GameTech: No surprises that Among Us topped the charts of Googled games over the past year
Among Us was the most searched video-game term on Google last year.
We all did a bit of soul-searching last year, but a lot of online searching too. According to Google, here are the Top Ten Games that were searched last year around the world, and our guesses why.
A bit confounding, this one. Dragon Quest is a hugely popular fantasy-themed role-playing game in Japan.
Dragon Quest Walk is the series equivalent of Pokemon Go, requiring players to visit real world locations to play the game.
During a year in which we weren’t allowed to walk anywhere, Dragon Quest Walk appears in the Top Ten Searches?
Perhaps players were desperate to understand if the game could be played from home.
Although it might seem like a typical entry at first glance, there’s an interesting twist behind Call of Duty: Warzone.
This isn’t the standard annual Call of Duty entry, but instead a free-to-play Battle Royale.
Proving, perhaps, that the main franchise has had its day, and free-to-play might be here to stay.
Although sales have already proven how popular Nintendo’s island sanctuary was in 2020, it’s still surprising to see Animal Crossing break into the Top Ten searches.
With so many activities to pursue in the game, like fishing and building and gardening, our guess is that players searched many times over for answers.
Like Messi and Ronaldo. On every list.
The most surprisingly entry. Like the protagonist samurai, Ghost of Tsushima snuck in and cleaned up.
Although Tsushima is a fantastic game, we suspect it made the Top 10 by virtue of being the only major game to release on PS4 during the peak of the initial lockdown.
Although it was swiftly followed by…
The sequel to one of the PS3’s greatest games, this was always going to be a popular search.
However, we believe the reasons for Last of Us Part 2 being so high up the list are less to do with the game’s appeal, and more to do with the associated controversy.
Major plot points were leaked ahead of release, confirming that the sequel would take an unexpected approach to the world and its characters, which a vocal minority rejected.
Impact is the right word.
Although many people consider numbers 1 and 2 on this list to be the success story of last year, we give the ‘true gamer’ nod to Genshin Impact.
Not only did Genshin Impact manage to adequately ape the brilliant Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it did so across multiple platforms and on a free-to-play model that actually works.
Earned its spot on the search list by costing nothing and also being across multiple platforms.
Much like Call of Duty Warzone and Genshin Impact, Valorant is free-to-play, and the results are obvious – a lot more people are suddenly interested.
It also helps that Valorant was made by Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, one of the world’s most popular games.
Riot are headquartered in Dublin, so we’ll count this one as an Irish win.
There’s not much more that can be written about Fall Guys, or the game that took top spot, except that their values to a pandemic youth were clear – both games are about operating in crowds of people, something we weren’t allowed to do.
Fall Guys exploded in the second half of 2020 and the search results did too.
People weren’t just searching for the intruders – they were searching for the game too.
The biggest game of 2020 was always going to take top spot in the searches. The real question will be if it can do the same in 2021.
Google’s results are generated based on spikes from previous year’s results, indicating why Fortnite and Minecraft did not make the list.
‘PlayStation 5’ was likely not included as it isn’t a game, but a games console.
