"The BTS Effect": BTS's V Causes An Indie Game To Go Viral After His Livestream

On November 14, 2021, BTS‘s V surprised fans with a live broadcast where he played online games with ARMYs, and it unsurprisingly became hilariously chaotic. While the live broadcast left a lasting impression on fans, it also significantly impacted an indie game he played.

BTS V’s Nov. 14 (KST) livestream | Weverse

On November 13, BTS’s V went live to quickly check in with ARMYs, turning the low-key broadcast into a “boyfriend material” moment as fans felt like they were hanging out with the artist.

While he only spent six minutes online that day, he promised to come back soon and spend more time with ARMYs.

BTS V’s Nov. 13 (KST) livestream | Weverse

The next day, V kept his promise and greeted ARMYs with an interactive broadcast, playing against fans in games like Goose Goose Duck and Fall Guys.

V’s game of Goose Goose Duck created one of the most memorable moments of his live when he encountered the hilarious fan, “Woong,” and didn’t know how to react to their unwavering loyalty.

player woong k wording everyone but taehyung so that they could be together till the very end… i get you i get you pic.twitter.com/BTsq5gIuPE

— taehyung loops (@loopsvante) November 14, 2022

Goose Goose Duck is an indie multi-player game that is very similar to the popular online game, Among Us.

Recently, the indie game has seen an incredible surge in active users, and its sudden popularity is being traced back to V’s legendary live broadcast.

This Among Us-like is huge on Steam thanks to a BTS member: https://t.co/rcyFeVGxCv pic.twitter.com/vJQILC4ye3

— Rock Paper Shotgun (@rockpapershot) January 5, 2023

Steam, an online game platform, recorded a peak of 69,300 players when the game was released in October 2021.

After V’s livestream, the game went from having “6,000 peak concurrent players in mid-November to nearly 130,000 peak concurrent players a month later,” according to Polygon.

Steamcharts data tracked an increase in active players in the evenings in Korea as well, another indication of BTS’s incredible influence.

The nearly 250,000 player increase on Goose Goose Duck caused a server outage on January 2, and the game’s developers, Gaggle Studios, Inc., acknowledged the incredible number of active players while assuring fans that server capacity was being increased as quickly as possible.

We expected a large increase in players but not like this. We're working on increasing capacity as fast as we can and will keep everyone updated. We apologize for the inconvenience, we're all working hard so everyone can play. pic.twitter.com/ZqDpqC8T9L

— Goose Goose Duck (@ggd_game) January 2, 2023

BTS continues to prove that whatever they touch turns to gold!

When BTS was releasing their individual vlogs, many of them contributed to increased customers for local businesses. Read more on that below!