The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2018–2020
Among Us: a canceled sequel, a four-person studio, 500 million players
InnerSloth's 2018 game idled for two years, then Twitch made it huge; the four-person studio canceled the sequel to bet on the live original.
InnerSloth
What the business is
Among Us is a social-deduction party game by InnerSloth in which players do ship tasks while hidden impostors sabotage and eliminate crewmates; it launched in 2018, is free on mobile, and has a paid PC version.
How it started
InnerSloth, a studio of four, released Among Us in 2018 as a spaceship party game about spotting impostors. For nearly two years it stayed quiet: Eurogamer reported Steam's concurrent peak was just 271 players in January 2020.
What happened
In summer 2020 Twitch creators including Sodapoppin, CallMeCarson and Pokimane started playing Among Us and exposed it to a mass audience (Eurogamer). Steam concurrents climbed to 388,000 in 30 days and the game reached 1.5 million concurrent players across platforms. On 2020-09-24 InnerSloth announced it had canceled Among Us 2, which was being planned partly because the original's codebase was outdated, and that all content planned for the sequel would go into the original instead.
How it ended up
By December 2020 the bet had paid off: Nielsen's SuperData counted roughly half a billion monthly players in November, the most for any mobile game ever and far ahead of the runner-up's 300 million, with only about three percent of them on PC. Google Trends data ranked Among Us the most-searched game of 2020, and the studio kept shipping to the live game, including colorblind support and the Airship map planned for early 2021.
Background
InnerSloth, a studio of four, released Among Us in 2018: a social-deduction party game in which players complete ship tasks while hidden impostors sabotage and eliminate crewmates. For nearly two years it stayed quiet — Eurogamer reported Steam's concurrent peak was just 271 players in January 2020.
In summer 2020 Twitch creators such as Sodapoppin, CallMeCarson and Pokimane started playing Among Us, and the game exploded. Steam concurrents climbed to 388,000 in 30 days, the title hit 1.5 million concurrent players across all platforms, and on 2020-09-24 the studio canceled its planned sequel, saying all content meant for Among Us 2 would instead go into the original — even though that meant reworking the old codebase.
The bet paid off at an unprecedented scale: Nielsen's SuperData counted roughly half a billion monthly players in November 2020, the most for any mobile game ever and far ahead of the runner-up's 300 million, with only about three percent on PC. Google Trends data ranked Among Us the most-searched game of 2020, and the four-person studio kept shipping to the live game, adding colorblind support and planning the Airship map for early 2021.
What has to be true
- The game's format was made for spectators: short rounds, hidden roles and live accusations gave Twitch streamers a naturally shareable show.
- InnerSloth chose to concentrate rather than split: canceling the sequel kept one server, one player base and one content roadmap.
- The studio was already structured for this bet: four people meant updates, not marketing budgets, were the only scale lever available.
- The result validated live-service patience: the game stayed free and updateable, so a late-arriving audience could compound for months rather than peak and fade.
What can be applied
Hits can arrive years after launch, and the winning move is not always a sequel: InnerSloth poured Among Us 2's roadmap into the live game and let the audience compound instead of splitting it.
Aftermath
By 2020-12-22 the bet had paid off: Nielsen's SuperData counted roughly half a billion monthly players in November 2020, the most for any mobile game ever and far ahead of the runner-up's 300 million, with only about three percent on PC. Google ranked Among Us the most-searched game of 2020. The four-person studio kept shipping to the original rather than a sequel, adding colorblind support and server fixes, with the Airship map planned for early 2021. The open question was staying power: whether updates could hold an audience that had arrived in one spike.
Sources
- Among Us 2 cancelled as devs focus on original title
- Nearly half a billion users played Among Us in November
- Among Us was the most searched game on Google in 2020; PlayStation 5 beats essential items
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