Holy shit its like this author just experienced his very first 'cultural wave' phenomenon and then decided that literally every small detail around it was some critical reason for its success.

There are probably labs out there they have figured out how to send 'viral waves' out into the economy and profit from it, but thats all this is. Game of Thrones was an example, The Walking Dead was an example, Fortnite was an example, and Roblox was an example. Those examples highlight two very different viral culture waves. The kids playing games and the grown ups watching tv, but they highlight the exact same phenomenon.

As for this game itself its probably exactly like Among Us and the million other little indie games like it that shot up in popularity 'out of know where' except it wasn't out of nowhere at all. It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership.