On a plinth in the pantheon of the Steam gods—surrounded by gaming giants like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Apex Legends, and Elden Ring Nightreign—tappeth the humble Bongo Cat. At the time of writing, it's currently the 5th most-played game on Steam.
So you'd think its creators would be raking in the moolah, right? Wrong. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Marcel Zurawka, the CEO of Irox Games, says it's basically making no cash at all.
"Some people said, 'Oh you're now rich.' That's bullshit. I didn't make it for the money at all." To prove it, Zurawka breaks it down for the site, stating that Bongo Cat—which has over 170,000 people 'playing' it right now—makes Irox Games, on average, around $3000 a month.
"It's not even paying a developer for us. If you just look at the numbers, it's actually losing us money in the end." What's more, Zurawka reveals, he's pretty certain that of those 170,000 people, "roughly 50 percent" are bots.
A brief interlude to explain what Bongo Cat is seems in order: It's a silly little desktop pet, first created by artist StrayRogue and animated by DitzyFlama before Zurawka and co picked it up for their meme game.
You put it on your monitor and it tip-taps away as you type. You can also earn hats for Bongo Cat. That's the entire loop. As to why there are bots farming it, it's basically the same deal as Banana: There are basically-worthless Steam marketplace items folks are trading for tuppences.
Zurawka's adamant he doesn't want to charge for it—and seems perfectly happy that there's the tiniest of holes poked through his studio's wallet. Why? Because any leakage is absolute chump change when it comes to the free marketing he's getting: "It's an insane marketing tool … People are like, 'What's your next project?'"
I'm a stubborn person, so I hesitate to prove Zurawka's point for him. However, I'm deeply relieved to discover that Irox Games' next project does actually look pretty neat. It's a vibes-based exploration game called Oku where you play as a monk, wandering around and writing haiku, with a visual style reminiscent of Ōkami.
It's sort of a monkey's paw for Zurawka, who—echoing Aggro Crab's bemusement as a random jam project outsold games it worked quite a bit harder on—feels as though you shouldn't have to have a breakout, Bongo or no, to market something: "It feels like, 'Hey, before, we knocked on 50 doors; now, they are coming to us. It's a bit disappointing to see that it takes you to having to be successful to be successful."
That's not to say that Zurawka's just using it as a cynical marketing tool. He hints at a top-secret update to Eurogamer with very little in the way of details coming in the future: And I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords.
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