Is your game getting the hype it deserves?

PC and console gaming evolves at sonic speeds, with more and more games, franchises, and IPs vying for players’ time, attention, and money.

In an overcrowded and ever-changing market, how do you know if your game is getting the hype it deserves?

Let's look into how to use pre-release consumer metrics like unaided and aided awareness and purchase intent to gauge whether your game is grabbing enough attention and sparking the desire to purchase it.

Pre-release unaided awareness: the “buzz” around your game

Unaided awareness gives you an unbiased snapshot of a game’s buzz. Tracking this metric helps you measure your game’s visibility over time and gauge consumer interest pre-release and after it hits the market. ?

To gather unaided awareness data for Newzoo's Game Health Tracker, we ask players in the survey to think of announced titles that have yet to be released. There is no other prompting, meaning that it measures the spontaneous recall of the entire possible market.

There are many ways to slice and dice unaided awareness data, but one viable option is to compare similar games with similar launch windows. Let's look at Tekken 8, Grand Theft Auto VI, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III to see this metric in practice:

The data above shows that unaided awareness of the Tekken series grew steadily in anticipation of Tekken 8. Although the other two titles had more buzz overall, Tekken’s unaided awareness continued to grow.

Having the most buzz is not necessarily the name of the game. In this example, it's a contributing factor alongside existing fanbases and franchise popularity. In other words, if your game doesn’t have the same buzz as a GTA-style title, it doesn’t mean it’s not performing well in its own right.

Pre-release aided awareness: A game’s broader recognition and reach

While unaided awareness measures spontaneous recall (the “buzz”), aided awareness gives you a glimpse into a game’s maximum reach versus a curated list of other titles. It’s an effective metric for measuring whether your marketing strategies are hitting the mark with the right audience.

Unlike unaided awareness, which measures general buzz by asking players to identify the first games that come to mind, aided awareness involves showing players a list of titles so they can pick the ones they know or have heard of.

Coupled with unaided awareness, this metric provides more context into how well-known your game is in a more targeted way beyond the general zeitgeist.

Similarly to unaided awareness, many factors can influence aided awareness, including competing releases, a franchise’s scale, and how popular the genre is (and how popular an IP is in a given genre). Comparing a game to similar titles can help you build a stronger strategy for establishing a game in the right market.

Let’s look back at Tekken 8. The game ranked seventh for aided awareness in January 2024, significantly higher than its unaided awareness. Its aided awareness jumped up in August, following a trailer release at Gamescom 2023, and again in the months leading to its release (thanks to fresh character and gameplay reveals). ?

Comparing this to the pre-launch of Mortal Kombat 1, the latter game held a higher profile overall, with a drop in awareness over the summer before a surge ahead of its release. The next entry in the legendary fighting title had a short lead time between its announcement and release. So, drip-feeding information and releasing consistent trailers may explain why its awareness curve differed from Tekken 8’s.

Pre-release purchase intent: Insights into a game’s primary target audiences

Once you understand how many people are generally aware that your game exists, you can also find out who would be interested in actually buying it by measuring its purchase intent.

Before a game’s release, we ask players surveyed how likely they are to pick up the title. Players can answer that they intend to purchase the game, are considering it, or don’t think they’ll buy the title.

This key metric helps to gauge commercial interest in a game before its release, indicating the effectiveness of your pre-release campaign. However, it’s important to remember that purchase intent, being a self-reported survey metric, doesn’t guarantee actual sales.

Genuine interest is one of the markers of a game’s primary target audience.

Awareness on its own doesn’t suggest conversion, but purchase intent does to an extent. For instance, assuming awareness is driven by media spend, NetherRealm Studios might have expected a more substantial increase in its intent curve for Mortal Kombat 1. Purchase intent rose in the final month before release, though not as steeply as awareness.

Benchmark your games and their hype against competing titles and franchises

Generating hype is only one step toward a game’s commercial success. Benchmarking a game’s pre-release conversion rate from awareness to purchase intent can gauge the effectiveness of your pre-launch efforts versus competing titles.

You need to ask questions like, “Where will my expenditure yield the greatest impact?” and “Who should be my primary target players, and where can I reach them?”

In our newest free guide, the Newzoo consumer research and insights team produced The ultimate game hype tracking guide to explain how to track and benchmark pre- and post-launch performance and profile and reach your game’s primary and secondary audiences.

We go beyond the initial hype metrics of unaided and aided awareness and purchase intent and dig into conversion rates, primary and secondary player demographics, and gamer motivations.

Source: Game Health Tracker