Among Us. Which game has the most players?
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Scale of popularity:
- over 500 million downloads (97% free mobile version);
- tens of millions of players per month (source).
Among Us debuted in 2018... and we all hardly cared. Based on the rules of the popular party game Mafia, this title takes the classic game into space, forcing players to perform a series of actions aboard a spaceship. Somewhere among them, there lurks an impostor who only pretends to help, while actually waiting for an opportunity to eliminate more crew members. If he's effective enough (or can wriggle out in the face of accusations), he'll get rid of everyone before he's detected.
It took a global pandemic for the game's proposed formula to gain popularity. In mid-2020, the title was "discovered" by well-known streamers from South Korea and Brazil, followed some time after by others, with stars like PewDiePie and Ninja leading the way. It turned out that accusing your friends of betrayal and sabotage was a pretty good way to deal with the impediments to traditional contact in the age of coronavirus.
With the support of some of gaming's biggest influencers it has gone fast. In September 2020 alone, videos about the game were viewed a total of 4 billion times on YouTube, and 13 billion times on TikTok in October. Also in September, a record of 3.8 million simultaneously logged-in players was set. In order not to prematurely kill the popularity of their work, the authors decided to abandon plans to create a sequel and instead focus all efforts on further development of Among Us. It doesn't quite work. The game has been regularly losing popularity since November 2020, at least on Steam. The mobile version also has its peak of popularity behind it, but Among Us still has no problem staying on this list. Instead of around 250 million people a month, it is now played by 60-80 million.
