Is Friendslop saturated? – How To Market A Game

So, is Friendslop Saturated?

No it is not.

Look at this chart which includes most of the major Friendslop titles released since the birth of the genre:

Friendslop is getting even more popular

Here is an interactive version of the chart

If you click the “total players (stacked)” button you will see a stacked line chart that shows the top friendslop games arranged by release date. Since they are stacked they show a combined total of how many people are playing Friendslop games.

If you checked Steam in Decemeber 2023, you would have thought that was the Friendslop saturation point because Lethal Company launched and 197,000 players were enjoing it on the same day.
Then on March 2025 R.E.P.O. launched and broke through the previous record and a total of 281,000 people were playing various Friendslop games.

Sure it dipped and spiked again with the release of PEAK, then RV There Yet, but it never returned to the R.E.P.O. surge of 2025. Saturation right?

Nope! MECCHA CHAMELEON launched and across all games, a total of 350,000 players were playing friendslop games at the same time.

You cannot predict what will come next. Nobody knows how long it will last. Nobody knows the top.

Rolling popularity

Back up at the chart, click “Share of Players”.

This shows what percentage of people are playing each friendslop game on any day.

If you dig in, there is a familiar cycle where a new game takes over a market:

Content Warning launches and takes 47% of the market then fades.
Chained Together takes off with 48% of the market then fades.
Peak takes 50% of the market then fades.
RV There Yet takes 50% then fades.

The trend is that top-performing Friendslop titles will take over 50% of the playerbase then fade to 10% within 3-9 months.

But there are also games that maxed out at 10-ish%. If you were on Reddit, you would say “That game failed!” But you should stop hanging out on Reddit.

Let’s look at this tiny purple spike right here.

That is Mage Arena which peaked with a share of 11.75% of the share of Friendslop CCU. 11.75% Max market share still means they sold over 624,000 copies in a week with a net revenue of $3,698,080 (Game Discover Co.)

The scale of that chart is hard to comprehend but the trend is clear: there is a fanbase that wants a new thing every couple months to play with their friends. It is a beast that is hungry and wants to be fed. Is that Saturated?

Locally we have this food truck company called Ralph’s. It actually isn’t that good. It is decent. But Ralph’s has this weird slogan which is “Ya Gotta Eat!”

I always thought that seems like an implied threat.

“What you going to do? Complain?…Ya Gotta Eat.”

I am not saying make Friendslop is like a bad food truck… but I am saying that Friendslop players have a NEED that needs to be refreshed every few months. They gotta eat!

Saturation is the wrong term

Let’s step away from Friendslop. Consider the following 3 games which each made an estimated net revenue of around $4,000,000 (according to GameDiscoverCo)

Dragon Sword Awakening

Genre: RPG
Estimated net revenue: $4,584,900
Reviews: 5,019
Number of games released in 2026: 785

SAND: Raiders of Sophie

Genre: Battle Royale
Estimated Net Revnue: $4,822,700
Reviews: 11,151
Number of games released in 2026: 67

Scritchy Scratchy

Genre: Idle / Clicker
Estimated Net Revnue: $3,966,620
Reviews: 13,509
Number of games released in 2026: 1,087

One of these 3 is not like the others.

Now let’s compare the number of games released in this genre so far in 2026:

Games Released in 2026, by Genre

Looking only at the count, you might say Idler is saturated.

But, just because there are only 67 Battle Royales released this year doesn’t mean it is wide open. I mean just look at Scritchy Scratchy screenshot. No dig on the game (it is awesome) but that doesn’t look like a saturated genre.

The limiting factor is not how many games are released in a year. Instead the limiting factor is what can you get away with?

Saturation isn’t a single number

The term “Saturation” makes me think of humidity. Air can be saturated with water vapor and so we say Humidity is 100%. The air is saturated. It is one number. It is easy.

But games are an art and a culture and a business. There are tons of factors, not just one number:

How explored is the game design space? Genres like Metroidvanias are very established and the design space doesn’t have many new tricks to surprise audiences any more. You are designing in a paved landscape. There isn’t much to explore. Therefore the main way to distinguish yourself is quality. The game with the best graphics and biggest environment, and most story, wins.
How tolerant is the audience for experimentation? Visual Novel fans have so many expectations about what they like and what they don’t that there are endless sub genres (Bishoujo / Galge, Otome, Yaoi / Boys’ Love / Yuri, Moege, Charage). These sub genres act like food labels listing nutrition and ingredients so players are 100% sure of the experience they are getting. If you as a designer stray too far from what is expected, you will get bad reviews and even worse sales.
How well funded are the competitors? Are you competing against AAA companies? RPGs sell well but they are typically made by AAA companies. Are the best sellers in the genre typically large studios or solo developers?
How tolerant is the audience for “jank”? “Souls-like” fans have no time for “janky” controls or simplistic combat. You will spend years perfecting your combat design and controls. Friendslop players don’t care. As long as you present a funny fantasy, your controls, physics, collision detection don’t have to be perfect.
How omnivorous is the fan base? Fighting game fans are monogamous; they play their favorite game like it is a hobby. They learn every move, every counter attack, every character. They don’t have time to play a lot of other games. However, as I showed in the chart at the top, Friendslop fans buy a new game every couple months. They are voracious in their buying habits.

A genre doesn’t get “Saturated.” Instead the audience is “Hungry.” You are trying to figure out how hard you have to fight to get on top (or at least 11.75% market share.)

How to assess a genre’s hungriness

First, don’t look at how many games released and go for the genre that has the lowest number. That’s why I hate the term “Saturated” and prefer “Hungry.”

Here is a nice way to assess how “Hungry” a genre is.

Get access to one of those premium Steam data sites (it doesn’t matter the one, they are all good: Game Discover Co, VGInsights, Gamalytic). I know it costs money, but they are good people who run them, it is worth it! You really only need 1 month of access.
Filter for the last 2-3 years of Steam game releases.
Use tag filters to isolate the genre you are curious about.
Download the list as a spreadsheet / CSV and import it into a spreadsheet tool.
Sort the results by estimated revenue with highest on top (don’t worry about which service is the most precise, they are all basically the same)
Look at the top game and ask yourself (honestly) “Could I or my team make this?”
No? Move to the next game on the list.
Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you find one where you say “Ya I think we could make that!”
Then look at the estimated revenue for that game and ask yourself “Would the duration of development, and team size required make it be worth the estimated revenue?”
If the answer is “Yes” then write “Yes” next to that game.
Do that for 3 or 4 games with earnings above and below that selected game.
Then, look at the spreadsheet, and count how many times you wrote “Yes.”

The games industry is a random, hit driven business. Don’t just look at the top game. Don’t just look at that one weird seemingly low-quality game that went viral and made millions. Instead look at HOW MANY other games earned a decent amount. Was it a fluke that one funky-looking game did well? Or is there a real trend there?