Gaming Buzz – Jan 2024: Call of Duty claims crown in US and Britain

Call of Duty has been in the news recently amid the release of season 1 of Modern Warfare III as well as the recently leaked glimpses of a cancelled sci-fi CoD title. Chatter around the franchise was largely positive in the opening month of 2024, as evidenced by Buzz score jumps among gamers in both the US and Britain.

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.

CoD gained 16.7 points among gamers in the US, while scores in Britain rose 5.7 points.

Roblox’s scores grew 7.2 points among US gamers from 4.3 in December to 11.5 in January. 

Mortal Kombat rounds off the US segment of the list with a 6.7-point bump. Fans of the franchise were pretty buzzed about an image tweeted out by the Mortal Kombat 2 movie director, appearing to showcase a character who’ll be in the film, who fans were reasonably convinced is Quan Chi.

Among gamers in Britain, FIFA (+9.0) and EA Sports FC (+5.6) made the biggest gains. EA Sports FC’s gains may have been an outcome of activations such as ‘Team Of The Year’, which gets gamers involved in selecting a star XI. FIFA’s upticks very likely are a consequence of fans still associating the license with the EA football game, even though that partnership ended in 2022.