Any list of games focused on base building, automation, or work sim wouldn’t be complete withoutSatisfactory, an absolute titan of that particular scene. After five years in player’s hands as one of the greatest Early Access success stories, Satisfactory has finally fully released.
Snutt,Satisfactory’s community manager, has been with developer and publisher Coffee Stain for six years, since even before its Early Access began, and spoke to Game Rant in a recent interview about how the game grew, how the community developed, and how the Lizard Doggo became such a sensation.The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Secret to Early Access Success
Before evenentering full release this September,Satisfactoryhad sold over 6 Million copies–safely classifying it as a smash hit for an indie Early Access title. Snutt not only explained what that process was like and how it grew the game from a more cartoonish 3DFactorio-like to something uniquely its own, but also what the game taught Coffee Stain about how to have Early Access go smoothly and make a great impact on prospective players.
Q: Can you introduce yourself?
Snutt:My name is Snutt. I am one of the community managers at Coffee Stain Studios, and I’ve worked at Coffee Stain for many years, and working onSatisfactory, our little factory building game.
Q: How does it feel to finally be out of Early Access?
Snutt:I don’t know if it’s fully dawned on me yet what it is and how it feels because like–I feel like I’m still a bit in the post release, like, dungeon or whatever? I’m still tired from all that stuff. But it’s, I don’t know, it’s great. We’ve been working on this game for so many years. We’vebeen in Early Access for five years now, and it’s been a huge journey, both developing this game for eight years but also being in Early Access for this long. It’s very trying due to how people view Early Access, and it’s been very important for us to do good on the promises that we’ve made during Early Access.
It’s very scary, when we finally hit 1.0 to be like, “Alright, did we deliver what we promised? Are people gonna be happy with the version that was released?” It’s hard to meet every expectation. I think there’s probably many people that have really unrealistic expectations, but so far, we’ve had a really good response to how we handled early access and really proud as to what we set out to do during early access, and how we communicated it and set expectations. So, yeah, there’s a huge relief that people really like our game, and the response we’ve gotten since 1.0 came out has been great. So it feels great.
Q: It’s safe to saySatisfactoryis one of the great successes of Early Access. What’s been key to that success?
Snutt:I think the biggest thing is setting expectations. I think Early Access still is sort ofundefined for a lot of people. When you hear that a game is in Early Access, you don’t really know what that means–like, what the state of the game is. Is it going to be really buggy? I think there’s a lot of different expectations that people have when they hear that a game is Early Access. So it’s been really important for us to be sure to try and set expectations, temper what people want to see from a game that is in Early Access, and try to be as honest as possible. When we mess up, we’re fine with saying that we messed up.
We really try and listen to everyone playing our game and trying to meet them halfway. And it kind of goes both ways–it’s both us listening to what our players want to see, and how they want to play the game. But also it’s important for us to be able to communicate to our players as people, right? We want to be able to tell everyone that, hey, this might not be reasonable. Or this is what we intend to do, and really attempt to meet halfway between players and developers while we’re doing this, because it is a big undertaking to have a game live like this and also develop it. It’s a tricky balance.
Q: How would you say the Early Access process has shaped whatSatisfactoryis today?
Snutt:I think it helps a lot with realizing what our game could be. I think we’ve made a lot of decisions along the way while working on this, where we sort of realized that, like, “this is not as important as we thought it was going to be.” Or, you know, “people want to see this more than this.” For instance, when we were makingSatisfactory, we always sort of envisioned thatmaybe combat would play a bigger role. But over the years, when we were developing it, we sort of realized that, “oh, this is not actually something that is super, super important for people.” Sure, people want base defense, but that’s not really the game that we’re working on.
We had plans to add more creatures to the game and add more combat mechanics, but we sort of realized over time that this isn’t really what people are interested in, and it’s really hard when your game isn’t live to learn these things, because, sure, you need to do playtesting and you may do that and sort of figure out what you need to do, but we’ve had so many opportunities for getting feedback from players, where we learn and adapt to what the game should be more focused on. And I think that has really given us an opportunity to have more of a voice as to what our game is going to be. It’s no longer like a factory indie. We actually have our own unique identity, and managed to figure out whatSatisfactorycould be and should be.
Q: ComparingSatisfactoryas it is right now to what it was six years ago when you joined, what is the biggest, most mind-blowing transformation between those two states of the game?
Snutt:I started working onSatisfactorywhen it was about a year into development or so, or one and a half years, or something like that. And to me, the biggest dramatic change as to how Satisfactory was really, is sort of tone. I feel likeSatisfactoryhad a much more cartoony identity before, when I joined, and then when we announced it, we slowly over time made it less cartoony, and more of its own thing. And we sort of figured out what our own thing was.
Everyonealways drew the comparison betweenSatisfactoryandFactorio, because, yeah. ButFactoriois a huge inspiration to Satisfactory, even though it’s very different, becauseSatisfactoryis indie, it’s still a factory building game. So it was really important for us to be able to set our own identity, and why would you want to playSatisfactoryinstead of playingFactorio? I mean, you may play both. But we wanted to figure out how Satisfactory could be its own thing, and that’s something that, when I look back now on the original launch, it’s wild how different the game looked, but also how it played. It feels so stiff to play the old version ofSatisfactory, and now it feels way more fluid.
Even now, I’m still annoyed by “Oh, I wish this was smoother”. But just thinking back of how back then, we didn’t even have conveyor lifts, and that was a huge part of the game, and it made it a lot easier when we added lifts. So there are many small steps that we’ve taken that have changed the identity for the game over the course of the years. So it’s hard not to remember how different the game looked back then, but back then it felt like the game played the same way it does now.
It’s a wild ride, and it’s so fun. It’s like watching your kid grow up, in a way.
Q: Coffee Stain has said that Early Access helps level the playing field between indies and AAA studios. How does it accomplish that?
Snutt:I think it’s partly because games are so expensive to make. I think the Early Access part probably comes from a place whereit’s really expensive to make games, and especially since the expectation of what games should be nowadays is just higher and higher and higher. So, if we were to make the game that we’ve made today with our time in Early Access, we wouldn’t be able to do it because we wouldn’t be able to afford it. It’s so expensive to develop games, and it takes such a long time.
So like, being in early access definitely gives you an opportunity for “Hey, we’re working on this thing. If you want to support us, you can do that, and you’ll play what we have right now”. So long as we make sure that what we’ve made is worth playing as well. In that sense, I think it definitely levels the playing field between AAA and others because suddenly there’s a model to be able to develop these bigger games, and actually be able to put in the effort that’s needed in like today’s market for games.
Q: Do you have any advice for.an indie studio attempting Early Access for the first time?
Snutt:Yeah, like I said before, it’s really important that you know what you’re getting into because it might seem like, “Oh, if we just go into Early Access, we can maintain support for our game, and we can just keep working on it, and blah, blah.” There’s many factors that play into whether a game will be successful in Early Access.
One factor that played into it when we decided to do early access very, very late in development, we were on the cusp of “okay, either we release the version that we have now, or we go into early access, and we aim to do more than what we have right now.” But we already had a game that was ready to be released at the point when we started going into Early Access and starting having that discussion. So we released the game in a really good state already. We just decided to omit some stuff that wasn’t fully ready yet and polish more of the base game before releasing it in Early Access. I think that was a big part in why we were able to maintain Early Access so well.
But if I have to give advice, I think you need to know thatyou can deliver on your promises. You have to be able to set expectations properly and be able to communicate, first and foremost. And you know, you don’t have to set up roadmaps, anything like that, because we didn’t. We had one roadmap at the beginning, but then we decided not to go with it, because we felt like we wanted more freedom and to be able to react more. Communication comes in many different forms. That’s also been really important for us, being able to react very quickly to feedback that we’re getting. And we felt like if we were following a roadmap that we set at the beginning of the year, then we wouldn’t be able to do that. So, I think it’s really important: If you set up to make a game in Early Access, you are able to sort of adapt to what kind of feedback you get, and be able to be honest and set proper expectations. That’s what it is that you’re developing, so that people feel like you know what you are doing. You need to earn people’s trust if they’re going to buy your game in Early Access.
Q: What is a personal favorite memory from the Early Access period?
Snutt:Oh, there’s so many. There are many fun memories from working on content that we made for the game and for our YouTube channel. Specifically, one memory that always comes back is when we launched update three, when we announced pipes, because that was something that was like a joke in our community, that we just like egged on. And then eventually it just culminated into the fact that “oh no, we actually made an update that was just like the pipes were the main thing in that update.” I remember we were sitting, on a release stream, and we were counting down. And then firstwe Rickrolled our entire communitybefore we dropped the release trailer, and then we dropped the release trailer, and then we saw, like, people sort of figuring out that, oh shit, we’re making an update about pipes and chat just losing it. That was a great moment.
And we’ve had a lot of fun moments, like recording videos, and the release stream that we had a couple of weeks back is also one of those stressful experiences I’ve had in my life, but also the most gratifying, seeing everyone’s excitement for 1.0 and all that. Also, when I’m making videos, seeing content creators react to it has always been a huge nice thing for me personally, getting that instant feedback on cool new features, and seeing the excitement for people creating stuff out of what we’ve created is really cool.
How Satisfactory Lives Up to Its Name
Satisfactorywasn’t the first ‘job simulator’ game by a long shot, but it did come out before the genre really hit its recent prominence. Games that replicate what people do in their day jobslikeTCG Shop SimulatororSupermarket Togetherhave become increasingly popular sinceSatisfactoryentered Early Access telling the story of a hapless FICSIT corporate drone building a planet-scale factory while being a very tiny cog in a giant capitalist conglomerate. Snutt dove into this trend.
Q: It’s interesting howSatisfactorydeveloped over time, because also over the past five years, there’s been a rise in what I would call Job Simulator games. What do you think draws people to playing games of things that they might be doing for work in real life?
Snutt:Yeah, I wish I knew the answer to that question, because I’m also really interested in understanding that. I feel like it’s the whole ‘you’re creating something and you’re setting it up yourself’ sort of mentality, theMinecraftthing, where you’re creating something on your own and you have freedom to do it, and there’s no time restrictions, and I think that you don’t really have anything that’s making you do things in a certain way. You’re kind of always progressing at your own pace, so to speak.
But there’s definitely an aspect of it that feels like some people, they end their job andthen they go to their second job, which is to playSatisfactory. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just some form of mentality where you want to finish something or complete something, and maybe you get some sort of satisfaction in doing so. Or maybe it’s just that we’ve been so indoctrinated from working that we feel like we need to work in our free time as well.
I’m equally perplexed. That’s why people enjoy doing that stuff, but I don’t know. There’s probably some satisfaction in the fact that you feel like you’re completing something, and you’re giving yourself praise over what you’ve accomplished, and I think that’s a huge part, and why some of these games are so popular.
Q: What do you think makes automation games so satisfying? I mean, it’s right in the title ofSatisfactory.
Snutt:When we came up with a name, we were concerned that satisfaction just means “adequate.” Is it good to name a game that? But it’s funny how most people actually associate it with the word ‘satisfaction.’ That’s not something we anticipated. That was something that just kind of happened.
It might be the neatness, or the fact that you see things just roll out and do the thing, I think that’s very gratifying. Like when you set something up, and then you run it, and then it just works. Like coding, I have a programming background. It’s very satisfying when you just write code, and then you just don’t test it, you just run it, and it just works–that’s super satisfying. And I feel like there’s a certain similar element to our game andautomation games in general, where you create these logistical setups, and you have to solve these problems, and then you piece it together, and then you let it run, and if it works, you’re like, “Oh, yes, I did it. Now I can do the next thing.” So, I think that’s a big part of it. It’s like you get to put things in motion, and you get that sort of accomplishment feeling like, “oh, I set out to do something, and it worked.” I think that’s a huge part of it.
Q: How hasSatisfactory’s player base grown and changed over the last five years?
Snutt:That’s a good question. There’s definitely been trends in our community as to how they play the game, and I think part of that is because of what we add to the game, but also we add things to the game because we see trends too. So there’s definitely been trends where originally, when Satisfactory came out, it was all about the factory building aspects of the game. And at some point, we sort of felt like everyone’s just building boxes. We want to add more aesthetic options to the game. We wanted to feel like people can make more of their own thing. So, for instance, in Update five, we added more cosmetic buildables.
And after that there was just, like, a completely different game. When you browse our Reddits, like, suddenly people were making actual buildings, mimicking buildings from real life into this factory they were making,like the Eiffel Tower. And some people stopped playingSatisfactoryfor the factory building aspect. They were just building buildings and just building cool art pieces. So that’s been something that I’ve noticed there was definitely like a pivot, where we got more of a broader audience, from people that weren’t just there for the factory building aspect, they were also there for the fun, like cosmetic options. Our player archetypes sort of branched off, and there were just more types of players out there. So I think that’s one major thing that has had a big change into our player community,
Q:Satisfactory is alsoa very positive community. How does Coffee Stain build that and encourage that?
Snutt:I feel like we’ve always had that. And I feel like maybe it’s a bit of luck, maybe it’s like the type of people that want to play this type of game, they’re just generally positive and very welcoming. I don’t know what it is. We obviously want to foster that, and we’ve put a lot of effort into fostering that. It’s hard to be fair and make sure that everything is moderated properly. And I think it’s something that even if, as you say,we have a positive community, I think there are still things that we could do better. But I don’t know.
I think it’s partly the fact that we try to humanize everything we do, and make sure that people aren’t seeing it as a product. They’re also seeing the effort that goes into it. And I think that goes both ways. You get to know each other a bit better when you do it this way that we’ve done. So, yeah, I think it’s a bit of everything. So long as we try and cultivate that, and try to make sure that we’re decent people online, that’s really important to me. I feel like you get a long way by just doing that.
Q: Now that we’re in 1.0, will the community experience of the game change at all?
Snutt:I think it will be pretty much, if not the exact same. It will be very similar. We haven’t fully decided yet what we plan to do with the game yet–if we’re gonna make more DLC content, or if we’re gonna make more free updates, or anything like that–but we know that we’re working onSatisfactory. We know that we’re doing more withSatisfactory, and I think it will be very similar for the community in terms of what type of updates we make, and how we communicate and how we drop information and all that. So I don’t think it will change too much.
We might be a bit more careful when it comes to quality. During Early Access, we were a little bit okay to a certain extent to try things and if we released something that was a bit buggy, then we were like, “yeah, it’s Early Access.” You know, there are certain cases where this is fine. And I think now in 1.0, we have to be a bit stricter as to how we release patches and whatnot. It might be that we do more test branches and stuff like that, maybe, but I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s not fully decided yet how we’ll manage the next dev cycle for moreSatisfactory.
Dimensional Depots and Lizard Doggos
Now that Satisfactory has entered 1.0, looking at the high points of the game and its interactions with the community is a good way to get a sense of the sheer scale of what Coffee Stain has created. That, of course, comes with thekind of burnout that is endemic to large-scale projects, be they globe-spanning factories or making games about globe-spanning factories. Snutt thinks this might be inevitable, but that the rewards are worth it.
Q: What is something in the 1.0 update that you want to draw special attention to? Maybe something that fans have not noticed yet, or slept on a little?
Snutt:I don’t think people have slept on anything, because I feel like most people caught the good stuff, so to speak. Even though we try to be sneaky about it, the thing withSatisfactoryis that there are so many features in our game, and there’s so many things in the game. I’m constantly surprised–well, I’m actually not surprised, but it constantly happens–when I watch someone stream the game, and suddenly they do something that I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t know I could do that. What the hell?” And then I asked people internally, and then most people are like, “Yeah, I didn’t know you could do that, either!” So, it’s a huge game, and there are so many things in the game that so many people have contributed to.
So, if anything, I’m the person who slept on features in the game that our community have pointed out, but my personalfavorite features are the Dimensional Depot, the fact that you have a central storage area now that you can easily upload your parts to and being able to build straight conveyor belts, because I really care about that. Ever since we implemented that, I’ve always been like, “oh, I can’t play the game without that anymore.” So if people have not found those two features yet, or if they avoid using them, I think those are two things that they’re sleeping on, definitely,
Q: How does Coffee Stain avoid burnout when working on a project like this?
Snutt:I don’t know if it feels like it’s inevitable, because we are definitely a bit burned out onSatisfactory. The studio has changed quite a lot from the original team that started on working onSatisfactory. There’s a lot of people that are still working on it, but there’s also some new faces. And over the years, some people come and go. It’s like any job, and whenever there’s new people coming in, they come in fresh, like a breath of fresh air, and they have new energy. I think that helps a lot for us when we get new talented people that have a lot of passion. It’s nice when we’ve had the game out, and then people are applying for jobs because then they already know what we’re working on, and if they really enjoy playingSatisfactory, then that’s great. But that’s a huge undertaking to not burn out. And I don’t know, it feels like it’s inevitable, it’s a huge undertaking to work on a game for so long.
I think for me personally, I enjoy the fact that we’ve hada lot of opportunities to change how we workon the game and what we do with the game, and we’ve been able to grow with the game ourselves, so to speak.
Q: What do you attribute to the massive popularity behind Shrimp Bunny, or as it’s known today, Lizard Doggo?
Snutt:It’s funny because that was something that we created while doing other stuff. It was like an extra thing, and it was just so cute, and then we decided to include it in our teaser trailer, and it justbecame a huge identity for the game. I wouldn’t say it’s an accident by any means, because we did develop it and design it and then put a lot of effort into it. But it’s funny how, with some things, people in our community really pick up on it, and then we just decide to roll with it and fully go with it.
Like the name Lizard Doggo is not something we came up with, that was someone in our community that coined the term, and then we were like, “oh, cool, that’s a good term. Let’s go with it. Let’s roll with it.” YouTube commenter Chad Mojito coined the name. It’s funny how little Shrimpy became a big icon for the game.
Q: I want one as a pet. Get some FICSIT genetic engineers on it!
Snutt:We do have the merch, though! You can get a little plushy now! Yeah, we have a website called LizardDoggo.com where Heroic Replicas’ Dave, who’s been partnering with us, makes a ton of really cool merch for Satisfactory you can buy, like a huge Lizard Doggo plushie.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Snutt:I mean, I can talk forever about this stupid game. I’m very grateful forhow many people have loved this game, and how the positive responses we get both for the game, but also the work that I put in. And, you know, I am visible, I am on YouTube and people interact with me. I see all the positivity. And it goes both ways, right? I also get all the negativity.
But the thing for me is there’s so much positivity around the game right now that all the negativity that I experience is way overshadowed. And that is very telling, because there’s definitely a thing where if you read 10 positive comments on YouTube and there’s one negative, that negative comment will overshadow all these other positive comments. And I don’t feel that way. For the 1.0 launch, I feel like we’ve gotten such a positive response from people, and it’s like, overwhelming. I just really appreciate the nice things that people are saying about our game and the work that we put into it.
[END]
Satisfactory
WHERE TO PLAY
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!ConstructConquer nature by building massive factories across the land. Expand wherever and however you want. The planet is filled with valuable natural resources just waiting to be utilized. As an employee of FICSIT it’s your duty to verify they come to good use.AutomateConstruct your factories with gracious perfection or build intricate webs of conveyor belts to supply all your needs. Automate trucks and trains to reach your faraway outposts and be sure to handle liquids properly by transporting them in pipes. It’s all about minimizing manual labour!Explore & ExploitVenture on expeditions to search for new materials and be sure to put everything to good use. Nature is yours to harvest! You have vehicles, jetpacks, jump pads and more at your disposal to make the exploration easier. Equip the proper safety gear as well, just in case you run into the local wildlife.
