August 2nd, 2023, Rishad Dsouza
Amid the launch of a new expansion pack, Sims 4 witnessed a sharp uptick in its Buzz scores among gamers in the US. The franchise’s score rose eight points from 1.8 in June 2023 to an average of 9.8 for July.
In addition to chatter about the Horse Ranch Expansion Pack, the franchise may have been able to pick up Buzz points by engaging fans in the development of the next Sims game.
A franchise’s Buzz score is the difference between the percentage of respondents hearing positive things (from friends, family, or the media) and the percentage hearing negative things about it in the past two weeks. This Buzz movers piece highlights the video game franchises that registered the biggest month-over-month upticks in Buzz scores among gamers. Gamers are defined as those who play on PC or console for at least an hour each week.
Minecraft gained the second-biggest uptick in the US, rising by 7 points from 12.5 to 19.5, while Halo closes off the top three with a 3.9-point uptick.
Call of Duty claims the top spot in the Buzz charts among British players, with gains likely linked to the launch of the trailer of season 5 of Modern Warfare II and Warzone.
Dota gained a Buzz uptick of 2.8 points, possibly benefitting from the Riyadh Masters 2023 Dota 2 event, which concluded on July 31. Minecraft rounds off the British section of the list with a 2.2-point increase.
Explore our living data - for free
Want to run your own research? Start building a survey now
To receive monthly insights about the video gaming industry register here.
To read YouGov’s latest intelligence on gaming and e-sports explore here.
Make smarter business decisions with better intelligence. Understand exactly what your audience is thinking by leveraging our panel of 20 million+ members. Speak with us today.
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 June 1 – June 30, 2022 and July 1 – July 31, 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.