The archive · Games & Play · Product decision · 2014
Goat Simulator: Coffee Stain turns a viral goat joke into a 2.5M-copy comedy hit
A joke physics sandbox about a goat wrecking a town, born from a prototype video, becomes a hit that recoups costs in minutes.
Coffee Stain Studios
What it had to solve
Coffee Stain's team was busy with what seemed like more reasonable projects, and the game designer later admitted there was no game at first — just someone very excited about goats. A pitch about controlling every limb with a keyboard key evolved into a simpler joke: points for doing stupid things, like in a skating game, except the player is a goat headbutting and breaking windows.
How it works
Goat Simulator began as no game at all. At GDC Europe 2014, designer Armin Ibrisagic explained that the project started with someone being 'really excited about goats' and a keyboard-twister control scheme, before landing on a sharper idea: award points for doing stupid things, as in a skateboarding game, except the player is a goat headbutting and breaking windows in a ragdoll-physics world.
Coffee Stain's main team was working on what seemed like more reasonable projects, so Ibrisagic and five or six colleagues built a rough alpha from assets downloaded off the internet and posted a YouTube video as a joke. By the morning it had 80,000 views; fan and media pressure followed as the video passed five million hits. The studio capitulated with 'OKAY INTERNET YOU WIN, IT LOOKS LIKE GOAT SIMULATOR IS OUR NEXT IP' and released the game on 1 April 2014, with Steam Workshop support for player-made goats, missions and levels.
The joke paid for itself almost immediately: Ibrisagic said Coffee Stain recouped its development costs 'within, like, ten minutes' of the Steam launch, and at the game's first GDC appearance fans had thrown $17 at the team - its first revenue. By late 2016 the game had sold over 2.5 million copies across four platforms and made more than $12 million in revenue, with PewDiePie's coverage a major factor in its spread.
Why it lands
- The game scores stupidity like a skate game: headbutts, broken windows and ragdoll chaos are the goals, so the physics jokes are the gameplay rather than the scenery.
- Glitches were kept instead of polished away; the brokenness that made the prototype video funny became the product's signature tone.
- A YouTube prototype tested demand before full production: 80,000 views by morning told the studio the idea was wanted before it spent on scope.
- Shipping on April Fools' Day made the release date itself part of the joke.
What it did
Coffee Stain recouped development costs within about ten minutes of the Steam launch. By late 2016 the game had sold over 2.5 million copies across four platforms and generated more than $12 million in revenue, with PewDiePie's coverage cited as a major factor in its spread.
What you can take
Test a joke before investing in it: a five-person prototype video proved demand overnight, and keeping the glitches that made people laugh turned bugs into the product's signature.
Since then
By late 2016 Goat Simulator had sold over 2.5 million copies across four platforms and generated more than $12 million in revenue. Ibrisagic left Coffee Stain on good terms and co-founded DoubleMoose with PewDiePie, arguing that comedy was a barely explored genre in games and aiming to make titles that are 'not just fun to play, but fun to watch when someone else is playing' — a lesson learned from watching Goat Simulator's janky chaos spread as spectator content.
Sources
- 'It's going to be physics-based and it's going to be stupid'
- Billy Goats Gruff! Goat Simulator has a release date
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