Jackbox Games 2020 Year in Review

To say that we’re excited to ring in 2021 is an understatement! This year was especially challenging in so many ways, but we still want to take a moment to appreciate some of the good that did happen in 2020. Probably the biggest highlight for us as a studio was welcoming so many new fans into the community who discovered our games for the first time. We are humbled that our games were able to bring some laughter and joy during a time of isolation.

Here are some of our favorite moments we’ll look back on fondly. Thank you to our community for helping create these weird memories with us! 

January

• We journeyed back down south to San Antonio for PAX South 2020! We enjoyed playing The Jackbox Party Pack 6 with fans and had fun showing off our Pinny Arcade Push the Button pins! 
• We did an AMA on the Nintendo Switch subreddit about The Jackbox Party Pack 6!
• We launched some new Instagram filters! (Try them by clicking the effects tab in our Instagram profile @playjackboxgames!)

February

• We didn’t know it at the time, but PAX East and C2E2 were our last conventions of 2020. Our team took over Boston and Chicago (well, that’s not new) and, in the most Jackbox-ian way possible, we announced Quiplash 3 was coming in The Jackbox Party Pack 7. 
• We started welcoming more special guests onto The Jackbox Party Club stream, like the host of Role Models, Leila Gorstein! 

March

• Jackbox.tv had a major update! 
• To help people isolated during the pandemic, we made Drawful 2 free for a few weeks and gave away over nine million copies! 
• The Jackbox Party Pack 2 was part of the Humble Store’s Conquer COVID-19 Bundle.
• The first version of our “How to Play Remotely” guide was released into the world. It now has its own website page! 

April

• Jackbox experienced a massive surge in players while people were social distancing from home. Thank you to all of our fans for bearing with us (and our servers) as we experienced this growth!
• We rushed to release Quiplash 2 InterLASHional (our first localized title in French, Italian, German, and Spanish) in the Steam store early! 
• We stoked the Party Pack 7 flames by announcing that The Devils and the Details was game number two in The Jackbox Party Pack 7! Director Ryan DiGiorgi filmed the teaser from home! 

May

• We launched Celebrity Jackbox: Games and Giving, a limited livestreamed series featuring beloved celebrities and personalities playing Jackbox Games titles in support of charitable organizations responding to the devastating impact of COVID-19. This 9-episode series resulted in $1M in total donations to organizations like Direct Relief, Save the Children, World Central Kitchen, Baby2Baby, the Greater Chicago Food Depository and more. You can watch the full series here! 
• We launched print-on-demand t-shirts based on drawings created in Drawful 2! We were excited to bring this fan-favorite feature from Tee K.O. to another game! 

June

• While we all stayed at home, we had fun with our Bakin’ It challenge, where the intersection of baking pros and Jackbox aficionados met and created cakes inspired by The Faker from The Jackbox Party Pack 3! Check out the winner here. 
• We announced a new drawing game would be in The Jackbox Party Pack 7! Champ’d Up was revealed to the world and everyone got super amped… up.
• We announced new profanity filtering and moderation features were going to be prioritized for The Jackbox Party Pack 7. 
• We started our very own Twitch Team! 

July 

• Our jam-packed July included TWO game announcements for Pack 7. Check out the reveals for Talking Points (thanks to Farhan Noormohammed from our engineering team for improvising this video) and Blather ‘Round! 
• Achievement Hunters helped us give fans an early look at a beta version of Quiplash 3.
• We completed our Nintendo Switch back catalog by releasing the standalone games, Fibbage XL and Quiplash, in the Nintendo eShop!
• One of our favorite early looks (of all time?) happened when Drawfee revealed a beta version of Champ’d Up to the world! 

August

• We gave our first presentation at GDC! CEO Mike Bilder and Marketing Director Brooke Hofer talked about how Jackbox Games responded to the rise of remote play during the pandemic. 
• Our buddies at Stumpt Gaming gave an early look at a still-in-development version of Blather ‘Round.
• The always-delightful Smosh Games showed off an early version of Talking Points.

September

• We began pre-orders of The Jackbox Party Pack 7 in the Steam store and announced that the pack would finally be available for all on Thursday, October 15th, 2020. Even with the pandemic in play, we were able to hit our ideal release window. 
• We played The Jackbox Party Pack 7 (and more favorites from prior packs) during PAX Online. It wasn’t the same as seeing fans in person, but we still had a great time interacting with fans virtually! 
• We revealed the official trailer for The Jackbox Party Pack 7. In a year of constant change, one thing remained the same: the trailer pugs. 
• WWE Superstar Xavier Woods and friends played an early version of The Devils and the Details on YouTube! It was great to end our season of “early looks” with a knockout! 

October

• We announced new accessibility features in The Jackbox Party Pack 7, including motion sensitivity and room code reading. 
• We launched The Jackbox Party Pack 7! We celebrated the launch with our usual marathon day of streaming and it has been great to see so many other streams out in the wild ever since. Some favorites include Polygon playing Quiplash 3, Videogamedunkey playing Champ’d Up, Scarra playing Talking Points, 2 Left Thumbs playing The Devils and the Details, and Mr. Fruit playing Blather ‘Round. 

November 

• The first TV commercials for The Jackbox Party Pack Franchise started running on linear TV channels, Hulu, Twitch, YouTube and more. It was great to make weird memories before, during, and after the production of these spots! Plus, the real-life Jackbox head will live on forever in our office. 

December

• We launched a new Twitch extension, The Jackbox Audience Kit. This extension allows Twitch viewers to play along in the audience of Jackbox Games streams without having to join Jackbox.tv in a separate browser!
• We released Quiplash 2 InterLASHional for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. 

After a rollercoaster of a year, our team celebrated our work and our fans during our company holiday party. We feel very lucky to work at Jackbox Games and even luckier that so many of you took the time to send us kind words about what our games mean to you and your loved ones. It definitely kept us motivated.

We’ll be in touch again in the coming months with more fun things to share. In the meantime, may your new year be filled with weird and happy memories. 

Jackbox Games