March 20th, 2023, Rishad Dsouza
A latest version of Counter Strike is on the horizon, according to rumors. These reports, while unconfirmed, appear to be whipping up a Buzz among gamers in the US.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive logged a 52-week high in its Buzz score this week, shows data from YouGov BrandIndex, which tracks more than fifty popular video game franchises on a daily basis.
The franchise’s Buzz score stood at 3.3 one year ago, and has risen to 9.7 on March 15. What this means is that a larger share of gamers is hearing positive things about the franchise relative to those hearing negative things.
Attention score for CS:GO has climbed to 12.1 as of March 15, doubling from where it was at the start of the year. Attention score measures the percentage of those who have heard anything, whether positive or negative, about a franchise in the past two weeks.
While the Buzz and Attention scores reveal the volumes of gamers who are hearing about CS:GO, Word of Mouth Exposure can give a sense of whether gamers themselves are talking about it in their social circles. As of March 15, 6% of gamers say they have spoken about CS:GO with their friends and family, marginally down from the 52-week high of 8% last observed in the latter half of February.
The stream of reports about a possible new title also seems to have stirred an appetite to play the game. Consideration scores for CS:GO peaked at 12.3 in the second half of February. Although it has since declined to 9.4 as of March 15, it’s still higher than its score a year ago (8.6). Consideration refers to the share of people who say they will consider playing a video game. It’s no surprise then that CS:GO has been registering new concurrent player records on Steam.
Encouragingly for the Valve FPS classic, these upticks have come only on the back of unofficial rumours. If things are executed well, they could expect to see a bigger pop in the metrics once the new title becomes official and the teasers and trailers start rolling out.
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Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on major video gaming franchises. Buzz score is based on the questions: “Over the past two weeks, which of the following video games have you heard something positive about?” and “Now which of the following video games have you heard something negative about?” and delivered as a net score between –100 and +100. Scores reported represent the change between the 30-day daily average between December 1 – December 31, 2022 and January 1 – January 30, 2023. Scores are based on an average sample size of 266 gamers in Great Britain and 468 in the US. Daily figures are based on a four-week moving average.