Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate
in my mind this happened a decade ago and people are only just now realizing that the emperor has no clothes
A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of “friendslop,” a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard “friendslop” and I knew exactly what it was talking about.
At least the same guy doesn’t also use “boomer shooter”
Which is funny, because “boomer shooter” is literally named after a generic, derogatory term for “older people”
I prefer something descriptive instead of the inside-joke brain-rot nature of “boomer shooter.” Though now I’m sure people just think it means “loud noises”
I mean, it refers to the games that are like those older shooters that old people used to play, I think it works well as a term to distinguish those games from more standard shooters. Also it’s catchy, which really helps
said older shooters are things like doom and quake, if you played those in your early twenties when they released you’d be nearing retirement, I think it’s a fair descriptor.
After Silksong, Lethal Company and Content Warning were my two most played games in 2025.
I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them. I hope the name doesn’t catch on.
Yeah, I see many people using the name without apparent malice but it feels inappropriate. Slop is low effort bullshit designed to capture the biggest market for the lowest cost, with little artistic vision. I don’t get that impression from most, if any, of these games.
I’ve heard it previously, the first time I couldn’t help but crack up because the term was so petulant and asinine. ‘They’re playing cheap games with low res graphics with their friends and having fun, someone make them stop!!’ is the vibe I get every time I hear it, and it’s still a hilarious term to me.
I’ve heard it for a while now, and when I first heard it I know precisely what it meant with no explanation. It really is a “good” (linguistically only) word. The definition and usage is asenine and counter productive, however.
I think it comes from a different place, unrelated to graphics. “Old” or “traditional” gamers are more and more getting turned off by games like among us, fall guys, and the like. Those are some early examples which popped off during the pandemic, but the “genre” of similar games is what is referred to by friendslop. Playing games with friends is fine, but many of these games would be entirely unplayable without friends, and rely substantially on interactions with friends to provide entertainment with only a loose framework to support that.
That itself isn’t necessarily bad, but the point where this turns into a problem is when a lot of these games fail or do not try to actually make good gameplay beyond that. Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just describing why it exists.
There is a growing rift from the group of people that would be described as “gamers” in the 90’s, 2000’s and 10’s and the group of people that are described as gamers now, which is largely more casual than the first group. The former group is where most of the people who would use the term friendslop come from. They want games with substantial gameplay that doesn’t have to rely on social interaction, regardless if it relies on online multiplayer. The latter group is just having fun doing things with their friends, where 10, 20, or 30 years ago if they were the same age, they might have done in person while “gamers” at the time would still be playing video games.
So the “slop” part of it comes from the idea that game developers are churning out games that don’t provide much entertainment, and you’re supposed to “bring your own” fun in their framework. It also very much seems tied to the rise of youtubers or tick tockers playing these games, hyping up random social interactions and people see those 3 seconds and simply want to experience the (fake) reactions and emotions that are on display. The constant barrage of these games and reaction videos on social media is inescapable.
All of that being said, there’s no reason you can’t make a game that does all of that but does actually have good polished gameplay, but so many games chasing (and catching) this trend do not.
Let me reiterate 2 things: I don’t agree with the phrase. A game is a game and if it’s fun, it’s a good game. But also, it really has nothing to do with graphics. You can make friendslop with AAA graphics and it could fit in perfectly with all the other friendslop games.
I think your explanation is pretty accurate and I agree with your point that it has nothing to do with graphics. however..
there’s no reason you can’t make a game that does all of that but does actually have good polished gameplay, but so many games chasing (and catching) this trend do not.
Any time I see someone say this, they always fail to actually provide any examples of games that fit this description. I know you aren’t defending the term but I just noticed that parallel between your description and the explanations provided by people who criticize these sort of games.
The first time I heard of the term, and when it started getting popular, was around the time PEAK released. At first glance, it seemed like the game fit the term, but after a bit people started realizing that it actually was a fun and well designed game that has some longevity. Ever since then, people who use the term negatively always concede that their prime example doesn’t even fit their criticism, but fail to provide a list of other examples.
It really makes me feel like it’s just people complaining about things for being popular, without any actual basis for their criticism.
I think among us is a great example of this, to take the first one that got popular. It’s just a form of werewolf, blood on the clock tower, town of Salem, etc. Just distilled and simplified and put onto phones and made accessible. The “gameplay” is that of a board game, just with a few moving pngs. I’d much rather play one of the games I listed above which has more engaging mechanics with the same premise. Among us is hyper simplified, and I believe it relied on social media and the pandemic and an extremely low bar to entry to gain snowballing popularity.
It’s not a “good” game in comparison to most of its competitors at the time. But its competitors weren’t as conducive to social media reactions and didn’t have that spark of luck at just the right time to start snowballing, or lacked the accessibility of simple mechanics.
I typically do not play these games, but I see a new one on a daily basis. The problem with naming and shaming is that someone who sees something they don’t like doesn’t investigate further, but starts to notice trends and patterns over time of the same “type of stuff” on their social media feeds (or suggestions from friends). My friends keep suggesting games like this as well. A couple of them were space themed, a few were horror themed, but most of them (and I investigated every single one at the time since a friend personally suggested them, but promptly forgot about them) were in the same genre of “mediocre but fun game clearly conducive to inciting TikTok reactions”
Edit: just to make a point on the other end, I think lethal company is a pretty great game. It’s immersive, pretty scary sometimes, the “manned ship with a computer” mechanic is unique and impactful, and specific interactions with each monster, item, role, map, and weather make for a bit of emergent gameplay here and there between the normal gameplay. It’s very good, even if I think it has a shorter than average shelf life before it gets old compared to most games I like. It ALSO is conducive to TikTok reactions, but it provides new and interesting mechanics of its own.
I know this and that they didn’t specifically design for it, but it was the reason for its success, and the community instantly took notice and started designing to replicate that specific phenomenon. The success itself relied on social media, not the devs. I bet if social media in the lockdown didn’t launch it into the stratosphere it would have stayed at its original level of success.
Any time I see someone say this, they always fail to actually provide any examples of games that fit this description
Lethal Company is actually pretty fun if you’re playing it alone. That’s a positive example.
Another one is Don’t Starve Together. Great together, but Don’t Starve itself is also fun.
Among us on the other hand has no bots and you won’t have any fun without other players. However, you’d also not have fun without other players in Uno, Chess or Checkers.
Were these enough examples or did I misunderstand your point?
I don’t agree that you have to make games be good beyond the multiplayer experience. I’d love it to get my money’s worth, if I can play the game alone AND share the fun with friends I’ll gladly pay extra.
As it stands, many friendjank games only cost a few euros so I can live with them not being fun after a while or without friends. After all I used to buy cinema cards for my friends and I and didn’t have more than a few hours of fun, and cinema cards are often way more expensive than friendslop.
I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them.
Depends on the game. Lethal Company? I wouldn’t call that slop at all. Content Warning? Yeah, no, that’s slop. It was a fun little jaunt to try it out for free, but that game felt so shallow and burned out on me so incredibly fast that if I had paid anything for it I’d probably have felt ripped off.
To me, “friendslop” doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t fun or has “bad graphics,” it instead means that it 1) relies heavily on friends to be fun and 2) has some element of feeling like either a cash-in or a low-effort project. I don’t count Lethal Company because it doesn’t have either issue for me. Content Warning, meanwhile, was worthless to me in singleplayer and relied so thoroughly on the camera as a gimmick that it feels like the epitome of the term. Hell, it was literally made as a break from a larger project, so I think it cinches the “low-effort” part, at least relative to other games.
R.E.P.O., however – which you didn’t mention but which I still have thoughts on – I’m torn on. On one hand, the gameplay is a more detailed and engaging form of what Lethal Company has, and it can easily be fun alone. On the other, the way semiwork interacts with their community in their news videos feels like Youtube engagement rot so strongly that it taints the game for me by extension; it (and their emoji abuse) makes me feel like the game has the “love and passion” of a dorm room dildo prank, even though it’s well-put-together enough that there’s no way that’s the case.
Edit: I should probably also add that it is absolutely possible for me to feel that a game does have love & passion behind its development, and yet still qualify to me as friendslop. I think the best way to explain this would be to liken it to a Youtuber who makes engaging and deep videos, but who also uses a lot of clickbait and algorithm-hacks to drive engagement too. It’s not that so much that the developer is being a bad or careless person so much as it is that the game itself has an ick about it, which is unfortunately always going to be extremely subjective and ill-defined. As another example: I called PEAK friendslop when I first played, softened up on that feeling over time (especially when the very excellent Mesa update hit), and then the feeling came right back when they announced some concert or other occurring in the game like they were Fortnite.
Don’t agree at all. If you’re limited on resources, you can certainly make an excellent game without intense graphics. But sophisticated graphics also can make a game. I often find myself in these types of games just wondering around and taking in the view and appreciating the artwork in it.
Of course a good game will also be efficient and not require a fucking $2k GPU to run properly. And with hardware prices going through the fucking roof it’s also good to ensure that your game will run at all on low end hardware.
Yeah to say they dominated seems a bit extreme. Some people are mostly looking for a virtual activity to do with their friends, and for those people quality of the game itself is secondary in a lot of ways to the ability to play it with their chosen people.
Agreed, couch co-op games are doing well in general because they’re an easy hangout activity and only require one console/computer. Couch co-op has been out of vogue amongst the big publishers (I’m sure a fortnite player is more valuable to them) so people are using what’s available. The few by big publishers with nice graphics have been popular as well (split fiction, it takes two).
I swear social media people with a very limited grip on what “scam” and “grift” means are more obsessed with Star Citizen than us who actually play it. I log on to do some space trucking when I need to relax, or want to check out whatever new has been added. I’ve gotten more value out of that game in the last couple of years than any I’ve bought since. Many AAA games I don’t even remember playing.
It seems like there are ‘victims’ caught up in the hype and sinking way too much money into SC. But if the gameplay is enjoyable, and fits your budget? Enjoy it. Hell yes.
I backed it a lifetime ago and have gone back and forth between “it’s a scam” and “maybe it could happen” so many times that I just don’t care any more. As broken as it is and as slow as progress has been, there has never been anything like it. I check in a couple of times every year and usually have fun seeing the sights for a week or two. I think I’ve had enough enjoyment from it to justify my original cost.
Even though their goals are unreasonable, irrational, and completely mad, they have somehow managed to fund stable development for over a decade and have actually made meaningful progress. Will I live to see it realized? Who knows. I wish them luck for both their sakes and the people who spent big money on this ridiculous dream, but unlike many others, I have no hard feelings personally. I’d like to see it realized someday, but I have no more money to give them even if I wanted to.
That’s how I feel too. I only bought the $40 entry years ago. Check back every so often and they add more and more. It may feel like a scam but from the hundreds of played hours I got my money’s worth many times over. And if they continue to improve every few months it’s a win win for gamers.
Any and all time I hear of this 'game', I can't help but think that it is a scam. It is perhaps the most decorated and sugar-coated of scams to ever exist. Simply because they're saying 'yeah you can kindof play it' and that alone, is their cover-all excuse. It wasn't too long ago that they invested in some very expensive office and they proclaimed that they needed it to help further development or whatever bullshit reason they stated it was for.
But yeah they can just do whatever they want and fools will still throw down their money, even though they probably will almost never know where all of it will go to. I won't be surprised if some of the money is making one guy rich. I wouldn't be surprised if the money is used to funnel some political campaign. Something. We won't ever know, but because this project is technically playable, they just throw up their arms being like "what? it's still developing! we just need more time and money!".
It is projects like Star Citizen, that has made me have an extremely soured perspective with early access projects. One other game that came to mind was 7 Days to Die, I remember getting that through Humble Monthly. At that time, the game was like 5 years in development and was still in the alpha stages.
It went through numerous changes, both unnecessary and unneeded while progressing. But the years kept piling up. I think it is now fully released but it still doesn't look 100%. It just lacked what direction it really wanted to go and even then I thought that project was grifting people who bothered supporting it.
Me having spent zero dollars on this. Only interaction ever was installing that hangar thing back when it was the only thing. Maybe there was some demo when the space station first became available and some fps gameplay test.
Still looking forward to it. If the story is good, works on Linux, I’ll buy it. I remember a decade ago being worried the Haswell and Maxwell PC I was putting together wouldn’t be good enough when Star Citizen would drop. Not very concerned anymore
Star Citizen works well on Linux via a community-maintained tool called LUG. Getting other fancy peripherals like head tracking requires some creative use of a Windows VM, because those peripheral makers don’t support Linux. If Squadron 42 ever actually materializes, then the community will have it covered.
My friends were very excitedly talking about setting up a corp in this when it was first announced.
They wanted my buy-in, and I asked if I could be head of HR, to which they said “yes”.
So I bought it, created our corp, and performed my ideal goal: set up a corp recruitment posting called “entry-level Star Citizen player” which required 10+ years in Star Citizen.
We’re now at the point where I have to find my log-in and change that to 20+ for the joke to make sense again.
I spent 40$ on it back in 2013. I looked forward to playing the single player campaign.
Then I found a girl. Went through university. Got a career. Had two kids. Got a divorce. And now I have time to play it again, but feel like I’ve mostly grown out of gaming.
Appeal to the authority you give yourself based on *past experience (leave out any negative past experience) *religious/spiritual “insight” can be a substitute here
Present an ambitious “vision” that claims to require said past experience to fully grasp
Allow your targets to start building the product in their imagination based on the crumbs you gave them with step 2
Sell disjointed tangential products that don’t interfere with the player’s dream logic and promise they will connect to your cohesive vision with time
Find “technical delays”
Express that you need backers to buy more of the dream to help get through the “technical delays”
Repeat for 9 years until the market begins to retract
Open the dream up to asian markets
???
Profit
All it requires is being a soulless piece of shit.
Man I was so stoked during the kickstarter. No suits controlling Chris Roberts, crowd funded, open development of an epic space game.
Now, I’m pretty sure I won’t even have time to play it by the time it’s released. They got my $45 a long time ago, and I’ve spent more time on SC than a lot of $45 games, but…yeah, I’m not excited about it anymore.
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