"Cash Cleaner Simulator became our first mini-hit," said Andrey Podoprigora from Forklift Interactive about the results of 2025

February is just around the corner, but we are still working with gaming market experts to review the results of 2025. Up next is an interview with Andrey Podoprigora, co-founder and CEO of the publishing company Forklift Interactive.

How did the year 2025 turn out for your business? What achievements can you highlight? What lessons did you learn?

Andrey Podoprigora, Forklift Interactive: For Forklift Interactive, 2025 was the year when we launched our first batch of games (excluding our trial, Desynced). We are very satisfied with the results.

Desynced

Cash Cleaner Simulator by Mind Control Games became our first mini-hit. It will be released on consoles in early February. Among the other three releases, there were some successes and some setbacks, but what's important for us is that all developers are now receiving royalties.

Cash Cleaner Simulator

Forklift was conceived as a publisher for systemic games: those which are appealing because of the mechanics rather than the story or characters. A simple analogy would be: chess is "systemic," allowing infinite playtime; puzzles/crosswords are "content-based," finished after one play. Both the successes and the setbacks of the past year showed us that we are on the right path. We will continue to move in this direction and deepen our understanding of this niche.

The last thing we did in December was announce Gate Guard Simulator, which instantly gathered over 50,000 wishlists and keeps growing. It's our headliner for now. However, beside it, this year's game portfolio is very interesting, so stay tuned for announcements!

Gate Guard Simulator

In your opinion, how has the situation on the gaming market changed for publishing?

Andrey: The market feels more saturated—the competition for players' attention continues to increase. However, there is a positive flip side: the number of players is also growing. This means successful scenarios are becoming more apparent. When a game enters the spotlight, we see projects like PEAK or Megabonk, unprecedented in the speed at which they become hits.

There's an old formula I like. The success of a game is Appeal multiplied by Retention. In other words, a game's external appeal multiplied by its intrinsic quality, how well it can hold a player's interest. This formula is still relevant today, but increasingly, Appeal is playing a larger role—that is, a game’s ability to catch a player's attention at the Steam page or on a YouTube/TikTok trailer. You can look at it from different perspectives, but we take a positive view: drawing conclusions when selecting projects, accounting for it in announcement planning.

Have the practices of working with developers changed? Has it become simpler or more complex to work with them? Have they changed in any way overall?

Andrey: This may not be pleasant for everyone to hear, but the pandemic and the influx of money into the industry gave rise to many teams creating games that few needed. Games that are impossible to sell, sometimes with inflated budgets and unrealistic expectations. You could still find remnants of these teams in 2022 and 2023.

Now, we all see what happened. On one hand, it’s regrettable that the market cleaned up in such a tough manner (at the cost of many closed studios and lost jobs). On the other hand, I tend to think the market has become more honest and rational, and in many ways, this is better for everyone.

The teams pitching us games now, generally, care about low burn rates, seek efficient development methods, and try to choose niches where success is more likely. We apply the same approaches in our publishing.

For us, publishing is not about money and supposed "marketing," but about specific help in areas where the developer asks for it. For example, one of the key areas is playtests. We work with them almost religiously, using them at all stages of development: testing hypotheses, identifying weaknesses, enhancing what already works well. Today, we see that many teams already understand the importance of tests, and we help make it even more effective.

How did the year turn out for the niche in which you typically release games?

Andrey: If we zoom out and look at the overall PC gaming market, it is noticeable that the lion's share of indie hits in recent years are precisely those "systemic" games that we have chosen as our niche. Friendslops, simulators, strategies, roguelikes, Balatro, Schedule I, PEAK, Manor Lords, Megabonk, Quarantine Zone, and so on. All of these offer "endless" gameplay, low costly content, innovative (sometimes not so) mechanics, and hundreds of hours of playtime.

Essentially, this is a cheat code, which allows small teams with minimal budgets to succeed in today's market. Three years ago, when we first pitched the publishing house to investors with this thesis, it was already clear to us that such games were more likely to become successful. Today, this is already a reality in sales charts, and this trend will continue.

So if you're working on something like that, then a) congratulations, and b) come talk to us about publishing.

What conclusions and lessons from 2025 would you highlight for developers preparing for release?

Andrey: For those preparing for a release, I wish patience and success! And for those who are just about to start:

• use the cheat code, avoid making content-heavy games, focus on mechanics and systemic gameplay;
• do not develop the game "in the dark": i.e., developing for two years and finally deciding to show it to a publisher/players;
• when lacking experience, choose games you can realistically complete within four to six months of development.

What trends in your niche do you anticipate strengthening or emerging in 2026?

Andrey: I really hope that some rules regarding the use of AI in development start to stabilize. Right now, it’s a wild west with all its pros and cons.

All the most interesting things will continue to happen in the indie segment. New hits will create new sub-genres, and existing ones will evolve. I'm especially curious where friendslops, strategies/builders will go, but that's just my personal interest.

What are the company’s plans for 2026?

Andrey: We just announced the first project from our internal studio, Docklight Games. The game is called ABOVE: Colonies of the Mist. It's a city-builder/colony simulator. The player's task is to develop a settlement on islands amidst a deadly fog.

ABOVE: Colonies of the Mist

In the publishing direction, we will grow gradually. The focus is on quality, not quantity: this applies to both our team and the games we publish.