UPDATED 19:01 EST / JANUARY 07 2016

NEWS

New game ‘Punch Club’ won’t launch until Twitch beats it

The developers behind the upcoming indie tycoon game Punch Club seem to have unlocked the secret to free advertising: Let Twitch users do all the marketing for you.

Russian indie studio Lazy Bear Games has made Punch Club available for pre-order on Steam, but the developer says that the game will not actually launch until the herd of cats known as the Twitch community manages to beats it first.

In a video announcing the event, Lazy Bear called it “a new Twitch streaming experience that sees Twitch users working together to train hard, find love, and punch crocodiles in the face.”

Punch Club is a ’90s inspired boxing management sim in which you climb the ranks of the Punch Club leagues in a bid to discover who murdered your father,” the video continued. “Twitch Plays Punch Club is a special version of the game that allows Twitch users to enter hashtag commands into the chat to vote on which actions our muscular hero should take—like going to the fridge and eating a moldy burger.”

“Will the Twitch community vote to head down to the gym, or will they collaboratively decide to go drinking at the nearest bar, waste all their money, and wake up with the mother of all hangovers?”

While getting Twitch users to do what you want them to is about as easy as coaching a soccer team of four-year-olds, the developers were smart enough to offer rewards for at least trying to win. For every fight Twitch wins in the ring, Lazy Bear will drop a Steam code for the game into the chat.

“The future of Punch Club is in your hands, Twitch,” the video concluded. “Don’t make us regret it.”

Screenshot via TwitchPlaysPunchClub | Twitch.tv

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