Following its worldwide release two years after it initially came out in Japan, Suika Game also known as Watermelon Game has exploded in popularity after high-profile streamers such as Ludwig, LilyPichu, and QTCinderella expanded the game's reach with Western audiences. Created by Alladin X, Suika Game was actually never intended to be a game released for typical gaming audiences as it was originally developed to be played on the company's digital projectors. However, Suika Game proved so popular and successful that it was released by Nintendo on its eShop where it continued to thrive with Japanese gamers.

Now that same success has been replicated with players worldwide as Suika Game was finally made available outside of Japan still via Nintendo's eShop. Yet despite being comparable to the likes of mobile games from a cute, colorful aesthetic to its easy-to-understand but difficult-to-master gameplay, Suika Game has received millions of downloads already within a month of its worldwide launch and has become one of Nintendo's most downloaded games outpacing even its own games such as Pikmin 4 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Its most recent rise in the gaming community, however, is thanks to streamers and VTubers boosting Suika Game's profile.

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Suika Game Had Potential From The Start

While its recent success can be traced back to popular streamers with large audiences bringing attention to the game, it wouldn't be fair to suggest that Suika Game would never have made it big on its own. Proven by the fact that Suika Game was made exclusively available via Nintendo's eShop in Japan after it was praised by Alladin X's customers who bought its digital projectors, it's clear the game was most likely going to be popular with or without any external help. Like other mobile games that saw sudden popularity such as Flappy Bird, Suika Game had an appealing design with simple fruit-merging mechanics all at a very affordable price.

However, without the intervention of Japanese streamers and VTubers such as Hololive Production picking up Suika Game and playing it for its audiences, the game could have just as likely faded into obscurity. Alladin X confirmed in interviews that it only released the game to Nintendo's eShop to build awareness for its projectors and decided against any mobile releases. This approach to marketing Suika Game as an advertisement for Alladin X's products and not as an actual game could have limited its reach if not for Japanese streamers bringing attention to it in early 2023 leading to its eventual worldwide release months later.

How Suika Game Became a Viral Streaming Sensation

Unlike Flappy Bird whose rise gave way to its infamous fall, Suika Game is better compared to games like Among Us when considering how streaming played a role in its resurgence in popularity years after its original release. Just as Among Us became a hit on Twitch during Covid-19 due to its simple, distinctive design and broad accessibility, Suika Game has similarly been picked up by Western streamers after its release outside of Japan for these same reasons. After all, it's a testament to Suika Game being so easy and entertaining to play despite the fact it does not currently support English translation.

So while Suika Game's family-friendly design and simplistic but competitive gameplay ensured the game would be well-received by casual gamers, its renewed surge of success two years after its release is fundamentally down to streamers and VTubers on platforms like Twitch raising the game's notoriety. Likewise, its design and gameplay are also what brought those same streamers to play Suika Game in the first place, and together they led the game to become a viral sensation. While Alladin X reported that Suika Game's Switch sales have exceeded those from its original release, it remains to be seen how long its recent success will last.

Suika Game is available now on Nintendo Switch.

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