The blockbuster game, "Splatoon 3"! What is Nintendo's Strategy and How are Consumers Reacting?

Splatoon 3 is the third installment of Nintendo's third-person shooter game Splatoon. In this game, players aim to win by defeating opponents while expanding their own territory using weapons that launches ink. In addition to various battle modes such as "Turf War," in which players try to seize a larger position than the opposing team, and "Splat Zones," in which players can make a specific area their own for a certain period of time, there is also a "Hero Mode" for single players.

In this article, we will analyze Splatoon 3, which was released in September 2022 and is experiencing huge popularity, from a marketing perspective.

The analysis will be conducted using Dockpit, VALUES' online behavior analytics tool that enables users to analyze competitor sites and research trends within the browser, using behavioral data that is updated monthly.

First, let's look at the number of searches for "Splatoon 3" over the last two years.

We can see that the number of searches increased in February and September of 2021 and February, April, August, and September of 2022. These are the months when the "Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct]" video, in which new information about Splatoon 3 was released, and gameplay videos are shown on the Nintendo’s official YouTube channel.

Considering that the number of searches has been increasing with every new video posted, it is clear that YouTube has played an important role.

In addition, the official Splatoon 3 website was launched in April 2022. This has resulted in a relatively larger number of searches than before, although there were no notable events from May to July 2022. The particularly large increases in the number of searches seen in August and September 2022 can be attributed to the fact that a pre-launch event was held in August, where people were able to experience Splatoon 3 before its release, and that September is the month of its release.

Here are the Splatoon 3-related videos uploaded on YouTube by Nintendo's official YouTube channel from February 2021, when Splatoon 3 was announced, to October 2022.

In total, 20 videos have been uploaded. The videos in red are the top 3 videos in this list in terms of views (excluding those videos that were a compilation of multiple videos). The top video is "Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct 2021.2.18]," which is the video where Splatoon 3 was announced. In this video, there is relatively little information available about new features of Splatoon 3, and it is considered to be more of just an "announcement."

The “Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct 2021.9.24]” and “Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct 2022.2.10]” that followed provided more information about new weapons, levels, moves, and more. However, even in these videos, there wasn’t much of an explanation, and leaving the rest to imagination.

The second most highly-viewed video is also "Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct 2022.8.10]." Some of the reasons why this video ranks so high may be that the video is longer and better-explains the new elements in the game. While other "Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct]" videos are 1 to 3 minutes in length, this video is 30 minutes long, and it can be inferred that the number of views increased since the length of the video suggested that it includes lots of new information. Also, the Splatoon 3 release date is September 9, 2022, so a large amount of information was released in the video exactly one month before the game’s release date. We can speculate that Nintendo may have tried to further hype up the excitement surrounding Splatoon 3 in preparation for its launch.

And in third place is the Splatoon 3 gaming video filmed from the perspective of a real user. Most of the previous videos were shown from a bird's-eye view, but this video was the first to show the actual gameplay of Turf War, which can be synonymous with Splatoon. The fact that this video ranks high in the number of views indicates that users are still looking for footage of the game actually being played.

We will now break down the period from the announcement of Splatoon 3 in February 2021 to the present (October 2022) into the following three time periods.

Pre-launch period: February 2021 - March 2022
Pre-order & pre-launch event period: April - August 2022
Post-launch period: September - October 2022

What websites did those searching for "Splatoon 3" visit during the pre-launch period?

The official Nintendo website accounts for about half of the total. This indicates that many users visit the official website at this time of the year, when it is still long before the launch and information is still limited. Following the official Nintendo website were GameWith and Famitsu.com, which provide the latest game information, reviews, and strategy information. All of these top three websites had a high percentage of inflows to articles introducing the latest information with explanations, coinciding with the release of Nintendo's information.

Looking at Twitter, which ranked fifth in terms of number of incoming users, we looked at which tweets posted by the official Nintendo Twitter account during the pre-launch period were particularly noteworthy, and found the following tweets.

Tweets announcing that information would be released in the future, along with greeting cards and other illustrations, gathered lots of attention. It seems that Twitter posts were used to keep people interested in Splatoon 3 and to let them know when new information would be released. Even if there was no new information to be announced with Nintendo Direct, the strategy was to keep the public's interest by posting tweets regularly or coinciding with special events, such as Halloween, that would help increase the anticipation around the launch of the new game.

Another feature during the pre-launch period was the age of users per inflow websites.

The four websites, with the exception of Twitter, have the highest percentage of their users in their 40s, while Twitter has the highest percentage of users in their 20s. However, this does not seem to be because the age of Twitter users is low to begin with. The graph below shows the ages of the users of the above five websites during the same period (the upper graph shows the ages of the users who visited each website through searching "Splatoon 3" and the lower graph shows the ages of the users who visited each website). The graph below shows that the percentage of users in their 20s on Twitter is the lowest among the five websites.

These findings suggest that among those who searched for "Splatoon 3" in their browsers, most of those in their 20s tended to click on Twitter among the pages displayed in the search results.

Next, let's look at the types of websites that those searching "Splatoon 3" visited during the pre-order and pre-launch event periods.

The official Nintendo website is also in ranked at the top, but this is down from 47.9% in the pre-launch period. Other changes from the pre-launch period include a shift from GameWith to GAME Watch, which also posts game reviews and the latest information, in second place. In addition, the game strategy website Gamepedia and the Nintendo online shop My Nintendo Store have replaced YouTube and Twitter as social media.

As the name implies, this pre-order and pre-launch event period seemed to be all about pre-orders and pre-launch. One of the reasons for this is that My Nintendo Store ranked 5th, with more than 50% of My Nintendo Store visitors viewing the pre-order page (now the purchase page) for the downloadable version of Splatoon 3.

Let's also look at the inflow pages among GAME Watch, Gamepedia, and Famitsu.com visitor.

It is clear that many users were looking for information about pre-order perks and lowest prices. Also, articles about the new character amiibo and weapons have received a lot of attention at this time of the year, as people can actually play the game on the day before the launch and detailed information is revealed in "Splatoon 3 [Nintendo Direct]."

It may be that many users feel that a specialized game strategy website is more suitable for gathering detailed information than social media such as Twitter, where the number of characters per post is limited, or YouTube, where it is relatively difficult to locate specific pieces of information they are looking for in a lengthy.

Lastly, we will look at which websites those searching for "Splatoon 3" have visited after the launch of the game.

One of the major changes was that the Nintendo's official website was the most popular, but it changed to GameWith, and four of the top five websites are so-called game strategy websites. The reason for this change can be attributed to the fact that other websites, with the release of the game, began to carry reliable information based on actual play, which Nintendo's official website does not introduce.

In addition, unlike the pre-launch period and the pre-order/pre-launch event period, when one website led the pack in terms of the number of incoming visitors, the inflows to each website were relatively equal. This suggests that there is no single website that provides extremely useful information, and that the information available on all websites is not that different. In fact, a comparison of GameWith and Game8's Splatoon 3-related information pages shows that the content introduced is almost identical, such as the strongest weapon rankings and Hero Mode strategies. Therefore, it is thought that the number of users who are satisfied with simply looking at the top SEO websites or the websites they usually use has increased, and that users are similarly dispersed among the various websites.

Looking at the pages viewed by visitors to the four websites, excluding the official Nintendo website, most were articles about game strategy and how to deal with telecommunication errors. The number of inflows on one page was not very large for this website as well, and the inflows were equally distributed. This suggests that most of the information presented on these game strategy websites is equally useful to users. Conversely, it may mean that these game strategy websites have accurately captured the information that users want to know, and have not overloaded them with too much or too little.

Lastly, here are the changes seen throughout the period.
First, here are the percentages of male and female among those searching "Splatoon 3."

As time passed since the announcement, the ratio of men to women approached half. It can be seen that in the early days since the announcement, interest was mainly from males, but as the release date approached, interest from females increased as well. The fact that both men and women were interested in Splatoon 3 is thought to have led to its huge success.

According to a survey conducted by Famitsu, 73.9% of male users and 26.1% of female users of the previous Splatoon 2, had purchased the game one month after its launch. While not all users who search for "Splatoon 3" will purchase the game, those who go to the extent of searching it can be said to have a relatively high level of willingness to purchase it.

Reference: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201708/24140294.html

In this article, we analyzed the now popular Splatoon 3.
We summarized our analysis and findings.

・Nintendo mainly used YouTube to release new information.
・During the pre-launch period, the excitement of the Splatoon 3 announcement was managed on Twitter and other social media.
・During the pre-order and pre-launch event period, actual play footage was posted on YouTube, which was sought after by consumers who were able to pre-order the game, and a pre-launch party was held in August where the people could try playing it.
・After the release of the game, many people who searched for "Splatoon 3" went to game strategy websites in search of useful information on how to play the game, which Nintendo had not introduced.
・The interest in Splatoon 3 among women gradually increased, which is thought to be one of the reasons why Splatoon 3 became a big hit.

Splatoon 3 has only been on the market for a short time, and we will continue to observe it from a marketing perspective to see what developments we can expect.

▼Data from Dockpit was used in this case study. Dockpit is an online behavior analytics tool provided by VALUES, Inc., and it allows you to access online behavioral data (updated monthly) via your browser so you can research competitor websites and investigate trends. There is a FREE version of Dockpit, so if you are interested in using it, please register below.