It’s a well-known fact that video games, especially big-budget productions, can take years of development time before they’re ready for the spotlight. That is, unless we’re talking about Valve’s PC platform Steam. On Steam, a $69.99 video game with a marketing budget in the millions can go toe to toe with a jokey game that costs less than a cup of coffee — and lose. This month, a humble “friendslop” game called Meccha Chameleon is once again proving that, on Steam, anything goes.
Meccha Chameleon is a hide-and-seek game where players paint themselves to blend into the scenery; opponents are tasked with finding all the concealed players. At first glance, the game almost seems like a game development student project. The dummy-like characters would be placeholders in any other game. The game appears to be full of stock assets, and the UI doesn’t even attempt to blend in. The Steam page has a whiff of Microsoft Paint to it. But to discount Meccha Chameleon over so-called polish would be a mistake.
The game, which was released on June 9, has sold 2 million copies in less than a week. It is early enough in its launch window that Meccha Chameleon is still selling for a discounted price of $4.99. If you do the math, that means that Steam’s new sensation has earned around $9.98 million so far. With Valve’s 30% cut, developer lemorion_1224 is taking home something closer to $6.9 million. When you take into account the game was made in two months by a solo developer, that number becomes doubly impressive. And given the amount of attention Meccha Chameleon is getting from press and influencers, that figure will only continue to grow.
While Meccha Chameleon was made relatively quickly, developer lemorion_1224 is not a newbie to the concept. The developer has spent years toying with similar ideas in Fortnite. Previous attempts include a game where players hide by making themselves razor-thin, a game where players disguise themselves as NPCs, and experiences that mimic things like Prop Hunt. The developer has also experimented with Fortnite mini-games that resemble Dead By Daylight and Peak.
All of which to say, this isn’t a case where someone just stumbled onto success. It took years of iterating and experimenting with hide and seek ideas before the developer started making millions on Steam.
While onlookers look at the game with mouths agape, lemorion_1224 is taking the success in stride. Updates announcing the sales milestones have been brief, but the developer is promising updates with more maps, gameplay systems, and quality of life improvements in the days to come.
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