Slime Rancher 2 Dev: 'Xbox Game Pass Was An Easy Decision For Us'

Five years after the original first arrived on Xbox, Slime Rancher 2 is officially available today as part of Xbox Game Preview and Xbox Game Pass, releasing for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Earlier this week, we had a chance to talk to Nick Popovich, the CEO of developer Monomi Park, about a variety of topics related to Slime Rancher 2, including the team's delight to be featured as part of Xbox Game Pass.

"Microsoft has always been a great partner for us and really seems to ‘get’ Slime Rancher so it was an easy decision for us. With Game Pass, I think it’s a great mechanism for especially smaller indies to reduce risk by taking a Game Pass deal, but for us, I think the model compliments our games, which we run a long time.

So, keeping up an active player base allows us to keep finding an audience as we release one content update after another over a period of years. In my opinion, one of the single best ads you can get for your game is those little notifications on each platform that tell you “Your Friend Jane is Now Playing Slime Rancher”. That’s hard to beat."

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/09/slime-rancher-2-dev-xbox-game-pass-was-an-easy-decision-for-us

"I had a pipe dream in my head that we could sell 100k copies of Slime Rancher 2 in the first 24 hours if the stars aligned," Popovich wrote(opens in new tab). "We did that in less than 6 hours." In a different tweet(opens in new tab), Popovich revealed that a single hour of sales beat Monomi Park's previous best day by "a literal order of magnitude."

https://www.pcgamer.com/slime-rancher-2-sales-smash-devs-pipe-dream-in-6-hours/

What say you fellow SW members? Are you surprised by the success Game Pass has had with developers? It seems many are now on board. Even Sony had their MLB game Day One on Game Pass. And now with Bethesda and Activision all on Game Pass Day One, do you think the library of games is growing too fast? Feel free to discuss!

Game sold 300k copies in the first day. That is phenomenal. They also made the game without crunch. Which is a surefire way to nurture talent.

Glad to see the game going on Gamepass.

Yeah, I am glad they are getting all this positivity for the game. It's doing well on Steam scores too.

good to see more praise from developers in terms of Game Pass.. detractors will continue to either ignore these quotes or move the goalpost elsewhere.. 🤷🏽‍♂️

You are concerned for MS and their bottom line? I look at how the developers of our games accept Game Pass. They continue to praise it, and continue to put more and more games on Game Pass, giving us, the consumer more and more value. SR2 is going to be played by me!

O wow, this is good news for GamePass. Bad news for Cows hating on GamePass but deep down praying for Sony to copy them.

Seeing developers supporting GP does favor boosting developers' reputations by doing so and that's a good thing when the little guys need to be recognized when the praising goes wild.

Others like Glen Schofield think it's not that easy or profitable but I can understand his reasonings. Of course, Glen has been in the gaming business for decades so he's not new to this. All in all, GP continues to impress the little guys so that's a win for all & MS's benefit.

This must be upsetting news to some.😎

Indie dev + GamePass paycheck. Name a better duo.

A sequel to a highly successful budget title which released on all major platforms from a team of less than 30 people and is merely a timed exclusive before it releases on other platforms to likely strong sales because people have been eager for the sequel since it was announced thinks GamePass is a good idea to help promote their game?

I feel like these situations speak more to the success of the game which GamePass uses to promote their brand than it is Microsoft giving studios like Monmi Park a chance they wouldn't have had otherwise.

No shit successful games that go to other platforms with a pre-installed audience like the GamePass pay day.

Its an excellent service for games that nobody cares about, that's why everyone call it the Indie Pass.

Game Pass for the win baby! 😎

Looks at the usual suspects chomping at the bit to slate GP.