The Downfall of Among Us

Among us.  Who is among us you may ask? One impostor [default]. Nine crew-mates [default]. Players engaged [constantly]. Well, they were at least. Looking at the data, you can see the downward trend of overall use among us, with it peaking in late 2020. On the left side, you can see the amount of players average on the app at a time, while at the bottom each year is compared.

Among us takes place on a spaceship, where in the game there are an average 9 crew-mates. Within these crew-mates there is one “impostor,” of whom can eliminate crew-mates by “killing” them from the simple click of a button. The crew-mates try to complete their tasks which can include cleaning the vents, scanning at Med-bay, or even downloading files. Each task acts almost as its own mini-game which keeps players entertained while the impostor plots their next kill. To win, either the crew-mates complete all of their tasks before the impostor kills everybody, or the latter (the impostor wins).  

Among us was one of the all time favorites to play with your buddies on Facetime during Covid, but where is it now? The game has had countless updates since then which players have protested on social media, claiming that they were unnecessary and made the game less enjoyable. The Among us team has ignored these remarks and continued with the changes to the platform, losing significant amounts of players because of these actions (as seen on the chart above). 

One other reason Among us has lost fans since 2020 could possibly be not just their updates but simply that their players are growing out of the game. During Covid, a majority of their regular gamers were aged between 9-12. This means that now (almost 4 years later) these OG gamers are around 13-16 years old. At this age kids are entering high school, playing sports, or even on other gaming platforms than Among us. The children who were once playing a simple game with their friends are now possibly preparing for their future, which may be a significant piece to the puzzle of why the game fell so far downwards in popularity.

Among us will be missed, yet players remain off of the game. Will they ever return? Nobody knows for sure, but maybe eventually they will hop back on once in a while for a little bit of 2020 nostalgia. Among us will go down in history as where most of us spent way too much of our time while everyone was locked in their houses during the pandemic. 

Memories are in fact “Among us.”