Last weekend, the original Hello Neighbor broke its own concurrent user record on Steam, reaching 2,119 players for the first time. To celebrate, tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik wrote a blog post on the company's website, sharing some figures and insights.
Hello Neighbor
- To start, Nichiporchik reminded us that the first game in the Hello Neighbor series was released over eight years ago, in December 2017.
- December 2025 turned out to be the best December for Hello Neighbor on Steam since its release. More than 60,000 copies of the game were sold on Valve's platform that month. Incidentally, Hello Neighbor also garnered the same number of wishlists throughout the fourth quarter of 2025.
- Nichiporchik linked the surge in interest at the end of 2025 to several factors. One was the viral popularity of YouTube videos featuring mods for Hello Neighbor (the number of mods in the Steam Workshop has surpassed 2,200). The Steam Winter Sale, during which Hello Neighbor was offered at a significant discount, also played a role.
- Currently, the record-breaking concurrent user count and the subsequent sales boost (an additional 100,000 copies in a week) were partly due to the discount. However, Nichiporchik believes it wasn't the only factor.
- "We regularly offer significant discounts on older games, but rarely do they create such a buzz. This is because wishlists tend to become outdated. Until June 2025, we could track 'cohorts' of wishlist conversions, and a clear pattern was evident across our portfolio: the closer the addition to the wishlist was to the release or sale, the higher the likelihood of conversion into a purchase," explained the head of tinyBuild.
- Nichiporchik is also convinced that the continued popularity of Hello Neighbor is largely due to tinyBuild's business approach. The company believes that creating an "infrastructure" around games is crucial for turning them into hits, which helps generate long-term revenue. Consequently, tinyBuild actively invests in Hello Neighbor spin-offs, merchandise, books, and an animated series based on the game.
- At the same time, Nichiporchik believes that the traditional indie publishing model is dead. Under this model, publishers work with games over short periods, although it might take years, if not decades, to realize a game's full potential.
- According to Nichiporchik, the total circulation of all Hello Neighbor games is currently measured in "hundreds of millions of copies." A significant portion of this comes from mobile versions of the titles, which generate millions of downloads monthly. However, the tinyBuild CEO noted that though mobile does not yield the greatest revenue in the franchise, it is critical for boosting recognition.