With every big update the Roblox game Grow a Garden breaks major player records, this time reaching a peak of over 11 million players. This was part of the Bizzy Bees update that launched on May 31, revealing a new mechanic for collecting honey. We previously covered Grow a Garden reaching a peak of five million players two weeks ago, which they’ve now doubled.
Alongside new content, the developer often hypes up each event by triggering special weather effects that significantly increase plant values. Considering you need the in-game currency of Sheckles to buy expensive items, it’s probably one of the best times to play. To some extent, it may even be better than the actual update itself.
It’s a time when secret weather effects and events that no longer exist can reappear like a massive black hole or chocolate rain from the sky. The best part about these events triggering over a short period is that you can stack their effects.
But Does Grow a Garden Have a Healthy Studio Work Schedule?
One has to wonder how frequently the Grow a Garden developers can continue to pass player records before stagnating. While it’s an impressive feat, it does seem to rely on crunching as the developer has confirmed via in-game messages. The night before Bizzy Bees released, it sent one message mentioning working 12 hours straight. It’s impossible to say how common shifts like these are since the developer and their partner, Do Big Studios, won’t respond to our emails.
We know from the May 24 update that Janzen Madsen, partial owner of Splitting Point behind Grow a Garden, felt the community was disappointed. They apologized in the game’s Discord, discussing how it was a lot of work despite the backlash. This led to a push at the studio for another update shortly afterward.
“Hey @everyone, we are sorry you are a little disappointed in the update. We had so many cool admin commands for the event but we couldn’t run them because of Roblox crashing. We always want to do good updates for you guys, this week it was a lot of work for us to make the cosmetic system and plot expansions was really hard too. We also made the active pet UI, which everyone had been asking for. But I’m sorry we didn’t add a new event or seed to the shop. I wont let the community down again and always make sure there is an event or new seed each update. Sorry guys, this one was on me, jandel”
Hopefully Madsen and others can avoid burning out after spending long hours to hit weekly updates. Which is then compounded by additional time spent crushing bugs afterward. Keeping up with bug reports is likely a challenge across the multiple massive Discord channels they have. The Bizzy Bees update already had its first big bug when a bee swarm event was supposed to trigger and nothing happened.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.