Mobile gamers crave dumb, glitchy goats as well as clashing clans

Last week, the ridiculous PC game Goat Simulator made the leap to mobile, and it’s already found success on those platforms.

Goat Simulator has already surpassed 100,000 copies sold on iOS and Android, according to developer Coffee Stain Studios. That comes just five days after the open-world game debuted on those mobile devices. Goat Simulator has players trying to perform insane and humorous tasks as the titular horned mammal, and the developer purposefully set out to make it all feel broken. With Goat Simulator already finding an audience on PC and now on mobile, it reveals that studios don’t necessarily need to pour a ton of resources into polish and production values as long as what they are making is interesting or funny. Goat Simulator sells for $5 on mobile, and it is also just the latest release to show that mobile gamers will occasionally spend a few dollars to download something despite an overabundance of free-to-play options.

“It feels really amazing that so many people like our game,” Coffee Stain producer Armin Ibrisagic wrote in a blog post. “We’re also really happy that we can now reach out to even more goat fans, and that people without a computer can now also enjoy the life of being a goat.”

On Android’s Google Play app store, Goat Simulator is the third most downloaded paid app. It is behind the ever-popular Minecraft: Pocket Edition and the horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s. Overall, Goat Simulator is the 108th top-grossing app on Google Play behind all kinds of free-to-play releases.

Even when a $5 game sells a couple thousand copies, most of the money on mobile is still in microtransactions in “free” apps.

Goat Simulator first debuted on PC in April. The release quickly drew the attention of gamers thanks to its silly nature and unique subject matter. It also premiered on Steam for a low price of only $10. That enabled a lot of people to take a chance on it, and that paid off for Coffee Stain. More than 1 million people have purchased Goat Simulator through Steam for PC and Mac.