A
s weglidetowardsE3seasonthegaming
communityisbracedfora glutoftrailers,
announcementsandothermarketing
gubbins.Someofthesedigitalbidsfor
yourattentionwillsinkwithbarelya
retweet,butotherswilltearroundtheinternetathigh
speed,passedfromtweettotweet,chuckedonto
Facebookfeeds,dissectedinsubredditsandmore.But
howdocompaniesnavigateviralityanduseit totheir
advantage?That’swherefirmslikePulsarcomein.
MarcGeffen,Pulsar’svicepresidentofUSstrategyand
researchdescribesPulsarasanaudienceintelligence
company.“Ultimately,wehelpclientsconnectthedots
betweenwhattheiraudiencesaysonsocialmedia,how
theythinkwhileconductinga search,andwhatthey
actuallydoontheirwebsite.”Thisinvolvespullingdata
fromsocialmedia,search,webanalyticsandAI-powered
imageanalysisandbeingabletointerpretit.
SomeoftheworkPulsardoesforbrandsis coveredby
non-disclosureagreementssowecan’tnamethe
company,butGeffengivesusanexampleofthework.
Pulsarspentaroundninemonthsofresearchonthe
launchofa sequeltitlefora toppublisher.Theytracked
socialaudiencereactionsateachstage,includingthe
initialannouncement,E3,consolereleaseandPCrelease.
e n
x xxx xx
x
Themainaimwastofigureoutwhowaspartofthe
conversation around the game, who was missing and why.
A lot of it hinged around the resonance of the game’s story
and thus the age-old problem for sequels: how do you
satisfy core fans and use the story to add richness and
depth to a world they know while also appealing to new
players who need the story to be approachable and for the
concepts to be sticky?
To track that type of feedback Pulsar can follow
various lines of enquiry. One example involves isolating all
the conversations about storyline then drilling down into
the ones where clear emotions and perceptions are
revealed (it’s confusing, it’s delightful, it’s underwhelming
etc). From there they’d try to understand the type of
persona each point of view was coming from. Once they
had an accurate sense of which perceptions tied to which
audience segments they could use those to create filters
and apply those filters to the whole dataset.RESEARCHING REACTIONS
After the game’s release the research continued, this time
looking at critical feedback and issues being raised by the
community. “In short, the brief was to understand how
negative opinions from some core fans who were
underwhelmed by the release diffused to the
mainstream,” says Geffen.Comparing games
can yield useful data.Virality
study
Pulsar has
identified two
models of
virality. There’s
the ‘spike’ where
you get a sudden
explosion of
activity and a
more gradual
‘growth’ pattern.
Grower
audiences tend
to be more
fragmented and
need a push to
artificially
spread. Spikers
are more
cohesive but that
means the info
passes through
them faster.IRAL TRANSMISSION
How audience analysis can help game trailers spread
PCG INVESTIGATES
Special
Report