[YeetMeister11333]

As the title states this is going to be a thread discussing the popularity of Fall Guys. It’s a curious situation that the gaming industry often finds itself in. The situation in which these extremely casual games soar high and the above the popularity of games which one would expect. But why is that? 

That is what is to be discussed below but I’d also like to throw my own hat into the ring and try to peg down why. As someone who has played FG for a decent amount of time now (nothing crazy but if my friends are on it I’ll usually join in) I can kinda see the appeal. The game is fairly simplistic both from a gameplay and visual standpoint. You play as humanoid bean creatures which compete against each other in a process of elimination gauntlet until there is one standing. It’s Wipeout or Takashi’s Castle. The thing is though is that that’s all the game is. It has nothing else. So what keeps people coming back for hours and hours at a time? Well there are a few factors which stand in favor of the game. 

Firstly is the fact that it’s largely casual and the casual gaming community is far larger than any other sect. Secondly is the drought of games in which FG launched. Larger scale releases such as The Last of Us Pt.2 and ghost of tsushima released a pretty good while and other major games such as cyberpunk 2077 and Square Enix’s Avengers game don’t release until the usual videogame primetime of october-November (aka the black friday and holiday Season.) Thirdly is the niche for this kind of game being relatively untapped as far as games go. Nothing quite like Fall Guys has been released in quite a long time, if ever if my memory serves me.
These are just my thoughts, if you guys have any more to add to the pile feel free to comment!

[LakotaZulu 72]

I’ve noticed that these types of games are pretty much only fun if you have a group of friends to play with. I see them as more of a catalyst for conversation than a game to be honest

[tulalit]

I think its the same reason why wii is so popular back then, the game it self is really casual and everybody can have fun with their friend even if they are suck at it
Its the same feeling as when youre playing with your friends as a kid, you dont really care if you win or not, hell sometime you dont even care if the game is good as long as youre having fun

[brothaman24]

I think it's just the flavor of the month. It's very casual like you said and it's free on PS4, so give it a few months and the hype will probably die down. Seeing as it's a very repetitive game with no progression other than cosmetic unlocks and it's mostly only fun with friends I don't see it standing the test of time.

[KoKo77]

It's in its hype and will be hardly played in a few months.

[Gelato710]

That game looks really dumb and boring. I get it's competitive.

[cuckyyyy6969]

easy to understand games that just let you hop it draws in pretty much everyone

[YeetMeister11333]

“I’ve noticed that these types of games are pretty much only fun if you have a group of friends to play with. I see them as more of a catalyst for conversation than a game to be honest“

This is a pretty unique way of seeing the game. It kinda dips it’s toe into the idea of games as more of a social experience than as an individual experience. Which is a category fall guys, i think, can fIt into nicely. It’s not particularly deep in any regard and is best enjoyed in the company of friends. 

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“I think its the same reason why wii is so popular back then, the game it self is really casual and everybody can have fun with their friend even if they are suck at it

Its the same feeling as when youre playing with your friends as a kid, you dont really care if you win or not, hell sometime you dont even care if the game is good as long as youre having fun.”

Although I don’t disagree with this sentiment, I do feel there is defining difference between the popularity of the wii and Fall Guys. The wii was marketed as a family console. Basically it was “fun for the whole family” and was primarily a couch co-op experience. (Side Note: I don’t really feel that the wii was popular because it was the wii, I’d say that wii sports is what really pushed it’s popularity to insane heights) FG isnt primarily marketed to families, hell I’d argue that it’s not even primarily marketed to kids. 
However the enjoyment with friends part is very much applicable to both. 

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“I think it's just the flavor of the month. It's very casual like you said and it's free on PS4, so give it a few months and the hype will probably die down. Seeing as it's a very repetitive game with no progression other than cosmetic unlocks and it's mostly only fun with friends I don't see it standing the test of time.”

I don’t think this is a bad take at all but I do feel like the “flavor of the month” doesn’t give it enough credit. Last I heard, and this may be a false statistic as it was something I heard about awhile ago, FG had sold about 15 million copies. 7 million of which were on steam. Assuming this is true that means that roughly half of the game’s community payed to play the game. This could very well mean that the game’s lifetime would be longer than expected, especially if they plan to update the game with good amounts of future content. Also “a very repetitive game with no progression other than cosmetic unlocks and it’s mostly fun with friends” very much reminds me of another game which was initially beloved but then absolutely fucking despised: Fortnite. Now, to be clear, i do not like FN but to say that the games don’t share some major similarities is a bit of a stretch. Will FG be as big as FN was? No, not by a country mile. But I do personally believe that FG is going to take longer than a few months to disappear. 

[Ryswervo]

I hate that I suck at the game

[hunderlooo]

I think it's because fall guys it's quick and easy

[RedReticle]

My brother purchased it to play with some friends, he does play it alone often though.

[Lalala01]

I think it's funny for first hours but it become very boring in the long term

[NIDLTD6969]

Low barrier to entry. I don't think it will last

[Zacodaxe2]

I think it will die down in a few months

[asneki]

Keeps all the kids away from the real games

[hey ho hi]

It's a quick time-killer with solid simple design, so it'll survive as an easy game for people to just turn on whenever they're bored. The fact people stream it for hours makes no sense to me though, the game seems way too simple to not get boring after hours of playing.

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sorry, I think I screwed up embedding the image in that last post

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Edit: Sorry, that image was for a different thread, I'm not sure how to delete it on here

[YeetMeister11333]

“It's a quick time-killer with solid simple design, so it'll survive as an easy game for people to just turn on whenever they're bored. The fact people stream it for hours makes no sense to me though, the game seems way too simple to not get boring after hours of playing.”

I’ve somewhat had this feeling towards the battle royale genre that has cropped up in recent years. Take any of em, Fortnite/Apex/Warzone, and strip them down into their base components and their basically the same game. Sure they have individual differences, fortnite has building/Apex has operators/Warzone has Gulag and loadouts, but at their core they’re still the same. And by the same I mean not really deep at all. The progression of gameplay is simple: Land somewhere->Pick Up Loot->Kill enemies->pickup more loot->Survive until victory or die->Restart cycle. This cyclic and easy gameplay has lead to the genre to be heavily present in the industry as well as in culture. But it’s boring, repetitive, and only really fun with friends which is the most basic type of fun. It’s the same with FG. These aren’t like rpgs or looter shooters where this mindless cycle would acquire the player meaningful rewards, at most you’ll get some cosmetics from whatever form of monitization the industry can get away with. Not to mention I’d hardly define these as meaningful rewards. 
So why do streamers and players alike sit down for metric tonnes of hours to play these games? Well, as you put it, they have a solid and simple design. Not to mention entertaining. Think about it. In the time it would take for someone to complete a match on any other game you’ll probably have finished 3 or 4 FG’s matches. Their’s just so much that can be done so quickly that we, as a culture of constant consumption (especially of entertainment), gravitate heavily towards it. And that’s just watching it. Playing the game is almost as easy. Low skill ceiling to entry mixed with platforming simpler than super mario 64 and you’ve got something pretty much anyone can enjoy. Streamers, while not the most competent players in the world bar some, can turn these types of games on and rest easy knowing that odds are high that they’ll get a good sized audience to watch them. And it’s sort of guarantee which feeds into a marketing cycle for games.