Word of mouth has always been such a powerful form of advertising for many avenues of entertainment. Such has been the case recently with streaming. Two recent games have experienced a popular boom because of it: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and Among Us.
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Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a very accessible game. Anyone can have a shot at winning. And because of this, it instantly became a hit in the Streaming community. It offered key features from other battle royale-type games like Fortnite or Warzone. But Fall Guys did it differently and managed to capture a niche market. The control scheme and the game were simple. Get to the final round and win the crown while using only 3 actions: jumping, grabbing, and diving.
When streamers first played this game, it even overtook Fortnite in total viewership. Watch time reached a staggering 118.5 million hours, compared to Fortnite’s 104 Million viewers the month prior.
Among Us
Among Us was released in 2018 and wasn’t a break-out success. SodaPoppin was one of the first to show off Among Us on stream, and since then, it has exploded in popularity. On YouTube, Among Us accumulated over 4 Billion views in the month of September.
Among Us, like Fall Guys, has a simple concept, but it is not a battle royale game. The game is played similar to the game Mafia. There is an imposter whose sole task is to take out the other crew while being undetected.
Video game streaming is a very powerful thing. It can tip the scales of how a game is viewed by the general public. It even has the power to bring in political figures who have never even thought of touching a video game. United States political representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar streamed Among Us with popular Twitch streamers Pokimane and Hasan Piker. They did this in an effort to encourage people to vote in the U.S. elections.
This is one of the many reasons why word of mouth is a very effective way to ensure a game’s success. Among Us was a game that saw little growth until the streaming community took it under its wing. Now Among Us is a hit.
That is the power of streaming. Streamers have been the driving force in bringing people together this year to play games. They have also been the reason why games like Among Us and Fall Guys have seen incredible success. And it does make you wonder what the next breakout game will be in the streaming community.