The social deception game “Among Us,” a mega-hit during the 2020 lockdown, was actually released two years earlier, in 2018, making it one of the most striking examples of delayed success in the video game business. Oddly enough, the creators of “Goose Goose Duck,” a free-to-play game very similar to “Along Us,” managed to replicate not only its format but also its delayed popularity.
After a year of relative obscurity, “Goose Goose Duck” began exploding on Steam in mid-November. Even stranger, Goose Goose Duck and Among Us became popular for similar reasons: Among Us made a huge leap in 2020 with Korean streamers; Goose Goose Duck went from a few thousand concurrent Steam players in early November to over 150,000 in early December, and Among Us was the first game to go from a few thousand to over 150,000 by early December. It’s not too hard to see why it went from 1,000 to over 150,000 by early December: on November 14, Kim Tae-Hyun of the Korean boy band BTS streamed the game.
Beware of other social scam games, if you want to succeed, you need to endure a not-so-great player count for at least a year, then suddenly explode in popularity through the power of Korean influencers. If you can somehow work that into your plans, that is your best bet.
Why it’s looking the same as Among Us
Goose Duck introduces its own ideas into the “Among Us” formula and is loaded with special roles, as one example. Still, the basic structure is the same, and even the art style is similar, so I don’t think it’s unfair to say that it copies the pandemic phenomenon. In fact, he reported the 2021 release and said at the time, “It’s ‘Among Us’ except for the fact that it’s a duck.”
What was particularly difficult was that once the game started, I was confused about whether I was the good guy or the bad guy, the goose or the duck. This problem was partly due to my particular role as a mimic. The Mimic is described as “being seen by the Duck as a companion.
I’m sure I’m a good person. Still, after the initial accusations against me and after being spared death thanks to a tie vote, I was finally voted dead for reasons that only the most vocal player on the server could understand. Even if I had been a good person, it would have been the right thing to do to eliminate me and allow serious players to flourish.
Goose Duck is free-to-play on Steam. It’s in mobile stores, too.
