Around and Among Us

Among Us, a socially interactive video game, has recently risen to fame due to an increased demand for socially engaging forms of entertainment during the worldwide pandemic-induced lockdown.

As the COVID-19 virus outbreak reaches its 10th month, people around the world are still required to be quarantined in their homes. The lack of conventional forms of entertainment available at home led to a sudden increase of video games sold and played. According to weforum.org, $29.4 billion of video games have been sold in the US, a 23% increase from March last year. One of the games that gained popularity was a social game, Among Us, published by InnerSloth an American based video game studio.

Among Us is a multiplayer game set in space. Four to ten players scurry along a spaceship, either trying to fix the spaceship or sabotage it and its crew, depending on which role a player is randomly assigned. Crew members hurry along, completing tasks to ensure the ship’s smooth operation. The impostor on the other hand, has to fiddle with the ship and strategically kill all the crewmates to win. The main tool in the impostors’ kit is deception. They look like regular crew members, so it’s up to other players to figure out who the impostor is. In the event of an untimely “accident” (or other suspicious behaviour), the crew can call a meeting and vote on whether or not to send a suspicious crewmate flying into the abyss.

Among Us rose to popularity when people started using the game to reconnect with friends and family. On the streaming site Twitch, Among Us streams draw large audiences. Viewers tune in and react as the streamers plot, scheme, and scream, both to their own audiences and each other. On the Twitch games chart, Anong Us is third in popularity, beating out games like Fortnite, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. According to twitchtracker.com, there are about 4,567 channels playing Among Us and with all those channels combined, they generate around 150,519 average viewers in a week. Currently, there are about 1,344 live channels and 42,507 live viewers each day.

However, Among Us is a game that, first and foremost, puts personalities in the spotlight over skillful gameplay. Popular streaming personalities such as xQc and Pokimane attract most of the viewers, so averages cannot provide the full picture. However, Among Us continues to provide a platform for new personalities too. Recently, US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez—who goes by the name AOC—streamed the game in collaboration with Pokimane. They generated over 300,000 viewers on the congresswoman’s stream. Just like in the aforementioned example, Among Us has allowed personalities to collaborate, drawing on each other’s audiences in one large community stream.

A standard streamed game usually goes like this: streamers tell their audience their plans behind the scenes and once they are called to a meeting, they begin their game of deception. By the end of the meeting, an innocent crew member goes sailing out into the abyss, and the impostor streamer cracks the world’s most malicious grin.

For the InnerSloth team, this is a whole new world. They have garnered more attention now since the launch of their game in 2018. At the time of its release, it garnered an average of 30-50 players and due to streamers branching out the game, it gained the attention it needed for it to rise in popularity. As of September 2020, there are a total of 100 million downloads, with the number of players peaking at 3.8 million. As of right now, their game is at the epicentre of the streaming ecosystem and has attracted more and more streamers and players alike to participate in Among Us. The developers wanted to create a sequel to the game, but it was cancelled as people were enjoying the original game. Instead, InnerSloth updates the game as frequently as possible. Among Us still dominates the Twitch charts as of mid-October and is still attracting a lot of attention. The post-pandemic future of Among Us is uncertain, but the increasing number of people playing the game seems to indicate that the game will remain a favorite among groups of friends and streamers even after quarantine ends.