Never underestimate the terrifying power of K-pop. A month and a bit after online social deception game Goose Goose Duck burst onto Steam’s most played charts (opens in new tab) on the back of one stream from BTS member Kim Tae-hyung (opens in new tab), the game has already broken the simultaneous player record of its inspiration, Among Us. Goose Goose Duck reached one highest number of concurrent players of 563,677 (opens in new tab) earlier today, beating Among Us’ all-time high by over a hundred thousand players.
The incredible surge in popularity has actually proven to be a problem for the game’s developers, who tweeted a few days ago that their servers had succumbed to the strain. “We expected a big increase in players, but not like this,” the game’s official account tweeted, adding in a later reply to a fan that the developers were “in communication with providers to drastically increase the number of players” [their] capacity”. Service was restored within a few hours (opens in new tab)but it is clear that the game’s sudden success came as a surprise to the creators, similar to the popularity of Among Us blindsided Innersloth’s team (opens in new tab).
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the latest multiplayer phenomenon, or if you’re just not a K-pop stan (I’d keep quiet about that if I were you), here’s a quick rundown of what Goose is all about. Goose Duck actually is. It’s, uh, Among Us, but with geese and ducks. To be fair, it digs deeper into some of Innersloth’s basics. For instance, it has more roles and modes, including a “Dine and Dash” mode where teams of cutthroat ducks face off against hapless geese who must try to survive until a timer runs out. It’s easy to see how people who’ve already put hundreds of hours into Among Us can move on to the broader, but similar, offerings of Goose Goose Duck.
Goose Goose Duck’s ascent parallels the rise of Among Us with an almost uncanny resemblance. When the latter became one of the biggest games of recent years, it owed its popularity not least for Korean streamers (opens in new tab). They weren’t BTS-level megastars like Kim, but they did give it much of the boost it needed to become one of the defining games of the pandemic lockdown era.
Whether the game maintains its momentum, whether the tide of new fans eventually flows back to Among Us remains to be seen. However, it’s been a while since Kim did his stream, and the game continues to rise to newer and higher levels of popularity. Perhaps among other things (opens in new tab) is here to stay.