Emerging
The rise of friendslop
The clearest counter-case to budget-led thinking, and the industry is arguing about what to call it: an investor has publicly asked the trade to drop “friendslop” as a term that devalues the work.
Live in
- Global
- US
Where it stands
Cheap co-op games built for friend groups and streamers took the top of the 2025 charts. R.E.P.O. and PEAK were two of the three best-selling new PC and console releases of the year by units alongside Battlefield 6, and at least five of the top twenty Steam releases were co-op, every one of which passed two million copies. PEAK was built in about four months by two small studios after a bet between their leads, and outsold both their previous games combined. Co-op took $4.1B on Steam in H1 2025, the genre's highest half-year on record.
Further reading
The timeline, consequences and objections for this trend are not written yet. What it is and its reading list are above.