Animal Firm, the free-to-play early entry sport on Quest, nabbed the highest spot for Quest’s highest-earning sport this week, overtaking long-time viral hit Gorilla Tag within the weekly charts. Now, developer Wooster Video games tells Highway to VR it’s not solely already worthwhile, however Animal Firm has surpassed a million month-to-month lively customers (MAU), cementing its standing as VR’s subsequent massive F2P sport.
Launched in early entry on Quest final July, Animal Firm takes inspiration from Gorilla Tag by together with its arm-powered locomotion mechanic and low-poly animal avatars, but it surely switches issues up by basically replicating the sport loop of Deadly Firm—which is the place the identify comes from.
Like Deadly Firm, it’s stuffed with bizarre locations to discover and loot to gather, which might be introduced again to base for revenue. Monsters and traps are all over the place although, with every creature presenting distinctive challenges, requiring groups to make use of stealth, technique, and cooperation to keep away from or overcome them.
“We took inspiration from viral multiplayer hits like Gorilla Tag, Yeeps, and Amongst Us VR, and through a hackathon, we prototyped VR experiences influenced by the traits we noticed in video games like Deadly Firm and Content material Warning,” Wooster Video games tells Highway to VR.
And it seems to be resonating with Quest house owners, as the sport took the primary spot as Quest’s top-earning title this week, passing One other Axiom’s Gorilla Tag. As VR’s most profitable sport to day, Gorilla Tag has been powerhouse ever because it launched on the principle Quest retailer in late 2022, posting over $100 million in gross income final summer time.
Granted, Meta solely calculates the chart on a week-by-week foundation, so whereas Animal Firm clearly hasn’t generated extra lifetime income than Gorilla Tag—that may be a tall order for any sport—it’s an indication of issues to return.
Like many F2P video games, Animal Firm’s income comes fully from in-app purchases, which not solely contains particular beauty objects, but additionally the sport’s in-world foreign money, Firm Cash, which can be utilized to purchase a bunch of seasonal cosmetics.
Whereas the studio isn’t sharing particular income numbers proper now, Wooster says Animal Firm’s latest success has left the studio in “a powerful and wholesome place,” highlighting its latest updates—Tech Tree, Mining, and the Planetarium—which have all pushed “important progress in engagement and exercise.”
“Since launching monetization in September, our income has grown constantly month-over-month, greater than doubling since December,” the studio tells Highway to VR. “The actual standout stat, although, is our participant base—Animal Firm now has over 1 million MAU, a 4x enhance since December.”
Wooster says the sport’s speedy success got here down to a couple key elements, together with the vacation season bringing extra gamers on-line, new Quest 3 house owners, and a Winter replace, which introduced new content material, comparable to a brand new map, objects, and unique vacation cosmetics. And even coming off the vacation enhance, issues nonetheless appear to be buzzing over at Animal Firm. Wooster says that February, sometimes a quieter month, noticed each an increase in utilization and income.
These technical elements would assist any sport succeed, absolutely, though one of many greatest boons undoubtedly comes right down to how Animal Firm co-opts Gorilla Tag’s motion mechanics—one thing gamers already implicitly perceive, albeit with a recent and attention-grabbing gameplay loop that facilities round social, community-driven gameplay.
And like Gorilla Tag, social media affect has been an enormous a part of the sport’s rise in recognition, with the studio citing TikTok and YouTube as “an enormous driver of Animal Firm’s attain.”
“On TikTok alone, the #AnimalCompany hashtags have racked up over 410 million views, with some movies hitting 24M+ views. The sport was designed to create ‘viral moments’ that gamers naturally wish to share, and its sandbox-style gameplay—full of distinctive objects, weapons, and cosmetics—provides creators infinite methods to make participating content material.”
Besides, as an alternative of paid promotions, Wooster says it’s targeted on constructing robust relationships with creators, from up-and-coming expertise to established names like Jmancurly.
“We’ve discovered {that a} sport providing content material that interprets into views is way extra invaluable to creators than direct sponsorships. Paid promotions typically really feel inauthentic and don’t drive the identical sustained engagement as natural success.”
Up to now, it’s been much less about paid adverts, and extra about actively courting its group and the cadre of influencers creating Animal Firm content material. The studio just lately launched an invite-only program, referred to as ‘The Drip Division’, which that offers members early entry to updates, unique content material, and extra to assist them develop their channels alongside the sport.
“To validate our concepts, we launched our personal TikTok and YouTube channels to check whether or not we might generate viral moments ourselves. The response was speedy—earlier than launch, we gathered our first 100 group members by means of social media. Every week after launch, that quantity hit 1,000. Six months later, we had over 100,000 members, and immediately, Animal Firm has organically amassed practically 500 million views.”
Extra importantly although, Animal Firm is doing all of this at the very best time, it appears. Final month, Meta confirmed a rising demographic shift amid final 12 months’s launch of Quest 3S, which has not solely seen an increase in F2P content material on the Quest platform, but additionally income generated from in-app purchases.
“With extra gamers participating in F2P experiences and in-game economies, Animal Firm’s progress aligns with this shift,” the studio says. “The success of viral, player-driven video games like ours reveals that the Quest platform is coming into a brand new period—the place social engagement and creator-driven content material are simply as essential as conventional sport advertising and marketing. We anticipate this pattern to proceed shaping the way forward for VR.”
Whether or not Animal Firm will ever surpass Gorilla Tag in long-term recognition stays to be seen. What is evident, nevertheless, is that its explosive progress indicators a brand new period for VR multiplayer video games—one the place social-driven, F2P experiences dominate the panorama. With over one million lively gamers and a fast-growing group, Animal Firm has already confirmed it’s greater than a passing pattern. The query now isn’t if it’ll final, however simply how far it could go.
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Some extra information for context: Gorilla Tag launched on Quest’s principal retailer in late 2022 after driving hype on SideQuest and the now-defunct App Lab for practically a 12 months. The sport exploded in progress in late 2023 when the studio introduced it had topped 2.3 million MAU, attracting over 700,000 customers on Christmas Day that 12 months.
Final June, the Gorilla Tag workforce up to date that determine, saying the sport had then topped 10 million lifetime customers, a million each day lively customers (DAU), and three million MAU. On the time of this writing, Animal Firm has garnered over 60,000 consumer critiques on the Horizon Retailer, whereas Gorilla Tag sits above 140,000.
