Loaded Packages

library(tidyverse)
library(gtrendsR)
library(lubridate)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)
library(scales)

Overview

This project compares United States Google search interest for Rockstar Games, Nintendo, and FromSoftware over the past five years. These companies were selected because they are major video game makers with recognizable brands and popular game franchises.

The purpose of the analysis is to compare their search-interest patterns, determine which company had the strongest average search presence, identify the largest search-interest peak, and investigate an event that may explain the increase.

Although the companies operate differently, all three compete for attention within the video game industry. Nintendo develops games and hardware, while Rockstar Games and FromSoftware are primarily known for developing and publishing major video game franchises.

Business Questions

This analysis addresses the following questions:

  1. Which video game maker had the highest average Google search interest?
  2. How did search interest change during the five-year period?
  3. Which company experienced the highest individual search-interest peak?
  4. What game release, announcement, controversy, or industry event may explain the peak?
  5. How could search-interest information support marketing and competitive analysis?

Define Comapnies

video_game_makers <- c(
  "Rockstar Games",
  "Nintendo",
  "FromSoftware"
)

Data Collection and Preparation

The data were collected from Google Trends through the gtrendsR package in R. The query compared U.S. web-search interest for Rockstar Games, Nintendo, and FromSoftware during the most recent five-year period.

Google Trends does not report the exact number of searches. Instead, it normalizes search activity on a scale ranging from 0 to 100. A value of 100 represents the highest relative search interest within the selected comparison, location, and time period. Lower values represent search interest relative to that highest point.

Loaded Cache_File

cache_file <- "google_trends_vgmakers.csv"
refresh_data <- FALSE
## # A tibble: 6 × 3
##   date       company        search_interest
##   <date>     <chr>                    <dbl>
## 1 2021-07-11 FromSoftware               0.5
## 2 2021-07-11 Nintendo                  42  
## 3 2021-07-11 Rockstar Games             1  
## 4 2021-07-18 FromSoftware               0.5
## 5 2021-07-18 Nintendo                  38  
## 6 2021-07-18 Rockstar Games             1
Data Validation Summary
Total Rows Missing Dates Missing Companies Missing Interest Values
786 0 0 0
Sample of the Cleaned Google Trends Data
Date Video Game Maker Relative Search Interest
July 11, 2021 FromSoftware 0.5
July 11, 2021 Nintendo 42.0
July 11, 2021 Rockstar Games 1.0
July 18, 2021 FromSoftware 0.5
July 18, 2021 Nintendo 38.0
July 18, 2021 Rockstar Games 1.0
July 25, 2021 FromSoftware 0.5
July 25, 2021 Nintendo 36.0
July 25, 2021 Rockstar Games 1.0
August 01, 2021 FromSoftware 0.5
August 01, 2021 Nintendo 35.0
August 01, 2021 Rockstar Games 1.0
August 08, 2021 FromSoftware 0.5
August 08, 2021 Nintendo 34.0
August 08, 2021 Rockstar Games 1.0

Five-Year Search-Interest Comparison

The following line graph compares the weekly relative search interest of the three selected video game makers.

Five-Year Search-Interest Summary
Video Game Maker Average Median Highest Lowest Standard Deviation
Nintendo 42.44 39.0 100 28.0 13.37
Rockstar Games 1.06 1.0 6 0.5 0.60
FromSoftware 0.51 0.5 1 0.5 0.07

Highest Overall Search-Interest Peak
Date Video Game Maker Search Interest
June 01, 2025 Nintendo 100
Highest Search-Interest Point for Each Company
Date Video Game Maker Peak Search Interest
June 01, 2025 Nintendo 100
June 21, 2026 Rockstar Games 6
February 20, 2022 FromSoftware 1

Preliminary Findings

Nintendo had the highest average Google search interest during the five-year period, with an average relative interest score of 42.44. The largest individual search-interest peak belonged to Nintendo during the week of June 01, 2025. Its relative search-interest score reached 100.

The average-interest result represents the company with the strongest overall search presence. The highest peak represents a temporary period when public attention was especially high.

Peak Analysis

The largest search-interest peak belonged to Nintendo during the month of June. A possible explanation for this increase was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom(Nintendo, 2025), which was released during this month.

The event likely encouraged players and members to search for information about the company, its games, release dates, trailers, prices, or future plans.

Findings

The Google Trends analysis showed meaningful differences in search interest among Rockstar Games, Nintendo, and FromSoftware. The five-year line graph showed both long-term search patterns and temporary increases associated with major industry events.

Nintendo with the highest average score maintained the strongest overall search. Its large peak maybe the results from a major game release, trailer, or product announcement.

Average interest reflects consistent public attention, while the highest peak represents an unusually intense but possibly temporary increase in attention.

Business Recommendation

Video game companies should really be watching how much people are searching for their competitors around big moments like game announcements, trailers, showcases, release dates, and other industry events. If a competitor’s search interest suddenly spikes, it usually means they have had a lot of public attention. Companies use this information to plan their own ads, social media posts, trailers, or promo events right before or after a competitor’s big moment, so they don’t get upstaged. This type of search data can also help marketing teams understand the types of events that are really driving searches and excitement

Limitations

Google Trends doesn’t show the actual number of searches, it just gives you a normalized score comparing interest over time. A value of 100 just means that was the peak point in whatever time range you’re comparing, not that exactly 100 people searched something. Also worth noting, the companies I looked at don’t all operate the same way—Nintendo makes games, publishes them, and sells consoles, while Rockstar Games and FromSoftware are mostly known just for developing big game franchises, so that difference alone could affect how much search interest each one gets. More searches doesn’t automatically mean people are interested in their games, it could also be because of a bug, a scandal, a leak, or a delay. Just because a search spike happens around the same time as some event doesn’t mean the event actually caused it.

Conclusion

This project basically showed how you can pull Google Trends data, clean it up, and analyze and visualize it all in R. I compared three big video game companies, Rockstar Games, Nintendo, and FromSoftware. I wanted to see how their public search attention stacked up against each other. From there, I figured out which company had the highest average interest overall, which one had the single biggest spike, and when that spike happened. By viewing the companies website I was able to get a possible explanation for a reason for the spike. Overall, the project shows that Google Trends can be a useful tool for competitive analysis, helping companies notice shifts in consumer attention, but it’s not something to rely on.

References

Google. (2026). Google Trends.

Google. (n.d.). Frequently asked questions about Google Trends data.

Massicotte, P., & Eddelbuettel, D. (2025). gtrendsR: Perform and display Google Trends queries. R package.

Nintendo. (2025, June 2). Upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games—June 2025. https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/News/2025/June/Upcoming-Nintendo-Switch-2-games-June-2025-2840361.html