Werewolf Among Us tops download charts in China
According to a report by the South China Morning Post, Werewolf Among Us, a Chinese clone of the globally popular game, Among Us, managed to top the 'free games' chart on the App Store on 2nd November.
Cloned or reskinned video games are common in China, as many Western games are either unavailable or delayed in the region. Tencent has been the giant of the region with games like Honor of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite long dominating the charts.
Among Us clone tops the download charts in China
Having cloned games like Honor of Kings (League of Legends) and Knives Out (Playerunknown's Battlegrounds), Among Us being cloned doesn't come as a surprise to the community. However, with China already having a similar version of Among Us in the form of an in-person party game known as Werewolf, it took Chinese players some time before warming up to Among Us.
According to Qimai data, Among Us is the tenth most downloaded game in the region with more than 885,000 downloads despite not having any Chinese language support for the game.
However, Werewolf Among Us has heavily grown in the region after being released by Shenzhen Youliang Technology on 28th October. The game had over 478,000 downloads on the App Store over Honor of Kings' 112,000 and Peacekeeper Elite's 111,000 downloads, according to Qimai data.
Despite cloning the map and gameplay mechanics from the original game, Werewolf Among Us is set in a medieval castle in comparison to Among Us' setting of a spaceship.
Zheng Jintiao, co-founder of online media outlet GamerBoom, said:
"For any Among Us-like games, so long as they have a Chinese language option, there will be downloads no matter how terrible the game may be,”
However, Zheng also went on to add:
"But I think this kind of game won’t be copied by big companies because they are hard to monetize in China.”
That being said, it looks like Werewolf Among Us has better days ahead as the community in China turns it into a mainstream game.