Politicians who oppose video games with violent content are so gonna use this study! According to entertainment research firm, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), mature rated titles have the highest average gross sales.
EEDAR released data that measures to-date success of the latest generation of consoles as well as looks at the importance of online functionalities and other market factors such as the correlation between game review scores and retail success. Sony’s PS3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii, all were examined for Console Intelligence Brief 2007. Around 219 retail and 187 downloadable games were analyzed for factors such as genre, ESRB rating, gross sales in the United States, Metacritic scores, online functionalities, multiplayer capability and other core game features.
Here are some snippets from the EEDAR report:
- Despite online connectivity being a big marketing aspect for these new consoles, 45% of retail games are not utilizing it in any way. 98% of Nintendo Wii games have no online functionality at all.
Mature rated titles, comprising 10% of all US retail games examined, have both the highest average Metacritic scores and the highest average gross sales in the United States. This is despite not being offered for sale at some major retailers.
Games which achieved a Metacritic score above 90 grossed sales up to 531% more than the industry average, but were less than 2% of all titles released.
The Action genre is the most prevalent in the market at 24% of all available titles, through the Shooter genre has the highest gross sales.
The Nintendo Wii released more than twice the number of retail and downloadable game titles than either the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 during the first 7 months each platform’s launch.
Geoffrey Zatkin is the COO of EEDAR. He says, “In the increasingly expensive and risk averse publishing environment, understanding the market and a better knowledge of the features that ring with your customers can help game makers use their creativity to develop titles with blockbuster sales potential. EEDAR’s mission is to help publishers and developers make informed decisions about how to build games and market them. We stress hard facts and ease of readability in all our reports and services; good data means nothing if you can’t understand it.”
EEDAR wanted to scrutinize the choice of new business opportunities for developers and publishers that the latest generation of video game console hardware has created. They stated that the connectivity has opened up important social interactions with other players which augment audience, brand strength and game longevity for titles that have online features. Not only that, they indicated that digital storefronts for latest generation consoles are providing a means of further monetizing game libraries, including older games, to the audience.