With the ban on PUBG Mobile in India, which had risen to dizzying heights of popularity during the Covid induced lockdown, another game has risen to take its place. Among Us, the game in question, is different compared to PUBG Mobile, but its rise to fame has been equally phenomenal. It is now the most downloaded game on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
Among Us is by no means a new game, it was launched in June in 2018 by developer InnerSloth. The game is developed on Unity Engine and is available on Steam, Android and iOS. The game has been classified by the developers as a social deduction game. But it has suddenly become popular because Twitch streamers started playing it en masse.
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PUBG Mobile ban and the rise of Among Us
The data-driven competitive insights platform Sensor Tower reported that while PUBG Mobile was at the peak of its popularity, India constituted 24% of the total downloads at 185.5 million. But after the ban of PUBG Mobile in India, the game has tumbled down the charts and currently sits at the tenth spot on the worldwide downloads list. This is proof of how big an impact the ban in India has been on the game.
Sensor Tower writes that first-time installs of mobile games climbed nearly 28% year on year last quarter to 14.2 billion across the App Store and Google Play globally.
InnerSloth’s Among Us found an opportunity and has grabbed it to reach the peak with 85 million mobile downloads. This is 13 times more than the downloads of Q3 of 2019. It is followed by Scribble Rider and Talking Tom Friends. Among Us has created a significant buzz on social media with memes and its growth during the months of August and September has been phenomenal.
