To quote the late Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, “Nobody knows anything,” which you can apply just as well to videogames where the next viral hit is the one you least expect. That’s certainly been the case for PowerWash Simulator when it was released last summer, which has since surpassed 7 million players on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
A game about doing a seemingly mundane task has provided not just satisfaction in seeing your results immediately sparkle on the screen, further punctuated with a delightful ‘Ding!’ sound effect, but a much needed form of therapy, exchanging the pressures of life for the high pressure of a power washer.
But developer FuturLab is far from done, having recently announced a content roadmap for the rest of 2023, and according to founder and co-CEO James Marsden, this is just the start of the journey.
“The Millennium Falcon is the goal in terms of working with big IPs, we were talking about this from day one,” he tells us. “We want to work backwards from that. How do we get to a position where Disney wants to work with us on this game?”
Partners in grime
The idea of a substantial post-launch roadmap which includes partnering with other brands was something the studio had the foresight to include when the game was still in early access, having brought on Eliot Greenwood as the business development manager to start building these strategic partnerships. While it’s been a quiet two years, the recent SpongeBob DLC is just the first of many more to come. Of course, having a publishing deal with Square Enix also allowed FuturLab to secure licenses for Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider DLC early on.
“That DLC was free but it was also like sending a beacon up to other IPs,” Marsden explains. “This is the level of quality we're hitting in our partnerships, so come and get in touch!” The plan for rolling out future content is to alternate between free and paid DLC, though you may expect that it’s the brand crossovers that will be where you need to fork out.
Those partnerships can also vary widely, such as the surprise announcement of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 as one such upcoming DLC this year, its grim dark sci-fi world seeming the total opposite of the calm relaxing vibe you come to PowerWash Simulator for, and far less an obvious fit as, say, SpongeBob. Yet that seems to be the game’s charm in being able to be so versatile, and the studio already has signed partnerships with other big global brands it will announce in due time.
A cynic might view this as milking the success for all it’s worth, though when you consider that this is FuturLab’s first real hit in its 20-year history, who wouldn’t want to ride this high and make the most of it?
“Until now, our business has been to come up with a game, pitch it, get the funding, make it, then it doesn’t do very well, so we come up with another idea, and repeat,” Marsden continues, a concise summary of the studio’s partnership with PlayStation where it was being funded to make games to support is various platforms, from PS4 to Vita to VR, but which meant it had been more focused on making a game for the publisher rather than the player.
“For the first time we've got a successful game. We're now stewards of that brand, that community, and player base, and we want to give them what they deserve. Because once you see that you can power wash anything, everyone has an idea of what they'd like to power wash. I think over the fullness of time, we will get to everyone's requests. This will be the game you eventually buy because there'll be something for you, whether you're into WW2 tanks or wizards, or whatever it is.”
Not just the numbers
Under all the branding partnerships is a genuine love for the game, even if it took time for Marsden and the rest of the team to be converted. The driving force behind PowerWash Simulator had in fact been FuturLab’s co-CEO and Marsden’s wife Kirsty Ridgens, having recognised that simulators were constantly in the Steam Top 10, but also a personal interest in watching power washing videos via the subreddit r/powerwashingporn, with currently 1.8 million subscribers.
“We ultimate chose to make PowerWash because we thought we had to make a game that would sell so that we could start being financially independent and then start making the games we wanted to make, and if nothing else, the community of a million people on the power washing porn subreddit would buy it,” he explains. “I think it's fair to say that our team didn't expect to fall in love with PowerWash as much as we did, and the love that we poured into it, in terms of the story and frictionless mechanics, was a result of that care and attention.”
Another strong believer in its potential was Facebook, prior to its Meta rebrand, who had reached out to Futurlab when the initial demo was released on itch with a deal, providing technical, moral, and financial support. So while there had already been requests from the community for a VR port during early access, it turns out that the recently announced PowerWash Simulator VR, coming to Meta Quest later this year had been set in stone very early on.
“I don't think the game would have actually made it to early access if it wasn't for their cash,” Marsden admits. “If people had checked the credits of the Early Access release, the Special Thanks includes three employees from Facebook, which is our little easter egg. That's why Quest is the first VR platform we're going to because of their support from day one.”
Marsden also makes clear that FuturLab isn’t just focused on PowerWash Simulator, as the team is also working on other projects, including a spiritual successor to its sci-fi action series Velocity in partnership with publisher Thunderful.
Whether any game it makes afterwards will have the same mainstream visibility as PowerWash Simulator, having been talked about on daytime TV and podcasts, is another matter. Nonetheless, given how much the game has given to players in terms of helping them with their mental health, being known henceforth as ‘the PowerWash guys’ is a label the developer is proud to have.
“Just the sheer amount of anecdotal evidence through Steam reviews and emails that we get from people that this game has helped them through difficult periods because it's allowed their mind to just be cleared, there's a huge amount of job satisfaction and gratitude that the whole team feels for being able to work on this game,” says Marsden. “But if you'd asked me 10 years ago what FuturLab's big hit was gonna be, I would never have said PowerWash Simulator!”
PowerWash Simulator already has some exciting plans detailed in its newest content roadmap, and it's rapidly becoming one of the best single-player games on Game Pass, so if you're yet to get stuck into the title, there's no better time than now.
