Millions Tweet About GTA V Affecting Their Work and Relationships, Depriving Them of Sleep
During the past two weeks, the technology and gaming worlds have seen two of the most highly anticipated launch events of 2013: The Apple Event (launching the new iPhone and iOS7 operating system) and the launch of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V).
Globally, Apple was the clear winner with almost 70% more conversations than GTA V on Social Media. However, this week in the UK gamers have taken over social media in the run up to and the launch of GTA V.
GTA V has stormed ahead with 50% more of the conversation this week, despite consumers being able to download and experience the new Apple ios7 operating system.
GTA V has sparked nearly 2.5 million tweets within the first 24 hours of being launched, with many users commenting on how the game is affecting their life, according to research by global social media monitoring and analysis platform Synthesio.
- Over 100,000 users tweeted about planning to missing work or school to play GTA V
- Over 90,000 users tweeted about playing GTA V non-stop for an extreme numbers of hours—depriving them of sleep
- Over 25,000 women tweeted about ‘losing’ their boyfriend to GTA V
Catriona Oldershaw, Managing Director UK of Synthesio said: “The volume of tweets we have recorded has roughly been in line with what we would expect from a major product launch or cultural event.”What is interesting is the content of the tweets, although the majority talk about the gameplay, nearly 10% of users are commenting on how the game is having a big impact on their life. While some of these tweets will be in jest, the sheer volume indicates that a huge number of gamers are playing GTA V for exceptionally long periods of time.
“It will be interesting to see if there was a spike in the number of sick days recorded in UK businesses and schools yesterday.”
Synthesio found these insights using its proprietary monitoring technology to harvest publicly available information from social and mainstream media sources in 192 countries and over 50 languages. They then dived specifically into UK conversations to get a better feel for the main issues being discussed by gamers.
