It may seem strange, but a game about a goat is currently one of the hottest PC games on the market. Titled Goat Simulator, not only has the game sold almost 1 million copies, but it will also soon be available for mobile devices, as well as on Xbox One.
So how does a game about a goat get so popular? Perhaps its the weirdness of the game, which lets the player step into the shoes of a goat. This goat, however, is far from ordinary and can do stunts like bouncing on trampolines, head-butting people and using its tongue to stretch objects.
The initial idea of the game was a joke. Coffee Stain Studios game designer Armin Ibrisagic started scouring YouTube for funny videos of goats and sharing those links with his peers. That led to the idea of a goat-related game.
"And as soon as I thought it, bam, Goat Simulator," says Ibrisagic. "Back in 2004, cats were super popular. I think goats are the new cats."
What's even more bizarre about the popularity of Goat Simulator is that it started shortly a few weeks after development began. After the developer posted a gameplay footage video to Youtube, the video took off like a rocket, gaining more than 100,000 views in just five minutes. Two days later, that jumped up to 2 million views and now is closing in on 7 million.
This shocked Coffee Stain, which was previously known for the Sanctum tower defense games, but the response to the YouTube video was just the beginning. When Goat Simulator launched in early 2014, the response was overwhelming. Just 10 minutes after the game went on sale, the studio made back the money it put into its development. After four months, the developer made more money from the goat game than any other game it had released in the previous four years.
Coffee Stain reported recently that Goat Simulator has sold nearly 1 million copies. What started out as a joke became something huge for the developer.
"Goat Simulator made more than Sanctum 1 and 2 combined," says Ibrisagic. "So now we're putting all that money into our next Super Secret Project."
Not only will the current PC version of the game be receiving a patch soon, but Coffee Stain recently announced that it's also working on a mobile version of the game, as well as bringing it to the Xbox One console.
