Descriptive Analytics
The original dataset has games ranging from 1980 to 2020 with 11,493 different
game titles. There are 579 publishers with 31 platforms. Games are broken down into
12 unique categories as follows: Sports, Platform, Racing, Role-playing, Puzzle, Misc,
Shooter, Simulation, Action, Fighting, Adventure,and Strategy. After limiting the range of
years to 2010-2016, we are left with 5,546 games, 19 platforms, 278 publishers, and the
same 12 genres.
Year of Release by Global Sales per Game and Number of Releases
Figure 11
The distribution of amount of sales by games’ year of release is right skewed and
is not continuously increasing. This shows that video game production might be on a
decline in recent years. In 2008-2009, the 8th generation of consoles came out
(XboxOne, PS4, WiiU) so there was an increase in video game production during this
period. For this reason, we opted to only look at years 2010 and later as mentioned in
data preparation. The number of releases has been declining as well. Sales and game
releases have a high correlation. An explanation for this might be because of the shift to
mobile gaming. This dataset is only looking at “traditional” consoles and video games.
According to an article from Business Insider, game development is moving to mobile
devices and has surpassed traditional games (Meola, 2016) .
Average Global Sales per Game by Game Publisher
Figure 12
Figure 12 shows the top 10 publishers based on their average global sales per
game. Instead of looking at the sum of global sales, average global sales helps account
for the fact that Nintendo might have just produced more video games giving them a
higher sum. This way, we can see if a single publisher sells more. Nintendo had the
highest average global sales followed by Take-Two Interactive and Sony Computer
Entertainment.
Average Global Sales per Game by Genre
Figure 13
Platform games generate the highest average global sales per game. A platform
game involves moving a character between platforms and/or obstacles as a way to
moving through the gameplay. One reason why this type of game has high revenue
could be that the game costs more and also there are more add-ons or bonus packs
that consumers buy with it. Shooter games also have high, average global sales
whereas adventure games have the least.
Sum of Global Sales by Genre
Figure 14
Figure 14 shows the sum of global sales by genre. If we compare this to figure
13, average global sales by genre, we see that Action games have the highest sum of
global sales but not the highest average. This suggests that there are a large number of
action games which leads to a high sum of sales, but not all action games generate high
revenue which makes the average lower. In terms of number of games released per
genre, action games have always been the most popular genre to manufacture. This
warns stores to be careful when stocking action games. Just because there are a large
number of action games produced, one should not assume they sell the best.
Top Global Sales by Game Title
Figure 15
This figure shows which specific games had highest global sales. Wii sports had
the highest sum of global sales according to Figure 15, followed by Grand Theft Auto V
and Super Mario Bros. This corresponds to the previous figure where action, sports,
and shooter games topped gross sales since Wii Sports is a sports genre and Grand
Theft Auto is shooter.
Average Global Sales per Game by Platform
Figure 16
Figure 16 displays average global sales by platform. Gameboy games have the
highest average global sales with just over $2.5 million per game. This is closely
followed by Nintendo Entertainment System. There is about a $1.5 million difference in
average global sales between the top two (Gameboy and Nintendo) and the rest of the
platforms. Stores should keep this in mind when stocking games. They should consider
stocking a large number of Nintendo and Gameboy games.
Average Global Sales per Game Separated by Region
Figure 17
Figure 17 shows average sales per game by region. This shows that games
generate their highest sales in North America, followed by Europe. This is looked at in
more depth in figure 18.
Figure 18
This figure shows the percentage of sales for each genre separated by region.
Action games make up highest proportion of sales in North America and Europe and
other regions, whereas Role-Playing is popular in Japan.