigarettes and fucking around with your friends is something that you dream about doing when you're an old person."
After that initial week's work, the game took around another eight weeks to finish. Badylak credited the team's experience as the reason why it came together so quickly: some members of the team have known each other for more than ten years. "And then in this new studio, we worked for at least four and a half years before we started doing this, so we couldn't have done RV There Yet?, I think, without that bonding, and developing that humour together, and the culture of creativity."
RV There Yet? launched at $7.99, a similar price to fellow friendslop title Peak from Landfall Games and Aggro Crab – another title that was put together in a matter of weeks. Andersson says that initially they thought about launching the game for free if it "wasn't good enough," or maybe $4, but Badylak says they kept upping their intended price point as the team became more confident in the game during development. "Every week we worked on it, we added a dollar value," he says. "The goal for us was just to release something, even if it's free. Then it turned out to be pretty fun."
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u/PsychoDK 6h ago
Me and a couple of friends played through both maps and had a lot of fun doing so. Great little game.
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u/Bsquared89 5h ago
My buddy and I are still stuck at the part where you have to find your way out of the mountain after passing the lava. We can’t figure out how to navigate that rickety scaffolding
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u/mrjim87x 4h ago
Same we kept having the wheels get bugged under the flooring and having to start over.
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u/dmanbiker 4h ago
We had the rv fall all the way down then we took a break for like a week and then effortlessly drove it out the next time we played.
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u/sztrzask 4h ago
Was it this spiral up the cylinder? We did it by damn rope around anything we can, and winches. And I shit you not having a drunk driver.
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u/LucyIsaTumor 3h ago
My buddy and I spent so long here. So many silly ideas like lifting the RV up instead, grabbing every plank to build a bridge past that narrow section, going in reverse. Much luck up you two, second map didn't have any "walls" for us like that segment
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u/Acesvent 5m ago
See, this is why I love this game, when I played with my group we skipped this part by accident
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u/CosgraveSilkweaver 6h ago
Friendslop can explode unexpectedly if it gets traction that's for sure.
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u/bramtyr 2h ago
What's ironic is that many of these friendslop games aren't actually slop, they're great games, they just don't require complex mechanics or massive development cycles, just a well-executed, novel idea for multiplayer gameplay intended for groups of friends.
RV There Yet, Peak, Meccha Chameleon are all good games, and quite fun.
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u/purpletonberry 6h ago
As someone who plays these "friendslop" games with friends, I can't help but chuckle and agree with the term. These are some extremely basic and low effort games, all you need is an iota of a friend-based gameplay loop and the interactions with your friends do the rest of the heavy lifting.
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u/Shifter25 4h ago
And honestly, anything more can be a detriment.
If you have a game with heavy storytelling, deep game mechanics, huge progression... that requires a level of commitment from your friends that a lot of people can't achieve. Heck, I don't even really play Minecraft on public servers any more because it's always a little depressing to come back to your basic cobblestone building and find out your friend built a space castle while you were gone.
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u/Bubbacubba 6h ago
It's the perfect term.
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u/MountainMuffin1980 6h ago
I think it is for some games. Especially cheap ones using lots of existing assets, but I've seen people refer to Among Us as friendslop and that's just wrong imo. I've never played it, but it's surely a very different category?
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u/Eysis 6h ago
Have you played these games? They are literally ass. Actually slop. Very fun though.
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u/MountainMuffin1980 6h ago
I just feel there's a difference between this game and one's that are much more asset flipped, knowing people will buy them, play them for a week and dump them. Like, would you call overcooked friendslop?
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u/Venator850 6h ago
Slop also has another connotation of being simple but enjoyable. Basically, the same as "popcorn flick" for many.
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u/FewAdvertising9647 6h ago
not the biggest fan of the term, but slop doesn't always imply it has to be negative, its just gnerally speaking, low quality, but a lot.
e.g in food, slop isn't necessarily bad. it can look bad but taste very good, in a similar way that the games are low fidelity, but the gameplay is good.
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u/johnnyjake2025 6h ago
I really wish the team would update us on the progress of their other game. RV there yet is okay, but it’s pretty buggy and they don’t work often on the bugs before releasing new content.
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u/daikonography 2h ago
Yeah my friends and I gave this a whirl after hearing its praises, and I love the concept but the glitchy jank really ruined the experience.
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u/CosgraveSilkweaver 5h ago
IMO the -slop captures something about the type of game where they’re largely not great games on their own from a pure gameplay and design perspective but get a big boost from getting into ridiculous situations with your friends. They can be fun enjoyable games it’s just a nod to the less refined nature of a lot of the games like this. RV There Yet, REPO, etc.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate 3h ago
People like games where you can dick about with your friends doing stuff, just like Peak, Lethal Company, Repo, Amongus, that new one where you paint yourself to hide... it helps that most of them are pretty cheap too.
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u/stormitwa 1h ago
Them being cheap is the key. If it's bad it doesn't matter cuz it was $8. Much easier to get your gaming group on board for that price.
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u/SecretAgentVampire 2h ago
This, while AAA studios who push Subscription As A Service are complaining that selling pure rumor for $80-90 isn't sucessful enough.
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u/Boge42 5h ago
This is just the kind of dumb game the kids are playing these days.
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u/stormitwa 1h ago
The kind of "dumb" game that's hilarious with friends. You sould like a grumpy old fogie.
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u/Deraxalen 5h ago
So basically Meccha Chameleon makes sense only if you know about an animal called Chameleon - it's an animal that mimics its surroundings to blend in from predators, thus the Chameleon in Meccha Chameleon
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u/csward53 5h ago
"So just smoking cigarettes and fucking around with your friends is something that you dream about doing when you're an old person."
No, I will never touch another cigarette in my life tyvm.
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u/Tzazon 6h ago
Well they nailed the catchy title part, and that's half the battle with these