Using Player XP, we could identify that Activision’s Call of Duty: Warzone currently has an all-time sentiment of -18. On the Player XP dashboard, we have gathered over 2.3 million interactions from various data sources that we monitor for the game.
It is interesting to see that a game with such a large playerbase has a very negative sentiment, so we are bringing you this blog to give you insights into what is causing this negative sentiment and the pain points that Activision’s community are experiencing. We will also show you how you can use the feature-rich Player XP dashboard to get insights into any game.
Data Overview
Using the Data Overview of the Player XP dashboard, we can see the total number of interactions left for the game, its all-time sentiment, the estimated community size, and the sources we monitor for the game’s data. Player XP currently monitors Reddit, YouTube, Microsoft, Metacritic and Twitter for COD Warzone. For the Twitter data source, we have 4 custom searches set up – these are ‘COD Hashtags Mentions & Replies’ and ‘Gulag Mentions & Replies’.
Reddit is the data source with the most interactions with almost 2 million interactions alone, this is equivalent to 83.27% of the game’s total interactions. Despite having this many interactions, it has an average sentiment of -20, showing a very negative reaction from the majority of players. The data source with the most negative average sentiment is Metacritic with -62.
As you can see from the image above, the Sources table shows you the number of interactions from each data source and the average sentiment of total interactions.
Sentiment Drivers
Using the Sentiment Drivers on the Player XP dashboard we can view the top 5 topics in Warzone with the most positive and negative sentiment. Interestingly, the most negative topic in the game is “Cheaters” with a very negative all-time sentiment of -85. This implies to us that a lot of the discussion around the game is from players cheating which is causing a lot of negative reactions from the community.
This topic has over 40’000 interactions, showing the large number of players who have experienced an issue with “Cheaters”. Activision could use this data to identify this as a major pain point in their game which is causing negative discussion in the community and needs to be addressed. Warzone has so many topics with a negative sentiment that the second topic in the ‘Most Positive’ Sentiment Drivers table has a negative sentiment of -3.
When viewing all-time data for the game, only one topic has an all-time sentiment that is neutral with a sentiment score of 4. This shows the extremely high amount of negativity from the community toward the game. The topic “Activision” is the third most negative topic all-time with a sentiment of -79, showing the frustration of the community toward the developer.
The only topic with a neutral sentiment is “Plunder”. This is a game mode in Warzone which has received some neutral & positive feedback as some players enjoy the game mode. Despite this, it only has an all-time sentiment of 4 which shows that gameplay issues still influence the sentiment and feedback of players even for areas of the game they like. You can see more data for each topic using the “Explore” arrow in the Sentiment Driver tables.
Sentiment Per Channel
The large majority of interactions left for Warzone are from the Online Communities channel. The online community channel we monitor for this game is Reddit. This has over 1.9 million interactions all-time of the game’s total 2.3 million interactions and has an average sentiment of -20. For this channel, “Cheaters” and “Cheating” appear in the Most Negative Sentiment Drivers with -86 & -80 sentiment. From the data we can see it is clear that a major negative to the game is players cheating.
The User Reviews channel has over 4’500 interactions and a sentiment of -37. The sources we monitor for User Reviews are Microsoft and Metacritic. The Most Negative Sentiment Driver for this channel is “Error” with a sentiment of -97. The topic “Unplayable” also features with a sentiment of -96. This shows us that bugs & glitches in the game are making it unplayable for some.
The Sentiment Split graph for this channel shows that since we started gathering data for Warzone in March 2020, over 70% of total interactions have been negative in 12 of those months. This shows the consistency that players have been negatively discussing the game since its release.
For the Social channel, there have been over 390’000 interactions all-time with an average sentiment of 5. However, many of the interactions have still been negative with the 5 Most Negative Sentiment Drivers having over -70 sentiment. The top 9 terms in the Talking Points table for this channel also all have a negative sentiment. This shows the majority of discussion continues to be negative for this channel but the community on Social channels still discuss some positive elements of the game.
Most Discussed Categories
The Most Discussed Categories feature shows the sentiment of all Player XP categories in order of the number of interactions in each category. The top 3 Discussed Categories for Warzone are “Gameplay” with a sentiment of -25, “Online Systems” with a sentiment of -70, and “Game Stability” with a sentiment of -75. Online Systems and Game Stability have the most negative sentiment of all categories for the game. This shows that the community are negatively discussing gameplay elements and this is a pain point which is causing many issues within the game.
By clicking on the Online Systems category we can use the Sentiment Drivers to see that issues with players being banned and more issues with cheating are causing the majority of negative discussions within this category. Viewing the data in the Game Stability category we can see that the most negative topics are “Unplayable”, “Crashes”, and “Error”, showing us that bugs & errors with the game are yet again making it unplayable for many.
The only category with interactions that doesn’t have a negative sentiment is “Story” with a sentiment score of 1. The category with the most negative sentiment is “Account” with a sentiment of -96. Using the Interaction Explorer shows us that the primary reason for this category’s highly negative sentiment is again related to players being ‘unfairly’ banned and more issues with online players cheating.
This demonstrates how you can use Player XP to dive into your community’s data and gather in-depth insights which can help you understand your community and make important decisions around your game.
Audience Type Segmentation
Using the Audience Type Segmentation feature on the Online Communities channel page, we can see that all types of members within the Warzone community have a negative sentiment. This includes Hardcore members who are the most active in the community. The estimated number of Hardcore Members in the community is over 16’000 with a total of over 1.3 million interactions. The average sentiment for interactions left by Hardcore Members is -22. Long Term Members who have posted in the community over the life of the game, have a sentiment of -21 for their 300’000+ interactions. These are the values for the other types of members:
- One Time Members – Community Size 83’810, Sentiment -25
- New Members – Community Size 3’514, Sentiment -14
- Lapsed Members – Community Size 14’872, Sentiment -17
- Intermittent Members – Community Size 64’106, Sentiment -15
- Regular Members – Community Size 31’712, Sentiment -14
This shows us that all members of the community who have either played the game shortly or for its entire life have experienced issues with the game and are leaving negative feedback. Members who have been in the community for longer will have experienced more issues with the game so there is a higher number of interactions with negative sentiment. This could also explain why a lot of negative sentiment is toward the developer, as this shows they may not be listening to players and have not worked to improve the game since its release.
What The Players Are Saying
Using the Interaction Explorer on the Player XP dashboard, you can see posts & interactions that players have left and use the provided filters to customise what you see. The Interaction Explorer shows threads of comments that have been left in online communities or on social media, and you can see User Reviews which we have collected from various data sources.
When viewing User Reviews in the Interaction Explorer the average sentiment of all interactions is -48. Using the ‘Show Category Counts’ button you can see the number of User Reviews left in each category and its average sentiment. In the Interaction Explorer, we can see that many players who have left reviews are complaining about bugs and glitches in the game which are making the gameplay much less enjoyable. As we saw from the Sentiment Drivers, many players are also not happy with players cheating in the game. Many players still praise the game but say that without this issue being addressed the game is currently “Unplayable”.
Activision could use the Interaction Explorer to read threads of comments and reviews left by players so they get a clearer understanding of exactly what the majority of players are saying. You can use these comments and reviews to identify consistent pain points in your community and prioritise fixing them to improve your game.
This Data Shows Us…
From the data Player XP has gathered and analysed for Call of Duty: Warzone, you can easily conclude that despite having such a large playerbase to this day, the large majority of players do not enjoy the game and find it “unplayable” due to the large issue of players hacking and cheating in the game. This contributes to many bugs in the game which are negatively affecting the gameplay experience and therefore causing almost exclusively negative discussion in the Warzone community.
In this article, we have demonstrated how Activision and other studios could use Player XP to identify the sentiment around their game and what specific topics are resulting in players leaving negative interactions.
Thank you for reading, we hope this has given you insight into how you can use Player XP to get a much better understanding of your game’s playerbase and quickly react to your findings. If you have any questions or would like to suggest features to add to Player XP, you can contact us via email or Slack and we will be in touch.
