Facepunch plans free-to-play s&box and a curated, approval-based platform

Facepunch Studios plans to make s&box free-to-play toward the end of the year. In a post on the s&box website, founder Garry Newman said the platform "is not well liked" and "doesn't have good retention". Per GamesIndustry.biz, he said charging for access while also selling skins, together with other issues, could be "a big turn off". Players who already paid will receive exclusive Steam inventory items, with extra for those who bought at $20 rather than $10.

The strategy is shifting from offering as many games as possible to promoting the best and most popular ones. Newman said Facepunch had focused on the engine and development experience, but "we're not selling an engine, we're selling a game." He said the idea of a "Netflix for games" doesn't work, because people find games through recommendations, active multiplayer games, and streamers, influencers and content creators. He also said AI makes it "very easy to knock out a game", leaving players "overwhelmed by choice", and called curation "a very human thing" that AI can never replace.

For creators, the main change is to the Play Fund. It is now an approval system where creators must apply and be accepted, rather than enrolling themselves. Newman said the earlier setup encouraged "the wrong type of games" and rewarded botting. Facepunch generally wants to discourage clickers, idlers, slop and UI-based games, and has removed a number of games and maps from the Play Fund that did not meet the new bar.

Facepunch is also moving toward the Steam Workshop and away from its own backend, which Newman said he is concluding has "mostly been a waste of time and resources". Maps are the first test and are now also being published to the Workshop. The accompanying update includes download size reductions: Facepunch says the 50 most played games shrank 22% in total once creators republish, so creators will need to republish to see the savings.

On the Sandbox game, Newman said the studio plans to bring it to parity with Garry's Mod and surpass it, with more NPCs, vehicles, multiplayer features, and support for addons and customization. The Citizen player model has been removed from the menu and avatar editor, and a human model is now the default. The free-to-play move is planned rather than live, and the source gives no firm date beyond toward the end of the year.