The Psychology of the Fall Guys Phenomenon

Fall Guys is the unexpected smash hit video game of 2020 from the United Kingdom-based studio Mediatonic. Within its first week, the game managed to get over 2 million people playing on Steam, and more on PlayStation 4. Since then, the game has grown exponentially. What’s even more impressive is that Fall Guys hasn’t even launched on the XBox or Nintendo Switch.

For a game to have this much success is unprecedented, and after weeks of debating on getting the game, I finally decided to get it yesterday. My son has been watching some of his favorite YouTubers like Markiplier and videogamedunkey play the game, and he’s been wanting to try it too. The bad news is that he’s primarily an XBox player, but the good news is that we can hook the Xbox controller up to my computer to play on steam.

Within the first 24 hours of getting the game, I’m still pretty awful at it, but my son managed to get his first crown. And as a father, many people hope their son will grow up to find a cure for cancer or become president, but I’m satisfied that he managed to get his first crown faster than TimTheTatman.

But today, we’re not here to poke fun at Tim. We’re going to dive into the psychology of how this game blew up and has continued to grow. Each year, there are thousands and thousands of video games that are released, and most of them…