VRChat Success Stories: How FISH! Became VRChat's Top Creator Economy World

[strasz]

Welcome to VRChat Success Stories! This is the final part in a three-week series of quick articles highlighting a creator and their success using the VRChat Creator Economy. We’ll discuss what they did, what they achieved, and what you can learn from their success!

Catching Success

Two and a half million visits in just a week. The most revenue generated of any VRChat world, ever. To say FISH! caught some big numbers fast would be putting it lightly.

Yet, it’s not just about the numbers. FISH! was successful enough out of the gate to anchor TrickForge Studios, giving them confidence that their team could make a living in VRChat. Likewise, with the success of FISH!, TrickForge has built a huge community of fans, eager for their next update to the world – and, well, for the next world, period.

Here’s how they did it and what you can learn from their success.

A Fishing Game That Hooks You In

TrickForge Studios, creators of FISH!, noticed a gap in VRChat’s game world landscape: meaningful progression was almost nonexistent.

“In VRChat, game worlds lack that sense of meaningful progression,” said KittehKun. “The fishing minigame has a low barrier to entry with a high skill ceiling once you start upgrading your rods to catch more difficult fish – giving a challenge for everyone involved.”

That progression system is powered by VRChat’s Persistence feature. Under the hood, the team built a serialized inventory system that tracks everything – rods, unlocked boat skins, equipped gear, quest progress – all stored via Persistence.

It’s the kind of technical architecture you’d expect from a standalone game, built entirely within VRChat’s SDK using Udon.

Fishing Is Better With Friends

Progression by itself isn’t enough of a hook. VRChat is a social game, after all. TrickForge knew that at the core of every successful VRChat experience is a social element that encourages people to break the ice.

FISH! does this by encouraging users to cluster around rare fishing pools. You could fish anywhere, sure – but if you want the biggest catch, you’re going to crowd around these brightly-colored pools.

Want to get from pool to pool faster? You could buy your own boat… or you could befriend someone else. All of these systems work together to create social incentives.

“Even in the event that players do not speak with one another, the presence of having people there fishing in the same spot as you is comforting by nature,” said KittehKun.

An Ocean of Little Details

One of the things that’s special about FISH! is just how much care went into every aspect of its creation. The environment itself isn’t built from existing assets, but lovingly crafted by the TrickForge team. They wanted to create a comfy atmosphere – both in terms of the world’s aesthetic and how well it performs across platforms.

Each island you can travel to has a different vibe, yet the style remains cohesive. There’s a story to be told, too – little details hint at what might TrickForge might have planned in the future.

It’s not just the visuals, though. All of the music in FISH! is original – there aren’t any off-the-shelf tracks here! The ambiance, the overworld theme, basically everything you hear has been put together to create a relaxing, engaging experience for players.

All these details are part of the reason why FISH! has seen so much success. It’s clear just how much love has been put into the world. It’s a true (ocean) blue indie game… in VRChat.

The Numbers Behind the Net

Thanks to the VRChat Creator Economy, FISH! has had a real impact on TrickForge Studios: development has shifted toward a full-time endeavor.

TrickForge didn’t have that success by just tossing in the Creator Economy – they made sure it was implemented in a way that could support them while also respecting their fans. It gives supporters meaningful value while keeping the core experience free for everyone.

Of course, it’s not just all about the money. Being a creator also means the magic of having others find, love, and become fans of your work. It’s about the joy of making something and watching others explore it.

Fans of FISH! have certainly been doing that. TrickForge’s Discord has exploded with activity, filled with players sharing catches, discussing quests, and posting fan art in a dedicated channel.

What Other Creators Can Learn

FISH! demonstrates that VRChat is a platform where you can craft a real game, build a thriving community, and generate sustainable revenue.

A few takeaways from TrickForge’s journey:

Progression keeps people coming back. If players feel like they’re working toward something, they’ll return. FISH! nailed this with its upgrade loop. At the same time, you’re not gatekept from hanging out and fishing with your friends – they’ve just gotta come pick you up! You don’t need to earn a special rod or lure. Just fish. Ahem. I mean, just FISH!

Social Experiences Shape Communities. Give people a reason to work together, and they’ll help you build your community… and become your biggest fans.

The Creator Economy works best when it’s part of the experience. FISH! makes its paid content a natural extension of the gameplay. It doesn’t get in the way, it just makes the experience better.

Most of all, from KittehKun themselves:

Just Get Building! “Building something is better than building nothing. Even if the world or game never comes to fruition as an upload, simply working on a project allows you to learn a lot about game development.”

Start Building

For both new creators and seasoned builders, the VRChat Creator Economy provides a powerful way to turn your creative vision into something sustainable.

FISH! started as a team of a few people with an idea. It’s now a studio, a community, and VRChat’s top-earning Creator Economy world – and it’s still growing.

Apply now to join the Creator Economy and open up an entirely new way to bring in income via your worlds.

[evolvedant]

Love the FISH! world, but this article was very lacking in any useful detail for world creators.

How much money did they make? How much did it cost to build the world? How many people worked on the world? How long did it take to create? What challenges did they encounter working with the VRChat World SDK and Udon? How did they overcome them? What resources did they use to learn how to do various development tasks? What is the game dev experience of the team members? How long have they been working in VR, did they have prior experience working on other games or even worlds for VRChat? Etc, etc, etc… all the information that would have been extremely valuable to world creators… left completely out, and instead all we got was a fluff piece telling us things we already know like persistent progression and bringing players together in a social game is important.

The reason why FISH! did so well is not because they ‘filled a gap’ involving progression, it’s because FISH! is the first world that feels like a fully fleshed out, high quality game, that has a simple to understand mechanic that is universal, and it’s executed extremely well.

But all the details to learn HOW they did that, how much work was involved, their prior experience, the costs involved, the time involved, what communities they were a part of, what other creators they learned from… zero information on any of that.

I get it, that VRChat wants to inspire other world creators and teams to come together and build for the platform successful worlds of similar high caliber, but not telling us the return on investment doesn’t inspire anyone or help with decision making on whether it’s worth trying. And those of us who did decide to try in spite of that, get zero information on how to do it as successfully.

[Corbi]

I came here from the Developer Update, which said this was a Case Study, but after arriving I see it’s really just propaganda aimed at getting creators to develop for VRChat. And I say that because it only talks about the good things and not a single bad one, such as:

• The lack of persistence control for creators, which can permanently break players’ progression if something goes wrong, even when creators are in direct contact with the developers.

• The blurry line regarding what counts as freedom for world developers versus avatar developers and players, such as the use of chairs or movement systems.

• The preferential treatment from the developers toward certain creators when there’s a lot of money involved, which creates an imbalance in equal opportunities when developing for this platform.

Among other issues. The point is that these kinds of posts are not really about learning from real case studies, but about attracting people who develop on other platforms to come to VRChat by showcasing its potential, so they end up designing systems that monetize the game until money starts pouring out of your ears.

All the points I mentioned have already been raised by people through the different communication channels with the game’s team, but you chose to ignore them in this post.

[Hackebein]

As @evolvedant already mentioned:

@evolvedant

this article was very lacking in any useful detail for world creator

The Title is “How FISH! Became VRChat’s Top Creator Economy World” but shares no informations about “how”. Instead this reads like an “what” was a success. There is also no note on how much VRChat helped with advertising the world, how much the extra advertisement influenced the player numbers. How much revenue brought a decition like disallowing fly, and how it influenced players numbers. How much was external influence from the creator (eg. there own social range)? How many discovered the world directly through VRChats in-game discovery?

There are no references to even slightly understand the scale of Fish!. eg. “The most revenue generated of any VRChat world, ever.” How much better? 1%? How much better on a periode of quarter? Which World is 2nd now? How well did the now 2nd placed until Fish! took over? Was it also a Game world?

[Fax]

Thank you for checking out this post! This is the fourth success story we’ve posted here, and feedback has been rather sparse so far - so I’m happy to hear that you’d like us to share more, not less!

Please keep in mind that we create these posts in collaboration with the world creators. For example, the creators of FISH! really wanted us to emphasize how much love and effort went into the environment and music they created! That’s worth sharing, and wouldn’t have come through if we had written this post purely from our own perspective.

However, please understand that world creators aren’t comfortable sharing information they consider sensitive - so not all of our success stories are equally detailed. I hope that makes sense!

If you’re looking for more detail - please feel free to browse our previous posts about The Black Cat, Idle Cube, and A Simple Fishing World.

Before we started publishing these success stories, creators weren’t really aware of how successful worlds can be in the Creator Economy. (Except by talking to world creators directly, I suppose!) For example, earlier today, one of the top sellers in the Creator Economy shared with me that last year’s The Black Cat’s success story was the reason they joined. I’m happy to hear that they were able to learn from The Black Cat’s success, and that SpookyGhostBoo was generous enough to share her knowledge and learnings with the VRChat community.

I appreciate your feedback! We’ll do our best to include more useful details in future posts, and I hope you look forward to those.

[Zayee]

i think the feedback came from this being called a “case study”. creators came to this post expecting to receive important insightful information on how to properly utilize creator economy, or understand the statistics behind the project

[evolvedant]

Hey Fax, it’s been a long time, hope you’ve been well.

The fact that TrickForge Studios wanted certain aspects of their world mentioned is inconsequential as the format of the post is on a webpage, which can scroll infinitely. So you could include both their message and a deeper dive no issue, and having their focus at the top, and then a deeper dive at the bottom of the article would not have taken anything away from what they also wanted to convey. I get it, they believe that beautiful hand crafted environments and custom music, and ‘just start building!!’ is the most important thing, but that advice is only great for people new to Unity and world building. The rest of us, the huge community of insanely talented creators, many of whom have years of experience, need more.

As far as sensitivities, we can all understand the team not wanting to discuss their financials, that’s totally fine. But what about everything else that isn’t sensitive? Is the challenges working with the VRChat SDK or Udon sensitive? Is the size of the team sensitive? What about how long they’ve been working on the project? Let’s not pretend the reason there isn’t any more details is because they were too sensitive, in more likelihood the interview with them just didn’t ask the right questions, which is totally fair, someone who focuses on Creator Economy for example isn’t going to ask the same kind of questions someone who spends years trying to build engaging successful worlds would ask. That’s totally fine, I get it, but at least try to be less defensive and more accommodating, with something like ‘Yes, we agree it would have been nice to have some deeper insights, what kinds of questions do you guys think is the most useful for us to ask the next time we interview a world creator?’.

I appreciate everything you do Fax, but nobody is perfect, we can all still learn and grow together.

[Hackebein]

@Fax

This is the fourth success story we’ve posted here, and feedback has been rather sparse so far - so I’m happy to hear that you’d like us to share more, not less!

I’m not shy about sharing my feedback. I already gave feedback on 2 other stories, but they still fall short on the same criteria. They feel more like an advertisement than a story about how to succeed.

@Fax

please understand that world creators aren’t comfortable sharing information they consider sensitive - so not all of our success stories are equally detailed. I hope that makes sense!

That makes total sense. I understand that exact numbers can’t be shared because of how sensitive they are, and I never expected them. But not sharing even a baseline of information to understand the scale of this success is a fundamental gap. The headline reads “VRChat Success Stories: How FISH! Became VRChat’s Top Creator Economy World” it teases top earnings on VRChat and how to succeed there. None of that is actually explained. A more fitting headline would be “VRChat Success Stories: Introducing FISH!, VRChat’s Top Creator Economy World”.

The word “How”, as in “How did you build something?”, is what makes a story interesting. The ups and downs, the failures and wins. The details. The thinking that makes a reader ask: “Would I do this too? Would I do it differently?” The history, the timelines. How decisions were made, how the team chose the path that led them to success. How can we learn from the same story and decisions? That’s what you’re teasing here, and what we all want to know but it never gets answered.

What you released is only the “What”, as in “What was built?”. This story only tells us what the team’s vision is, what’s visible, what art style the team prefers, and about there creativity. Art only tells us an abstract taste. I’d assume most people don’t come here to learn about the world creators’ taste in art.

I don’t want this to come over all negative here. I appreachiate and honor the effort to tell the vision of the creators and how it helped them to go forward. I’m happy to read that people finding jobs and can live from there work on VRChat. <3

[Fax]

@evolvedant

Hey Fax, it’s been a long time, hope you’ve been well.

Helloo! Likewise! Doing well, keeping busy.

@Zayee

i think the feedback came from this being called a “case study”. creators came to this post expecting to receive important insightful information on how to properly utilize creator economy, or understand the statistics behind the project

@evolvedant

you could include both their message and a deeper dive no issue

Hmm, would you be interested in something that’s closer to a white paper, or maybe straight-up documentation? Those are usually more detailed and methodical and might be able to answer more of your questions.

@evolvedant

not telling us the return on investment doesn’t inspire anyone or help with decision making on whether it’s worth trying

@Hackebein

not sharing even a baseline of information to understand the scale of this success is a fundamental gap

I agree! More numbers would certainly be helpful, and help creators understand whether it’s worth their time. We’ll try to include those in future articles.

@evolvedant

Is the challenges working with the VRChat SDK or Udon sensitive?

That could be really interesting to explore! For example, I think any UdonSharp programmer wishes they had access to more of C#'s feature set, and it affected the FISH! team, too. (We’re hoping this is something Soba will be able to help with in the future.)

@evolvedant

Is the size of the team sensitive? What about how long they’ve been working on the project?

Our team interviewed the FISH! dev team a while back! You can find it on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2sA_9nYylNU

In the video, they share that their core development team consists of four members (not including some external collaborators/artists). Development took around eight months.

---

Please let us know if you have any other questions you’d like us to answer in future Creator Economy success stories!

[Fuuujin]

@Hackebein

That makes total sense. I understand that exact numbers can’t be shared because of how

This article says absolutely nothing. Why not show some actual data ?

[evolvedant]

Good to hear you’re doing well, I’ve also been keeping busy with a new project.

@Fax

would you be interested in something that’s closer to a white paper, or maybe straight-up documentation?

A white paper is too corporate and dense, the community would benefit more from something they can quickly learn from as a quick read, with quick little pointers and processes used. Practical implementation details, optimization notes, networking solutions, production workflows, talent acquisition, resources utilized, etc, all those are interesting areas to touch on, even if only briefly. I think asking for a white paper or documentation is unrealistic and burdensome for a world creator.

@Fax

Our team interviewed the FISH! dev team a while back!

True, which only told us ‘we have 4 team members, and it took us 8 months to build’. Nothing more, and even that was misleading, since you mentioned now that they actually had additional contract help. But at least its something, could have been included in this case study to be honest.

Thanks for your time and hearing us out~

[fluffycritter]

I agree with all of these points about what’s lacking from the original article. Even if they don’t go into specific financial details, it would be really nice to know at least broad strokes about things like:

• How many developers worked on the project
• Are they now earning a sustainable living from it
• How much time and effort went into getting it to a point that it was starting to be rewarding financially

And I mean, putting financials as the emphasis on world creation does somewhat miss the point to VRChat, but at the same time, it’s nice to know just how much this can be a lucrative job that lets people work on things they want to work on rather than being stuck forever doing things in a never-ending “exposure” cycle while having to work a soul-crushing “real job” at the same time.

I’d also love to know more about how the team members found each other and how the project formed. The histories of how things happen can be extremely informative, especially since those details are usually super opaque to outsiders. Having a bit of understanding of how to end up working on something like this can be massively helpful to people who are trying to walk the same path.