The archive · Games & Play · Product decision · 2018–2020
Among Us: a 2018 party game becomes 2020's most-played game via Twitch streamers
InnerSloth's simple social-deduction game flopped in 2018, then streamers made it the most-played game in history — 500M monthly players by November 2020.
InnerSloth
What it had to solve
InnerSloth built Among Us as a local-multiplayer social-deduction party game and launched it free on mobile in June 2018 with cross-play. It sold poorly for two years — Steam's January 2020 peak was about 271 concurrent players — and the tiny team considered moving on.
How it works
Among Us launched free on iOS and Android in June 2018 with cross-play, a cartoon spaceship and a very old party-game idea: a few hidden impostors among crewmates who lie, vote and get ejected. InnerSloth built it as a local multiplayer party game, but it stayed quiet for two years — Steam peaked around 271 concurrent players in January 2020 and the three-person team nearly abandoned it.
The break came from streamers. From summer 2020 creators such as Sodapoppin, CallMeCarson and Pokimane started playing it on Twitch, and the game's design turned out to be built for broadcast: bare mechanics, no in-game voice chat, and near-total freedom for players to accuse, betray and argue in their own calls. By September 2020 Steam concurrents had jumped from a 271-player January peak to 388,000, with 1.5 million players across all platforms, and the studio cancelled the sequel it had started.
InnerSloth put everything into the original instead — server fixes, colourblind support, accounts, the Airship map and 15-player lobbies. Nielsen's SuperData estimated about 500 million monthly players in November 2020 and called it the most popular game ever by monthly players, while Apptopia ranked it 2020's most-downloaded mobile game with 264 million downloads worldwide; even congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's voting-themed stream peaked above 400,000 viewers.
Why it lands
- The mechanics are so thin that the drama lives entirely in players' voices, accusations and bluffs — which is exactly what streams need.
- Leaving voice chat out of the game pushed players into Discord or group calls, where the entertainment happened out loud and could be shared.
- Free mobile and cheap cross-play let streamers' audiences join in, so watching turned into playing.
- Cancelling the sequel and upgrading the live game kept the fad fed with fixes, maps and bigger lobbies at the exact moment demand peaked.
What it did
About 500 million people played in November 2020, which Nielsen SuperData called the most popular game ever by monthly players; Apptopia counted 264 million mobile downloads in 2020. Steam concurrents climbed from roughly 271 in January 2020 to a 388,000 peak that September, and 1.5 million players across all platforms.
What you can take
When the gameplay is conversation, the audience can join in: simple rules, no in-game voice chat, free mobile cross-play, and a team that feeds the live game instead of starting a sequel.
Since then
Among Us remained 2020's most-downloaded mobile game and kept growing: the Airship map arrived in early 2021, the game reached Nintendo Switch in December 2020 with Xbox and PlayStation releases announced, and InnerSloth kept updating the original it had chosen over a sequel. The game also spread beyond play — 'emergency meeting' became a meme, politicians streamed it, and it anchored a wave of social-deduction games.
Sources
- Nearly half a billion users played Among Us in November
- Among Us was 2020's most downloaded mobile game
- Among Us 2 cancelled as devs focus on original title
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