Red Fox Insights has taken a close look at the flood of MOBA shooters landing this year, including three highly anticipated releases: Battleborn, Overwatch, LawBreakers.

These “MOBA-infused shooters” include unique differences, but share defining similarities; including potential audiences. As they release, these games are battling to claim specific slivers of the competitive shooter/MOBA pie - differentiating themselves and their marketing approaches. LawBreakers even publicly announced tone and art changes to avoid being “lumped in with the cartoon style from our competitors” and "to create a more realistic experience."

Which Excites Gamers Most?

We surveyed an engaged, naturally targeted audience of gamers, asking which excited them more, Overwatch, LawBreakers or Battleborn. After surveying 576 unique gamers that answered 7,451 polls here’s what we found:

We used our Round Robin polling method, which asks voters to select an item from a pair of items. This process repeats until the voter has voted on all possible pairs. The percentage reveals win rates for a given item. 

Overwatch has a clear lead - being selected nearly 69% of the time when placed against its competitors. LawBreakers and Battleborn are close, with LawBreakers having the slight edge.

Segmenting MOBA Audiences

How do these MOBA infused shooters stack up against more traditional MOBA experiences and audiences? We asked the same group of nearly 600 gamers, how excited they were for Paragon, a MOBA we’ve examined closely in the past. 

Of the people who are very excited for Paragon, here is how they felt about shooters with MOBA elements:

Gamers excited for the MOBA Paragon are 7.66% less excited for Overwatch than the sample population. Battleborn saw the largest positive jump, revealing those excited for Paragon are 5.06% more excited for Battleborn than the sample population.

Battleborn appears to have found a middle ground between FPS, MOBA and Tower Defense. It's thought that it may "cater to the broadest range of players" relative to its competition. One of the reasons being it's many game modes, including a single player campaign, which is absent from many FPS's of late, including LawBreakers and Overwatch.

The Bottom Line

Our results show general audiences' excitement lean heavily towards Activision Blizzard's high profile Overwatch. While Overwatch is more 'team FPS' than anything (which perhaps explains its broad appeal) it has elements that excite MOBA players, even across segmented populations. Battleborn saw the most significant increase in excitement when segmented against an audience very excited for a new traditional MOBA. 

Battleborn launched May 3rd, Overwatch comes out May 24th and LawBreakers is currently in Alpha on Steam. 

This Red Fox Insights research involved 576 completed gamer surveys totaling nearly 7,500 responses from the naturally targeted gaming audience of MMOHuts.com.