400 wishlists and ten people online: how we didn't abandon our MMO and waited for its release

The indie team Ahaha Studio shared with App2Top the story of launching their miniature MMO called Piworld.

On January 15, 2025, we opened early access to Piworld, a free 2D-MMO about survival. The game had 400 wishlists, and the online presence on launch day barely reached ten people. By October 4, 2026, version 1.0 was released. Now, more than 7,000 people have played Piworld, and the peak online count reached 245. Here’s what happened between those dates.

Piworld today: one big world for all players

Four People and Not a Single Salary

There are four of us, and no one at Ahaha Studio receives a salary.

• Sergey (Serkov1ch) — game designer and sound director. Balance and community.
• Vladimir (V) — server developer. Wrote the server and network code from scratch.
• Denis (Kippen) — the only artist. Textures, art, social media, and press.
• Savely (katt) — client developer. Mechanics, items, characters, and their testing.

Sergey and Vladimir have known each other since their first year at university. They started with mobile apps, the first being a small calendar app. We were 20 years old at the time.

Denis joined the team through TikTok: Sergey saw his videos and, according to our internal version, “stole” him from another project by showing him the first version of Piworld. Savely joined later through a developer search chat.

Sergey and Vladimir work at companies, and their income pays for the server and everything else. Sergey came up with the studio name: “ahaha” is something people write every day, so it’s memorable naturally. Plus, he honestly says why we’re doing all this: for fun.

Originally Was 3D, and Nobody Wanted It

In 2023, we started a 3D survival game on Unreal Engine. The development began the day after the idea appeared, and we quite quickly hit a simple question: how is our game different from a hundred others like it? There was no answer. So Sergey suggested doing the same in 2D. That decision became Piworld.

Combining Favorite Games into One

We started Piworld in the summer of 2024. The idea was to take the best from the games we love: Forager, Stardew Valley, Don’t Starve, Rust, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft. A player appears in a shared world with nothing and decides for themselves who to become: a fisherman, farmer, alchemist, builder, or warrior. You can build and defend bases, sail on boats with a team, join clans, and fight bosses like the Slime King and UFOs.

The server was the hardest technically. Much time was spent ensuring that even with a 300 ping, gameplay was comfortable. From the very beginning, we wanted to periodically update the world while preserving players' skills and levels. This feature was fully operational by release.

The game features 9 biomes, 330 items, and 70 mobs and bosses

Early Access with Hardly Anyone to Meet

An MMO with almost no players looks sad. That’s exactly how the game was in January 2025 when we launched in early access: 400 wishlists, about ten people online.

There were two reasons: the game design wasn’t suitable, and there was too little content.

We never thought of giving up. The project needed finishing. Besides, we’re making a game for the sake of the game itself, and the money will follow.

A Year and Nine Months of Revamping

During early access, we overhauled the entire design and almost all the mechanics. We added voice chat, new bosses, a potion and buff system, and much more.

In the spring of 2026, Savely joined us. He re-evaluated all the mechanics, conducted serious testing of the game, and found a ton of issues we hadn’t noticed. Development sped up considerably after that.

All this time, the game remained free. It will stay free.

Release and the Japanese Wave

On October 4, 2026, version 1.0 was released. Two days later, a major Japanese publication wrote about us, and players started to pour in. As of this column’s writing:

• More than 7,000 people have played Piworld;
• 245 concurrent players— peak online;
• Japan, the USA, and China are the countries playing the most;
• “Mostly positive” reviews on Steam, 174 reviews.

Moreover, Piworld made it to Steam’s main page in the “Popular and Recommended” section. Steam showed the game to users over 1.5 million times. For a game that started with 400 wishlists, that’s quite impressive.

Piworld on Steam’s main page

But most importantly for us: many players already have more than 50 hours in the game. This means Piworld really holds attention. The game has been translated into 23 languages.

What Keeps a Free MMO Alive

For now, nothing: Piworld doesn’t earn anything. Later, cosmetic skins will appear, and the revenue from them will support the server and development. You won’t be able to buy advantages with them.

What We Learned

1. Early access doesn’t forgive emptiness. 400 wishlists and ten people online happen when a game has nothing to show.
2. Find the difference before the first line of code. Our 3D survival game died precisely on the question of “how are we better.”
3. A fresh perspective is worth more than a new feature. A person who came and thoroughly reviewed the whole game provided more than another month of development.
4. The failure of early access isn’t the end. If there’s a reason to finish, finish it.