The Legacy of Game of Thrones: A Data-Driven Analysis

Introduction

Game of Thrones is a critically acclaimed television show that has captivated audiences around the world. Its complex and intricate story, richly developed characters, and stunning visuals have earned it numerous awards and accolades, making it one of the most successful and influential TV shows of all time. For this project, we used a data set which contains Game of Thrones episode information from Wikipedia, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. The data set consists of 73 rows and 19 columns. Each row corresponds to a particular episode, and each column represents a different attribute describing these episodes. We briefly describe the variables here:

• Season: The season of the episode
• No. of Episode (Season): The episode number in x season
• No. of Episode (Overall): The overall episode number
• Title of the Episode: Name of the Episode
• Running Time (Minutes): Runtime of the Episode in Minutes
• Directed by: Name(s) of the Director
• Written by: Name(s) of the Writer
• Original Air Date: Original Air Date of the Episode
• U.S. Viewers (Millions): Number of U.S. Viewers of the Episode in Millions
• Music by: Name(s) of the Composer
• Cinematography by: Name(s) of the Cinematographer
• Editing by: Name(s) of the Editor
• IMDb Rating: IMDb Rating of the Episode
• Rotten Tomatoes Rating (Percentage): Rotten Tomatoes Rating of the Episode in Percentage
• Metacritic Ratings: Metacritic Rating of the Episode
• Ordered: Date of Series/Season renewal
• Filming Duration: Filming Duration of the Season
• Novel(s) Adapted: Adapted from which Novel(s)
• Synopsis: Synopsis of the Episode

Research Questions

One of the key indicators of any TV show’s success is its ratings, which reflect the popularity and engagement of its audience. Naturally, this was a important metric of interest in our project. We formed three research questions surrounding this topic, listed as follows:

1. How has the popularity of Game of Thrones changed over time?

2. Is there an apparent relationship between the rating of an episode and other factors?

3. Does there tend to be a consensus of episode quality between one rating platform and another? (IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic)

Research Question 1

• How has the popularity of Game of Thrones changed over time?

We determine two primary ways to determine the popularity of a show, viewership and rating. We will first examine how the rate of viewership for a Game of Thrones episode has changed over time.

Game of Thrones is a pop culture sensation and has experienced monumental growth season after season. Viewership is a metric that indicates the popularity of the show, and we see that the shown has grown more and more popular over time.

A second metric of popularity is episode rating. The rating of a show speaks towards the quality and appeal to the viewers, as even shows with high viewership can still be seen in a negative light. Here, we plot the score from an assortment of media rating platforms against the episode number.

All three rating platforms follow a similar trend over time, with ratings dropping substantially near the end of the show. When measuring overall popularity, it is interesting to note the contrasting results in our two plots. Viewership was an at an all time high in the later episodes of the show, while rating was at an all time low. It may suggest that the show’s creators did not adequately fulfill the growing audiences’ expectations and deliver a satisfying conclusion to the story, resulting in a widely viewed, yet unpopular final portion of the show.