The overnight sensations – changes in power, gaming and streaming
Feature article – Diana Rijic, Mathias Førsund & Steffen Tomt
Games are not what they once used to be. Values, thoughts and ideas about game culture, game development and the human part of it all is no longer connected to vile, offensive and degrading stereotypes and interpretations. Gaming has slowly but surely inched towards the warmth of the fire within pop culture – and the cheering welcome it has received is almost deafening. Games, gaming and the gamer is now a welcomed part of the culture sphere of the 21st century. But what lies as the foundation for such an influx? What mechanisms play into the way games become international, overnight sensations, and how can a small, American made indie game such as Among Us take over the whole world?
Colorful astronauts, challenging tasks and danger lurking around every corner and every friendly crewmates smile – the perfect game? Copyright: InnerSloth / Photo: InnerSloth
Among Us – a one-hit-wonder disguised as a success story?
There’s a lot to be said about the year of 2020, and there are several memorable, important events and happenings. But among all of these vital, important moments, are there few that stand out more than the experience of logging onto one’s social media mid-summer, and seeing it flooded to the brim with colorful astronauts with stupid hats. This was the situation last year when the new ‘it-game’ Among Us was all the rage. What had happened?
Let’s rewind our calendars all the way back to the summer of 2018. Among Us, the brainchild of the game developers of InnerSloth LLC, a small company consisting of a few people, had just hit the launch button.
As InnerSloth brands themselves as a game developer focused on creating fun, entertaining worlds, was their newly born indie game a true testament. But the launch came and went without too much fuzz. The game itself brings forth faint recollections of the party-game Mafia and space horrors such as those from the Alien. films and the classic icy monstrosity from The Thing. With a rather simple concept consisting of Crewmates and Imposters, Among Us joined the ranks of other deduction games. The goal? To catch the Imposter(s) and finish the tasks at the space station before the imposter(s) kills the Crewmates, and thereby winning the game – in between can the Crewmates vote on who they think is the Imposter, which gives the Crewmates an easy win (given that their guesses are correct, non the less).
Now, if we fast forward to last summer, the situation was all too different for the developers behind the colorful astronauts. Overnight has their little fun, engaging and enticing new way of looking at multiplayer games, Among Us, taken over the whole world (take that statement with a grain of salt) – to go from an average peak player of about 8.2 in 2018 to 3 million concurrent by October last year is rather wild, to put it mildly. But fame, as everything else, is fleeting, and the hype and intense focus around the silly hats with adjacent astronauts, faded slowly but surely away as other, new games came more and more into focus.
Power structures and the ever-changing role of the player.
As games, gaming, game-culture and e-sports slowly but surely gets their well-deserved integration into pop culture, new forms of power arise and systems of engagement that challenges old, well-established and traditional game developers grip on the audiences focus. Streaming services and social media platforms such as those of Twitch and YouTube has already created well working forms of attention, where what’s being played around the world, is what’s being streamed. Games are after all a product of industrial processes, with a clear goal of economic enrichment. It’s the players who transforms these products into shapes and forms of culture.
Through a sudden switch and turnover from a few, international famous and high-profile players and streamers, turned the small indie game of 2018 itself into an international sensation. These types of high-profile players and streamers fueled the surge and wild influx in popularity for Among Us, and by doing so, expanded the player base and gaming audience into new ends of society. Suddenly, ‘everyone’ was playing, even those who had never played an online multiplayer game before. Players are no longer just the audience or the player base of different games, they have become both lawyer, judge and jury for what’s in and especially what’s out.
Indie versus tripple A – also known as David versus Goliath
Steam, one on the few major gaming platforms out there is also one of the best to locate and not to mention published small, one-man made indiegames – not just your average tripple AAAs
Copyright: Steam / Photo: Steam
There are several ways to categorize games these days, but besides the generic genre-category is it rather common to split them into mainstream, also known as AAA games, and indie games. AAA games are produced by companies with multi-million-dollar budgets, huge teams and expensive, high-end equipment. They’re often characterized as games produced for profit and popularity [i]. Indie games on the other hand are often produced by companies with less than 30 employees that have to be far more cost efficient, which is apparent with the team of InnerSloth. They don’t necessarily have access to the same resources that big companies do due to limited budgets. This applies to things like hardware, software, employees and office spaces, which can all impact the quality of the production, and the scope of their success. The general idea however is that indie games are far more artistic and creative at the core, and things like having the best graphics matter less than the game experience in itself [ii].
Besides the size of the companies, and the availability of the best software and hardware, there is also a difference in how the games are advertised and brought out to the public’s eye. While big companies like Activision, Blizzard, Rockstar Games and Nintendo can afford to advertise their games both on online and offline platforms are indie companies more dependent on word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing can cause explosive popularity if it reaches enough people, and with the help of streaming platforms like those of Twitch and YouTube are goals of success closer than ever before. While the expectations for AAA games are higher when it comes to quality both during release and after, indie games don’t necessarily need to meet the same demands. Players are often taken in by either their breathtaking art, vivid story or quirky uniqueness. This is where indie games have the upper hand, a trick Goliath is lacking in his arsenal.
The original, the mimic and the downfall
Fall Guys is a simple multiplayer royal-game where the goal is to be the last player standing victoriously. The game was released in 2020 and gained a lot of traction and popularity rather quickly. The release date matched up with the time when Covid 19 was first classified as a pandemic. Measures were taken all over the world to limit the spread of the virus, such as social distancing and lock downs, forcing people stay inside, all alone. In enters the possibility of playing multiplayer games – a nice way to keep in touch and do something social with friends and strangers despite the ongoing horrors of the world. Unfortunately for the developers of Fall Guys, the popularity of the game didn’t last for long. It is hard to find the exact reason behind, but the gameplay could be perceived as quite repetitive after a while, and players could easily feel less challenged. The aim of each round in the game is to be the last one standing, and the way to achieve it is always by completing a course of obstacles in first place, or by making sure that other players don´t reach the finish line. In addition to this, Among Us started gaining popularity, despite being released in 2018. When googling “Fall Guys popularity” many of the results suggest that the game was overtaken by Among Us, and this caused its popularity to fall.
In addition to the decline in popularity for Fall Guys were there a new contender slowly rising on the distant horizon. The new player in the arena were non-other than now-world-famous Among Us, a little tiny game from way back in 2018. Was the rising fame of Fall Guys butchered by this little indie game from way back? A lot search results after googling “Fall Guys popularity” suggests so. In comparison are the both of them pretty much the same game, in a lot of ways. But the core difference is Among Us’s ingenious ploy to make the players refresh their tactics every game – it is after all a game of truth and lies, a game many struggle within real life (so all the more fun via a screen, right?). Fall Guys never possessed this aspect, and we can only speculate as to the reason for its downfall.
Old made new again – the case of a Swedish revival
Minecraft - the most sold game of all time. The well-known sandbox videogame was released back in November 2011 and had a paid public alpha during 2009. Which means the game is 10 years old from is released date. Or if you look at it through when it was in alpha, even older.
The decade old game has gone through many changes since it’s early days in beta, and are now hotter than ever – at least when you encounter a cumbersome creeper trying to light your whole wooden house on fire.
Copyright: Mojang Studios / Photo: Microsoft
But interest in the game has over recent years spiked right through the blocky roof, and the simple game is once again one of the most popular games. But how has a game over a decade old been revived like this, becoming once again one of the most relevant titles in the gaming industry?
Well, it’s largely thanks to one man — the Swedish high-profile streamer and gamer PewDiePie. But how can one man have changed the history of gaming? The simple answer is that he has over 100 million subscribers and is considered by many as the face of YouTube. So, when the world-famous streamer picked up the diamond pickaxe once again and started a fresh new Minecraft world back in 2019, it fueled a surge of popularity for the lovable game. While he can’t get the full credit for starting the wave, he can get credit for spreading the interest to a wider audience as he has one of the largest followings on YouTube and Twitch. The snowball started rolling, and rolling did it truly.
With famous streamers such as PewDiePie and Dream getting credit for the huge interest for Minecraft in the recent years, and with Twitch making an unknown indie game like Among Us the most popular game of 2020, it’s become rather clear that the ‘old’ traditional marketing strategies and structures of power has changed. Before, the game developers of AAA- games was the ones deciding with games they would announce and which games they would make ads for. But now, the flute plays a different tune. Video and streaming platforms and its influencers can now decide which games they should play and therefore which games that gets the most interest/hype. Examples of which games that becomes popular because of influencers have played it, is endlessly long, with some of the more famous one’s being Minecraft, Among us, Fortnite, Fall Guys, and PUBG. All of which have been popular not because of companies, but because of influencers themselves it.
This type of resurgences of games new forms of popularizing content is relatively new. But as we have seen, is it entirely possible because of the gaming influencers. Old games becoming popular again like Minecraft, new genres like battle royal inspired by games like PUBG and Fortnite, indie games getting a new light because of gaming influencers playing it like Among Us, and new games becoming popular or hated by the grace of streamers. The powers of streaming and high-profile gamers are here to stay, at least for the moment.
This article was originally submitted as a qualification paper in the course "Video Games: Aesthetics, Industry and Culture” (MEVIT27275) in the spring of 2021 at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, writen by Diana Rijic, Mathias Førsund and Steffen Tomt in collaboration.
Noter:
[i] Lipkin 2012, s. 9
[ii] Lipkin 2012, s. 12