How Among Us Went from 30 Players to 500 Million Downloads
Three indie developers launched a simple game in 2018. For six months, barely 100 people played it. The servers
Three indie developers launched a simple game in 2018. For six months, barely 100 people played it. The servers crashed when they hit 1,800 users.
Two years later, that same game peaked at 3.8 million concurrent players and made over $105 million.
The Among Us story isn’t about overnight success. It’s about a team that almost quit three times, the power of building relationships for over a decade, and why timing beats everything else.
Three Failures Before Success
Marcus Bromander and Forest Willard didn’t start with Among Us. They started with failure.
Project one: “Nuclear Throne, but not good.” Scrapped after a year.
Project two: Dig2China, a mobile game that found a small audience but nothing more.
Project three: Deitied, a multiplayer game that got shelved when they realized nobody wanted it.
By 2018, InnerSloth had burned through three failed projects and was running out of money. Most startup teams quit at this point. Instead, they decided to make one final game.
A Game Nobody Wanted
Among Us launched in June 2018. The concept was simple: crewmates complete tasks while imposters try to eliminate them. Think Mafia, but with colorful space characters.
The response was brutal.
For six months, fewer than 100 people played at once. When they finally hit 1,800 users, their cheap Amazon servers crashed. Most indie games die at this point. Among Us almost did.
The team needed at least 30 concurrent players for the game to work properly. They even lowered the minimum from five players to four because “four players is baaaarely playable.”
But something kept them going when logic said quit.
The Secret Weapon: 13 Years of Audience Building
Here’s where the Among Us story reveals its first crucial lesson. Success wasn’t random.
Marcus Bromander, InnerSloth’s co-founder, also goes by Puffballs United. He had been building an audience since 2007 as a flash game developer on Newgrounds. By 2018, he had 16,700 fans on Newgrounds and 25,500 Twitter followers.
That 13-year investment in audience building provided the initial spark Among Us needed. Even so, their previous game Bombernauts had bombed despite this following, managing only 87 Steam reviews. Building an audience guarantees attention, not success.
The lesson? Overnight successes usually have decade-long foundations.
The Slow Build: 2018-2020
By May 2019, Among Us hit 1 million downloads. This milestone convinced InnerSloth to add more content. They released the Mira HQ map in August 2019 and Polus in November 2019.
After adding the third map, the team made a crucial decision: Among Us was complete. No more content would be added. They were ready to move on to their next project.
But the streaming world had other plans. A UK streamer named Kaif and his friends started playing Among Us, generating a new wave of European players. This created enough activity to catch Steam’s attention.
In February 2020, Steam reached out offering a daily deal. InnerSloth put the game 50% off for 24 hours. Each day of the sale produced an entire month’s worth of normal sales. More importantly, thousands of players wishlisted the game.
Those wishlists sat dormant for months until the Steam Summer Sale in June 2020. InnerSloth dropped the price to 75% off, hitting an all-time low. The combination of wishlists and deep discount created momentum, but the game still wasn’t viral.
The Viral Explosion: August 2020
Everything changed in July 2020 when Twitch streamer Sodapoppin played Among Us for over four hours. Brazilian and South Korean streamers had been playing it earlier, but Sodapoppin’s audience was different. His stream demonstrated how the game worked as entertainment, not just gameplay.
The timing was perfect. COVID-19 had people stuck at home, hungry for social connection. Among Us offered a way to play with friends remotely while creating memorable, shareable moments.
The numbers exploded:
- August 2020: 100 million downloads
- September 2020: 1.5 million concurrent players
- Late September 2020: 3.8 million concurrent players peak
- September 2020: 4 billion YouTube views
- October 2020: 13 billion TikTok views
The viral growth wasn’t just about player count. Among Us became a cultural phenomenon, spawning memes, fan art, and countless reaction videos.
The Revenue Reality
How Among Us went from 30 players to 500 million downloads translated into serious money. The game generated $105 million in revenue from launch through 2025. In September 2020 alone, Among Us had 60 million daily active players.
The revenue model was brilliant in its simplicity: free-to-play on mobile with cosmetic purchases, $5 on PC. Players could buy hats, pets, and skins to customize their characters. The low barrier to entry maximized player count while cosmetics provided steady revenue.
InnerSloth’s success enabled them to launch Outersloth, an indie game fund to support other developers. “We are incredibly lucky with the success of The Henry Stickmin Collection and Among Us,” they wrote. “Sharing our success and supporting indie games is incredibly important to us.”
The Hard Lessons
Among Us’s journey offers crucial insights for startup founders:
Persistence beats perfection. InnerSloth failed three times before Among Us. Most entrepreneurs quit after one failure. The team that wins is often the one that survives longest.
Build your audience before you need it. Marcus’s 13 years of audience building provided the initial foundation. Without those early adopters, Among Us might have died at 30 concurrent players.
Timing matters more than features. Among Us wasn’t technically superior to existing social deduction games. But it launched when people desperately needed social connection during lockdowns.
Simple can be superior. The game’s minimalist design made it accessible to all ages and easy to stream. Complex games often fail because they’re hard to understand quickly.
Plan for viral growth. InnerSloth nearly missed their moment because their servers couldn’t handle success. When growth comes, infrastructure must scale immediately.
The Current Reality
Among Us has cooled from its 2020 peak but remains profitable. Monthly active users dropped to 30 million by 2024, split across mobile, PC, and VR platforms. The game continues generating revenue through cosmetics and new content updates.
InnerSloth cancelled Among Us 2 to focus on improving the original game. “Seeing how many people are enjoying Among Us 1 really makes us want to be able to support the game and take it to the next level,” they explained.
The studio now operates as a fully independent company with no investors, publishers, or acquisition pressure. They proved that indie developers can build sustainable businesses without giving up control.
The Real Takeaway
The Among Us story isn’t about getting lucky with streamers. It’s about a team that built audience relationships for over a decade, survived multiple failures, and positioned themselves to capitalize when timing aligned.
Most “overnight successes” follow this pattern: years of preparation, multiple failures, relationship building, then sudden explosive growth when conditions align.
The entrepreneurs who succeed aren’t necessarily the smartest or most innovative. They’re the ones who survive long enough to catch their wave.
Sources
- Among Us Revenue and Usage Statistics – Business of Apps
- Brief history of InnerSloth: Three attempts to abandon Among Us – Game World Observer
- How Among Us Grew its User Base by 1600% in 8 Months – MoEngage
- Among Us: The 6 lessons of their viral success – How To Market A Game
- Among Us – Wikipedia
- Inside Innersloth – Official Company Site
- Outersloth – Official Indie Game Fund
