Facebook Topic Data shows Sony won the E3 press conference game

17th June 2016

The world’s biggest gaming conference, E3, was held 14-16 June in Los Angeles. There’s no doubt about the importance of this event, with speculation about the release of new games and consoles soaring ahead of the event and games fans watching live streams of games publishers’ press conferences in millions.

This year, Facebook worked together with Pulsar to track E3 conversation among publishers who hosted a press conference at the show. It’s the first time that Facebook has tried to measure sentiment about the video game conference.

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Rick Kelley, the vice president of global gaming at Facebook spoke to VentureBeat about these insights, and said: “This really shows that people are talking about games on Facebook. It’s exciting to pull those insights together to inform more of the industry." Leo Olebe, the director of games partnerships at Facebook, chimed in: “Our job is to connect people with the games they love. This data is based on a live feed of what people are actually feeling and connecting with.”

Using Facebook Topic Data and focusing on interaction from 7-14 June, the following insights could be found through Pulsar:

  • The most discussed game titles after the press conferences were #1 The Elder Scrolls: Legends , #2 God of War, and #3 Titanfall 2
  • In the week leading up to E3, Pulsar found the most discussed games among publishers hosting a press conference were The Elder Scrolls: Legends, The Legend of Zelda, and Watch Dogs 2.
  • Sony had the largest share of voice among publishers who hosted a press conference, capturing over 30% of the conversation from June 7-14
  • Gaming conversation on Facebook climbed tenfold on Sunday, tripled on Monday, and piqued on Tuesday
  • Males dominated the conversation about press conferences with a 72% share of voice, and there was an equal age group split between 18-24 and 25-34 year-olds

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With this information, publishers can anticipate success and work with existing buzz to focus their creative and their content. Especially with peak events like these where timing is crucial to connect with your audience, real-time insights can make all the difference. Peter Jonas, director of gaming for North America also noted in VentureBeat: “The live sentiment analysis is interesting in that it is based on what people are sharing at the moment. This is a very powerful storytelling tool for the publishers.”

Facebook Topic Data is accessible through Pulsar and gives you anonymized, aggregated insights into Facebook. If you’d like to find out more about your audience online with Facebook Topic Data, request a Pulsar demo today: [email protected]

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