What can I say? The people have spoken and they love dwarfs. A week and a bit after Bay 12 shared news about bumper Dwarf Fortress sales figures (opens in new tab)Ghost Ship Games has come out and said so Deep Rock Galactic sold no less than 2 million copies (opens in new tab) in 2022 alone. What is it with gamers, dwarves and mining?
That’s not to say I’m surprised. Deep Rock Galactic is a damn good game and has one of the few consistently chill player communities on the entire internet. In fact, the game’s hefty ore sellers have recently spent their time rolling out an incredibly welcoming red carpet for fans of the Hololive VTuber Shishiro Botan (opens in new tab) (through GamesRadar (opens in new tab)). Call me cynical, but I wouldn’t generally expect the Venn diagram of “anime catgirl fans” and “grizzled dwarf mining game players” to have much overlap, and yet the community came out in droves to support Botan’s fans greet and even whip up some healthy memes (opens in new tab) on the occasion.
The Hololive community noted how hospitable DRG players had been. Commenters on a critically acclaimed Reddit post highlighting the fanbase crossover raved about how warm their reception had been. “DRG is rightfully one of the best gaming communities I’ve ever worked with,” wrote AsaTJ (opens in new tab), “They are so cheerful and enthusiastic and welcoming.” Another, H4LF4D (opens in new tab)said, “I swear the community itself made me want to try the game.”
However, Shishiro Botan’s recent stream isn’t the reason why Deep Rock sold so many copies last year. The cooperative FPS has been selling gangbusters for years. But I do think having a reliably welcoming, non-judgmental community is key to keeping players hooked and, crucially, talking a game to their friends. Anyway, even if the community had nothing to do with it and people just flocked to Deep Rock for its highly customizable beards, it’s just nice to see a certain amount of kindness succeeding in the world.
We quite enjoyed the game ourselves when we reviewed it all the way back in 2020. Phil Iwaniuk scored it 79% in his Deep Rock Galactic review (opens in new tab), which highlights the thoughtful “asymmetric, class-based co-op” but notes that much of a player’s experience depends on how well they “watch and, most importantly, learn from better players.” I have to imagine that the positive atmosphere of the community helps with that.
If you’re curious, you can check out Ghost Ship’s full range of weird and wonderful Deep Rock Galactic stats here (opens in new tab). Judging by the number of fatalities, it sounds like someone should install some guardrails there.