Among Us has quickly become a 2020 phenomenon. It is in fact the most popular game of all time with 500 million active players in November.
The year 2020 was a very special year for video games. While the pandemic has greatly slowed the development of many titles, forcing telecommuting to become the norm for many professions, video games have also had a record year.
Setting aside the stratospheric sales of consoles, led by Nintendo Switch, we can mention several games that have become real phenomena. There was confinement with Animal Crossing, then summer with Fall Guys, and the year ended under the sign of betrayal among friends with Among Us.
InnerSloth's game released in 2018 was recognized as Best Mobile Game of the Year and Best Multiplayer Game of the Year at the Game Awards. It is a board game based on the principle of Thiercelieux's Werewolves. In a group of 4 to 10 players, you play either as a "crewmate" (crew member) who will have to carry out tasks to, for example, repair a ship, or as an "imposter" (impostor) who will have to very discreetly silence the crew. All the salt of the game rests on the meetings where all the players will be able to debate and then vote to exclude someone, hoping to tilt the votes in favour of a player from the opposite camp, of course.
NEARLY 500 MILLION ACTIVE PLAYERS IN NOVEMBER
While Among Us was released in 2018 with a failure, by the very admission of its developers. The game was finally successful in the midst of the pandemic, when it was first spotted in South Korea and then in the rest of the world by streamers. The game quickly became a phenomenon on Twitch, so much so that it was streamed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the U.S. election campaign to motivate voters to go to the polls.
But how popular is Among Us really? We have a first element of answer with the data from Superdata, which evaluates the revenues of dematerialized gaming platforms. In November 2020, Superdata notes that "Among Us had about half a billion active users per month.
AN ABSOLUTE RECORD
By number, Among Us can claim to be the most popular game of all time, far ahead of the same 350 million players registered on Fortnite (who are not necessarily all active). Even Minecraft and its 600 million accounts (including 400 million in China) does not have as many active players per month.
However, SuperData notes that the game Among Us is not yet monetized enough to make as much profit as the two games mentioned above. Among Us is free on cell phones, with advertising, and is sold for 3.99 euros on PCs. The latter represents only 3% of the installed base of players, but accounts for 64% of the revenue generated. The game is also recently available on Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Game Pass for PC. Its release on Xbox is scheduled for 2021.