Goose Goose Duck—a social deduction game populated by lazy-eyed geese with, apparently, customizable farts—is tearing up the Steam charts. The game has been out since 2021, released in the wake of Among Us’ crewmate-shaped shadow, but its recent surge in popularity isn’t because of an inexplicable renewed interest in playing detective, but K-pop.
It seems to have started that way, at least. The game, which involves completing a mission with teammates while trying to unmask a traitor (or as one Steam review puts it, “Amongoose”), made it on BTS member Kim “V” Tae-hyung’s Weverse stream, where he plays multiplayer games like Fall Guys with fans, back in November.
Weverse is Korean entertainment company Hybe Corporation’s version of Patreon, essentially, a spot for fans to interact with BTS and each other after they pay for a membership fee. And pay they do. By December 5, Tae-hyung’s Goose Goose Duck stream had already stacked over 8 million views on the fan app, Korean gaming magazine Game Meca reports. Those views had a real impact. After the game’s Weverse debut, its player count got an astronomic kick—from around 4,000 players in November to 61,000 in December.
“In 10 days after V’s broadcast, Goose Goose Duck’s number of users increased five times, and about two weeks later, it increased more than 10 times,” a translation of that Game Meca article says.
But Tae-hyung hasn’t streamed Goose Goose Duck since November, and the game has only been getting more popular. On January 2, massive player demand forced developers to improve server capacity. The game also recently reached its all-time peak on January 5 with 563,677 concurrent players, SteamDB indicates. In comparison, Among Us peaked at 447,476 concurrent players two years ago. And that’s in spite of Tae-hyung streaming that game in November, too. So maybe K-pop doesn’t have the golden touch. Maybe people just really love geese.