Border guard simulator Contraband Police has turned out to be a huge success for Polish studio Crazy Rocks. Moreover, the game helped the company not go bankrupt.
On April 4, Crazy Rocks announced that Contraband Police had sold 250,000 units since its launch on March 8.
Crazy Rocks founder Stanisław Gromadowski noted that the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2017. That’s when the team approached publisher PlayWay and together with an investor, they chose the concept for its next game.
“Initially, it was supposed to be a simple simulator of searching for contraband at the border, and we had planned to complete the game within a year,” Gromadowski said. “We postponed the release date multiple times, but honestly speaking — after 3 years of work, I knew it was my life’s project. A production in which I can invest my many years of experience and create a unique game.”
49,000 copies of Contraband Police were sold in the first 24 hours, according to PlayWay CEO Krzysztof Kostowski. The title, where the player takes on the role of a border guard inspector, currently has a 94% rating on Steam based on more than 4,300 user reviews. According to SteamDB, it also peaked at 8,124 concurrent players.
The game fits perfectly into PlayWay’s portfolio, as the publisher is known for many mid-budget hit titles such as Thief Simulator, House Flipper, and Mr. Pepper. The company promotes dozens of projects on social media, although some of them may never live up to the full release, to test the ideas and find the most appealing concepts. In April 2021, PlayWay even topped Steam publishers by wishlists, leaving giants like Electronic Arts and Sega behind.
Contraband Police is the second game by Crazy Rocks, which was founded in 2015 by Stanisław Gromadowski. Violinist by education, he has worked at companies like CD Projekt, People Can Fly, and CI Games.
In 2016, the team released free-to-play PvP fighting game Street Warriors Online, which received mixed reviews and failed commercially. So the new project really saved Crazy Rocks from bankruptcy.