Various video game titles have seen immense popularity on Twitter this year, and the head of Twitter Sports Canada shared how these titles rose to prominence and how other developers can be just as successful in bringing awareness to their game. Of the 1 billion tweets shared pertaining to gaming this year, a large portion were dedicated to specific titles that took off in 2020.
If anything good came from 2020, it’s the video games that were released this year. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was one of the first hit titles to release this year, and since its release in March it has sold over 22.4 million copies. The island vacation simulator remains popular today with plenty of creators sharing their designs online every day. Fall Guys is another title that was released his year and instantly became a hit on social media and among gamers. Selling 2 million copies at launch, Fall Guys had set a record for the best launch in Devolver Digital history.
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In an interview with Screen Rant, the head of Twitter Sports Canada Conor Clarance points out similarities in these titles that are the key to why they have seen so much success on Twitter. “This year, Canada has had four million tweets about Animal Crossing,” stated Clarance. “Animal Crossing has become the most talked-about game in Canada. When you think about the reasoning why is it’s this highly shareable game. Look at the outfits that people make, inviting people to your island, and even the turnip stock market. People are talking about all of these conversations on Twitter.” Clarance also attributes some of Animal Crossing’s success to the time it was released calling it a “perfect storm“.
Even games that weren’t released at the “perfect time” have seen massive success, most notably Fall Guys and Among Us. Clarance said, “Fall Guys leaned into Twitter before branching out to other platforms months later. They did a really good job of building this amazing follower base and really owning a moment in time. They launched a game in 2020 that’s highly shareable, multiple people could engage, the barrier for entry is really easy, and it wasn’t this hyper-competitive setting.” Clarance goes on to state that Among Us has become popular thanks to its moments of sharability, and that is it easy to understand.
Three of the biggest games of the year that have had lasting popularity all have a couple of things in common: they are easy and are fun to share. During the interview, Clarance emphasized the importance of shareability if a game wants to have lasting success. Other games that launched this year may have been amazing titles, but are no longer talked about on social media because there is nothing to share beyond its base gameplay. Not every game is meant to be as shareable as Among Us, but games that want that level of exposure on Twitter need to be shareable.
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