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《Among Us》：一款被取消的续作，一个四人工作室，五亿玩家
InnerSloth 2018年的游戏沉寂两年后，因 Twitch 爆红；四人工作室取消续作，押注在直播中的原版游戏上。
InnerSloth
做的是什么生意
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.
起因
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.
经过
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InnerSloth announced it had canceled Among Us 2, which was being planned partly because the original's codebase was outdated, and that all content planned for the sequel would go into the original instead.
结果
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.
背景
InnerSloth 工作室仅有四人，于2018年发布《Among Us》：这是一款社交推理派对游戏，玩家需完成任务，而隐藏的内鬼进行破坏并淘汰船员。近两年来一直低迷——据 Eurogamer 报道，2020年1月 Steam 平均峰值仅为271人。
2020年夏天，Sodapoppin、CallMeCarson 和 Pokimane 等 Twitch 主播开始玩《Among Us》，游戏爆火。Steam 同时在线数30天内攀升至38.8万，全平台达到150万，并于2020年9月24日取消续作计划，宣布为续作准备的内容将全部投入原版——尽管这意味着要对旧代码进行重写。
这一赌注空前成功：Nielsen's SuperData 统计2020年11月月活跃玩家约5亿，成为有史以来最畅销的手机游戏，远超前一名3亿，其中仅约3%在 PC 端。Google Trends 将《Among Us》列为2020年搜索最多的游戏，四人工作室持续更新原版，新增色盲支持并计划于2021年初推出飞艇地图。
这件事要成立，得有什么
- 游戏形式适合观赏：短回合、隐藏身份和现场指控让 Twitch 主播自然演绎出可传播的内容。
- InnerSloth 选择集中而非分裂：取消续作，保持单一服务器、单一玩家群体和单一内容路线图。
- 工作室本就为此下注：四人规模意味着只有更新能扩大影响力，而非营销预算。
- 结果验证了耐心运营的智慧：游戏免费且持续更新，晚期受众得以数月累积而非热度骤减。
可借鉴之处
爆款可能在发布数年后才到来，而制胜招数不总是续作：InnerSloth 将《Among Us 2》的路线图融入原版，让受众持续累积而非分裂。
后续进展
截至2020年12月22日，赌注已获回报：Nielsen's SuperData 统计2020年11月月活跃玩家约5亿，成为有史以来最畅销的手机游戏，远超前一名3亿，其中仅约3%在 PC 端。Google 将《Among Us》列为2020年搜索最多的游戏。四人工作室持续更新原版而非续作，新增色盲支持和服务器修复，并计划于2021年初推出飞艇地图。遗留的问题是持久性：更新能否留住一次性突增受众。
资料来源
- 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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