Loading...
World of Warcraft
Average Sentiment
0.84
Average Monthly Article Count
18.45
First Article Date: August 2001
Highest Monthly Average Sentiment
1.00
Month: February 2020
Lowest Monthly Average Sentiment
0.39
Month: May 2018
Total Articles Count
4,964
Most Active Authors
- Eric Law - Game Rant (652 articles)
- Mike Fahey - Kotaku (298 articles)
- IGN Staff - IGN (244 articles)
Article Source Distribution
Game Rant: 40.79%
Kotaku: 19.18%
IGN: 18.57%
Article Count Frequency Trend
Increasing
Historical Trends of World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
Genre: MMO, Role-playing
Mode: Multiplayer
Release Date: November 23, 2004
Description:World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the high-fantasy universe of Azeroth. Players create characters from various races and classes, exploring a vast world, completing quests, and interacting with NPCs and other players. The game features a rich lore, dynamic player versus player combat, and cooperative raids and dungeons. WoW is known for its expansive, evolving world, regular updates and expansions, and a dedicated community, making it one of the most popular and enduring MMORPGs.
Historical Trends Summary
World of Warcraft has one of the most extensive histories in the video game industry, with countless updates, events, and cultural impacts since its launch in November of 2004. This allows for an easy identification of patterns in its coverage, including its popularity and the sentiment regarding the title.
The first article regarding the World of Warcraft MMORPG was first published in August of 2001 by IGN, which discussed the rumors surroudning the title and as well outlining the world of Azeroth to those that may not be familiar. The rest is history, as to this day the game remains immensely popular.
Additional Observations
After the grumblings of rumors surrounding World of Warcraft's release sparked initial interest in the title, the title enjoyed a relatively high spike for its time even before its launch, hitting a high of 41 articles in April of 2004. It would not record this many articles in a single month again until October of 2020 with 64 articles, more than a decade and a half later. This is likely due to its niche but dedicated community, with a high barrier to entry has the game requires a significant amount of time dedication to progress through its content. Historically, coverage has spike around the release of large content releases, such as the release of the Wrath of the Lich King in November 2008 (28 articles in October), Cataclysm in December 2010 (29 articles), Warlords of Draenor in November 2014 (28 articles), Legion in August 2016 (27 articles), Shadowlands in November 2020 (72 articles), and Dragonflight in November 2022 (167 articles).
World of Warcraft has maintained an average monthly article count of 18.45, which is especially impressive given its extensive timeline since launch. However, prior to 2020 the average articles per month was only approximately 7, whilst since January 2020 the average articles per month has been almost 50.
After World of Warcrafts launch, sentiment dropped precipitously, although this is in part due to a drop in article count. A quick recovery ensure and the game has maintained a relatively high sentiment since. Since 2019, World of Warcrafts sentiment has marginally began to decline, which may in part be due to the criticism surrounding its launch of World of Warcraft Classic which featured layerings of the world instead of a single community for each server.
Count of Articles by Authors
Source Rankings
Highest Average Sentiment Authors
-
1 Alex Osborn (Source: IGN, 12 articles)0.98
-
2 Chris Pereira (Source: Gamespot, 17 articles)0.98
-
3 Katie Williams (Source: IGN, 16 articles)0.98
Lowest Average Sentiment Authors
-
1 Charlie Stewart (Source: Game Rant, 16 articles)0.35
-
2 Charles Onyett (Source: IGN, 24 articles)0.47
-
3 Rhenn Taguiam (Source: Game Rant, 23 articles)0.50
% of Total Articles by Source
Authors & Source Summary
World of Warcraft has been enjoyed a greater diversity of gaming news outlets covering the title, although Game Rant is still a dominating source of articles for the game, comrpising 40.8% of the 4,964 articles. This is roughly the equivalent of IGN and Kotaku combined.
Most gaming news outlets have held a similar consensus on their sentiment regarding World of Warcraft, which has held a historical average sentiment of 0.84 since launch. Coincidently, only two journalists with more than 10 articles have recorded sentiments below 0.50, and only one being recorded as exactly neutral.
Additional Observations
Although Game Rant comprises nearly 41% of the total articles, the largest diversity of journalists covering the title is IGN with 177 journalists, or 35.8% of the total. Comparatively, Game Rant has only 127 journalists or 25.70% of the total.
However, journalist Eric Law (652 articles) from Game Rant is by far the most frequent publisher of articles for World of Warcraft, comprising 13% of all articles written about the game. For contrast, the next most prolific journalist, Mike Fakey (298 articles) from Kotaku, has not published even half of that amount. Notably, IGN has had the largest portion of the articles be collaborative pieces rather than being published by a single journalist, which can be explained by its diversity on the title.
Most news outlets no not vary too singificantly from the average sentiment score of 0.84, with the greatest variance Gamespot being only 0.04 points higher. In fact, PCGamer managed to record a sentiment perfectly inline with the titles historical average. Additionally, the data shows that only two authors with more than 10 articles recorded negative sentiments, Charlie Stewart (16 articles) from Game Rant and Charles Onyett (24 articles) from IGN, which also happens to be the two lowest sentiment gaming news outlets.