There’s an Among Us imposter among us. Traitor 3D has recently risen 726 spots in category ranking, but something about the app is a little “sus”. Though the gameplay is different and there is no interactive aspect to the game, Traitor 3D has copied Among Us to a tee. The character and location designs as well as tasks are identical, even the tasks and layout are the same.
Creative similarities
The ads try to portray this game as a 3D among us, though it is another game entirely. Even the description of the app bears a great similarity to the original game.
They even go so far as to use the Among Us designs in one of their creatives. This one has an image from Among Us imposed over-top of the background for the knockoff the game.
Deceptive marketing strategy
This is a misleading tactic which is caught by many, but clearly not all, as the app is increasing in category ranking by so much.
Many of the reviews are bad, and the word ripoff occurs frequently as well as the word Among Us. As the 4th commenter down pointed out, this is not the only game that has done this.
When searching the term “imposter” in the keywords search, many more apps taking liberties with the character design of Among Us to different degrees, are using the same tactic.
There are several pages of apps capitalizing on the popularity of Among Us and using this as a marketing strategy.
In actuality, though perhaps ethically ambiguous, this is an extension of the ASO strategy of bidding on other popular App’s Keywords. A fitness app may include the name of another fitness app in its metadata or its targeted keywords. These apps are not only targeting the keywords that people searching for Among Us may be searching for, but they are also trying to look like the app.
This phenomenon is common in many products for children aside from apps. For example, dolls that look like Barbie or films about princesses that hold visual similarities to Disney. Usually, the strategy is to target parents who are less in the know about what their child wants or children who are too young to know or care about the difference.
This particular app is compelling because it has managed to climb so high on the charts. This can be due to particularly smart ASO and marketing on their part. The publisher, SUPERSONIC STUDIOS LTD is the same studio responsible for Chat Master! which we have also written about. This studio has a lot of success with its ASO and marketing strategy in general.
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