The Cascade of Among Us
Though 2020 was not the best year for most people, it definitely was for the game Among Us. Despite its launch in June of 2018, it was only recent that the game exploded in popularity, hitting #1 in the Simulation category on the App Store. In fact, according to Steam Charts, in the week of June 29, 2020, there were about 6,771 average number of players. In the week of August 31, 2020, just about two months later, there were 438,524 players. That is a grand 6,476.5% increase. Why was it that the game was able to gain popularity so quickly? Let us consider the network effects that led to the game’s success.
First of all, let us understand how the game works. Among Us consists of having up to 10 players, where each of the players has one of two roles – crewmate or impostor. If you are a crewmate, you have to try to complete the tasks given to you without being killed. If you are an impostor, you have to try to kill people without getting caught. Whenever a dead body is reported or an emergency meeting is called, all players vote on who they think the impostor is through discussion. Suspicious activity is discussed, players try to defend themselves, and etc. before voting takes place. Though the game can be played with strangers online, the game becomes more fun when a video call with friends is held at the same time to discuss who the impostor is. If all the impostors are voted out, the crewmates win. If all crewmates are killed, the impostor wins. Recently, there has been new variations of the game, such as hide and seek. This is when crewmates try to complete their tasks while the impostor tries to kill crewmates with extremely low vision and low speed.
With the pandemic, we are more clustered than ever before. Being encouraged to stay at home and only come into close contact with as few as possible, our strong bonds with close friends have become stronger than ever before. In class, we learned that a group of friends is considered r-dense where r is a number representing the fraction of friends that people within that group have within the group. If a cluster is 2/3 dense, this means that every node inside has at least 2/3 of its friends inside the cluster. We also discussed in class that clusters are an obstacle for adoption. In a time when the r fraction is growing, which makes for a bigger obstacle against diffusion of behavior, why was Among Us able to grow so quickly?
The growth of Among Us is mainly attributed due to the nature of the game in a coincidentally perfect time period. The game is more fun when you play with people you know, even your weak ties, for it’s more fun watching and listening to an acquaintance betray their friends rather than chatting to strangers online. The game also becomes more fun the closer you are to 10 players. Since everyone today wants to be “social, but distant”, Among Us has become the perfect activity. With distinct groups of friends, Among Us makes it so that even having one weak tie outside your group allows for the entirety of the other group to be on board to playing. In other words, the clustered network allows for faster diffusion of behavior. Though these groups would’ve never met in person due to the pandemic and their weak ties, Among Us allows them to utilize their weak ties and form weak ties with new people.
Timing really matters. Despite its release 2 years prior to the pandemic, Among Us didn’t see much success until after the pandemic when the network changed. It has become the perfect bonding activity for friends, clubs, and even the vice-president. From the article, we read that there is an Among Us 2 in the works that I am greatly looking forward to. In the meantime, don’t be “suss.”
https://steamcharts.com/app/945360
https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/how-play-among-us-beginner-s-guide-tutorial-frequently-asked-questions\