Garry’s Mod has sold over 25 million copies since going on sale 18 years ago, Facepunch Studios has announced.
The physics sandbox is now over 25.4 million sold, to be exact, since going on sale on PC via Steam back in 2006.
Designer Garry Newman tweeted to reflect on the astonishing sales success of Garry’s Mod, saying: “When Valve first floated the idea of selling Garry's Mod on Steam I said no because.. ‘who would pay for that?.’
“Well 18 years later, it turns out that 25,560,290 people would. Glad to have been wrong on this one.”
18 Years. Thank you! 🎉
Enjoy 40% off Garry's Mod in the Steam Autumn Sale too: https://t.co/ARYX23i8J3 pic.twitter.com/dixlHoYZFS
— Garry's Mod (@gmodofficial) November 29, 2024
In September, Garry’s Mod was named the best-selling PC exclusive of all-time by the Guinness Book of Records, beating out the likes of World of Warcraft and its expansions. At the time, Newman joked that he “never imagined becoming a world record holder and not be prawn cocktail crisps related.”
Garry's Mod lets you play with models from Valve games developed on the Source engine, and its enduring popularity has seen it remain in steam’s top 100 most-played games list for years.
In July, Newman said the “Skibidi Toilet guys” had hit him with a DMCA in a wild bit of litigious irony. But soon after, an account purporting to be Skibidi Toilet creator Alexey Gerasimov (DaFuq!?Boom) said he wasn’t behind the claim, and Newman then told IGN that the matter had been “resolved.”
Newman had shared the news about the Skibidi Toilet DMCA, including pasting a screenshot of the letter he was sent. The copyright holder the letter was attributed to was Invisible Narratives, the film and TV production studio that’s partnering with Michael Bay on a Skibidi Toilet film.
The letter Newman posted specifically cited Skibidi Toilet characters Titan Cameraman, Titan Speakerman, and Titan TV Man, saying they were "all registered copyrights that are unique and representative of our brand." Sure enough, a public catalog search reveals that Invisible Narratives had indeed claimed a copyright for Titan Cameraman and three other unpublished works.
The letter added that “significant revenue is being generated by unauthorized Skibidi Toilet Garry's Mod games that are being advertised everywhere." The irony was not lost on Newman, who declared: “can you believe the cheek?” Skidibi Toilet, of course, is largely made with assets from Half-Life 2, and was originally created in Garry’s Mod.
Earlier this year, Facepunch removed all Nintendo-related content on Garry's Mod – what amounted to 20 years of uploads – from Steam Workshop after receiving a takedown request from Nintendo. Newman is currently working on a successor to Garry's Mod called S&box.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.