Friendslop

Friendslop is a subgenre of cooperative video game that focus on a low barrier of entry and social interaction. Created as a portmanteau of "friend" and "slop", these social games tend to be low-budget, low-cost indie games intended to attract entire friend groups to purchase copies to play together online. The friendslop genre is purported to have originated with the 2018 social deduction video game Among Us, though their popularity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of remotely connecting with friends and loved ones during the quarantine. Even after the pandemic, these games remained highly popular as a means for people to spend time together remotely. The term "friendslop" originated from a 2024 post by an X user as a satirical way to describe slice of life anime; however, its more common interpretation was coined in March 2025 by another X user who also described these games as "friendfarming." While intended as a joke, the post went viral and was taken seriously by many who mocked and derided these types of games. The popularity of the 2025 co-op survival video game Peak led to a drastic increase in use of the term amongst gaming media and players, shifting to a more descriptive usage, though it continued to be used as a derogatory term to accuse similar games of being cash-ins.