My method for gauging a game’s popularity doesn’t rely on analyzing NPD sales figures or SteamDB’s concurrent player lists. No, my dik is apt-not: whether my mom texted me or not. Over the past week or so, my mom has asked me more about “the cat game” than any other game I’ve ever covered. Apparently, it’s all over her social media. That’s right, folks: Stray has officially crossed over into Normie’s realm.
Stray, an adventure game released last week for PlayStation and PC, is the debut from French developer BlueTwelve Studio and the latest portfolio hit from publisher Annapurna Interactive (known for its role as purveyor of indie megahits conventional like Outer Wilds). You play as an orange tabby and spend your time exploring, or if you’re me, getting lost, in a cyberpunk city populated by robots. Part of Stray’s meteoric buzz is because the game is new, and really, really good, and word of mouth is a powerful tool. But it has had the help of an advertising campaign that does not fit the mold of typical video game marketing.
You’d expect trailers and hype at popular industry events, maybe even a promotion with a snack or soft drink brand. You’re less likely to see a campaign linking to nonprofits like the Nebraska Humane Society (NHS). Earlier this month NHS ran a charity campaign linked to the release of Stray – donate $5 ($7) and you could win a copy of the game. It also resulted in a real-world good, with more than $US7,000 ($9,717). An NHS representative told Polygon that the majority of donations came from first-time donors.
Adoption events also exist IRL. Over the weekend, Annapurna hosted a pop-up at Meow Parlour, a cat cafe in New York’s trendy Lower East Side. It’s a smart marketing move. Meow Parlor is generally pretty busy (admission is by reservation only), so Stray had a full day of advertising, possibly reaching people who were just there to hang out with kittens. In return, Meow Parlor got a guaranteed stream of potential new pet parents for the dozen or so kittens currently up for adoption. (Two were adopted when I left.)
Photo: Kotaku
The cats, who ranged in age from eight weeks to two years old, crawled over attendees and chased toy mice. People had a cold beer and lined up to play Stray on a PS5 in the back. The cats wanted in too:
Photo: Kotaku
There was even one of those Stray brand backpacks from Travel Cat, a logical product for the game. (The backpack comes with a cat harness that looks like the vest worn by Stray’s protagonist in the game.) I didn’t ask to try it out, but for this guy:
Photo: Kotaku
To some extent, in retrospect, Stray’s buzz was a slam dunk. It’s a video game about a cat. People love cats. It’s also arguably benefited somewhat from launching as the first day-one exclusive on Sony’s revamped PS Plus service, which now offers a Netflix-style library of games on demand. This is a powerful mix. But there is a secret sauce to this game that has given it widespread appeal.
It’s not often you see posts about video games going semi-viral on non-gaming subreddits, but you don’t have to scroll down the wildly popular subreddit r/cats to find images of Stray-obsessed cats. Right now, as VGC points out, Stray — not a hyperviolent first-person shooter, not a nail-biting action platformer, not the blockbuster Elden Ring — is the top-rated game by users of Steam. Players clearly want a low-key antidote to the brutality that often serves as the backbone for mass-market games, and it shows. Some gamers found out about Stray because the publisher made liberal use of the one thing the internet has never been able to look away from: kittens.
Anyway, Mom, I hope that answers your question.