Fandometrics In Depth: Overwatch Edition
One year ago today, Overwatch was released by Blizzard Entertainment. The game had an immediate and overwhelming impact on Tumblr, and the #overwatch tag was quickly flooded with animated shorts, comics, fan art, and, of course, toddler approval of Junkrat.
To mark this anniversary of this game-to-end-all-games, we’ve analyzed millions of posts from May 23, 2016—May 18, 2017 to precisely identify the most talked about Overwatch characters and ships. Enjoy.
During this 358 day period, the #overwatch tag alone garnered nearly 150 million engagements. It was the second most trending tag during this time. That’s trendier than every TV show and film, and even bigger, more generic tags like #GIF (No. 5) and #art (No. 7). The next highest trending video game-related tag was #Pokémon, at No. 20.
Overwatch made its debut on the Fandometrics Video Games list on March 14th, 2016 at No. 16, more than two months before the game was even released. On May 9, 2016 Overwatch jumped a solid ten spots to No. 2. The following week, it was No. 1. It reigned supreme until July 11th, 2016, when it was kicked out by Pokémon Go. Currently Overwatch has had a 29-week streak at No. 1, beating the previous record for time at the top of the Video Games list by two months (and counting). Undertale topped off at just 21 weeks.
We did a full breakdown of all 24 character’s total engagements based on class. The highlights? Reaper had the most likes and reblogs, Junkrat had the most searches and Mercy had the most original posts. The details? Below:
Top Non-Playable Characters
Tekhartha Mondatta | 10.01%
With more than 20 characters, Overwatch fandom is rife for shipping. You can find a ship chart for just about any combination you can think of—a possible 276 unique combinations. For the sake of brevity, we highlighted just the top 10:
McHanzo, McCree x Hanzo | 35.03%
Reaper:76, Reaper x Soldier:76 | 17.03%
Pharmercy, Pharah x Mercy | 12.69%
Widowtracer, Widowmaker x Tracer | 9.08%
Roadrat, Roadhog x Junkrat | 8.82%
Genyatta, Genji x Zenyatta | 6.76%
Gency, Genji x Mercy | 5.84%
Meihem, Mei x Junkrat | 2.48%
Mercykill, Mercy x Reaper | 1.17%
Mercy76, Mercy x Soldier:76 | 1.10%
The fan art and headcanons (Gremlin D.Va, anyone?) that people share across Tumblr are an excellent way to keep a steady stream of Overwatch flow in your dashboard:
Overwatch Fan Art (@overwatch-fan-art), curating the best fan art from across the web
Overwatch memes (@overwatchmemes), for all the best humor from the game
Totally Canon Overwatch Quotes (@incorrect-overwatch-quotations) for conversations you know totally happened.
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