Mature Rated Games Sell (Way) More

Recent San Diego based research startup Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) "founded by interactive entertainment veterans in 2007" just released some intriguing data which purports to measure the success of the latest generation of consoles, the significance of online functionality, and the correlation between game review scores and retail success.

“In the increasingly expensive and risk averse publishing environment, understanding the market and a better knowledge of the features that resonate with your customers can help game makers use their creativity to develop titles with blockbuster sales potential,” said EEDAR COO Geoffrey Zatkin in the company press release. “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.”

Who's Geoffrey Zatkin? Try: Former senior designer for EverQuest and Sovereign and The Matrix Online. Other than my own pointlessly cynical speculation about the "success" of the latter, I have no idea what impelled him to make the leap from game design (sexy!) to industry research (not so much).

The study's juicy bits:

1. Less than half of all retail games use online functionality. That's "despite online connectivity being a big marketing aspect of...new consoles." 45% of retail games don't bother at all with online features, and 98% of all Nintendo Wii titles have no online functionality whatsoever. But is that retail total (45%) climbing, falling, or holding steady? What about non-retail games, e.g. Xbox Live Arcade? [1]

2. Games which achieve high aggregate review scores gross sales up to 531% more than the industry average, despite comprising less than 2% of all titles released. Seth Schiesel for The New York Times reported earlier this year on another study which also found that top-rated games tend to sell more copies than poorly rated ones. That's despite almost no correlation between what critics say about other mediums like film and popular music and what the public ends up buying. Gamers ostensibly pay closer attention to game critics and/or game critics still tend to reflect the content/play desires and purchasing habits of gaming's still-relatively-hardcore audience. I wonder if you looked at early twentieth century film ticket sales and any corresponding movie reviews (from people genuinely interested in the medium) whether you'd discover a similar correlation. As the medium engages a broader demographic, are game critics' days as opinion shapers and/or indices numbered?

3. Mature rated games have the highest aggregate scores and the highest gross sales in the United States, despite sales exclusion by some major retailers. Surprising or not, it's still pretty astounding. And a little worrisome. You can bet that number's at least partially composed of M-rated sales to minors. I suppose we'll eventually see this study turn up in the pocket of some crusading politician as another truncheon to convince us we should let the government surrogate parent. [2]

4. On the "Oh, that's interesting!" scale, I'd call this one just shy of yawn-able, but since I know it'll make all you Nintendonians smile, the study notes that Nintendo's Wii gained twice the number of retail and downloadable game titles as the Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360 during the first seven months of each platform's launch. Is anyone surprised?

[1] In February 2006, ex-Sony Chief Creative Officer Raph Koster asked the question "are single-player games doomed?" on his blog, later rephrasing his answer to suggest (somewhat obviously, I thought) that single-player gaming "will happen within a multiplayer context of connectivity, persistent and publicly visible profiles, and awareness of other users." (So if you play something like Oblivion -- a solo RPG -- but go online and talk about it or share in-game costumes or art or whatever with friends, it meets Koster's almost pointlessly broad definition of "multiplayer.") Over a year on, the study from EEDAR implies that's maybe not happening after all, or maybe that it's happening slower than we thought it would (or -- and I'll grant Koster's point here -- that we need to have other less obvious benchmarks of something's "online" success, e.g. message boards, social networking sites, etc.). Could the implied lack of online demand be in part because online game mechanics (shoot-'em-ups vs. spreadsheet diddling) haven't changed all that much in over a decade?

[2] This, as rumors swirl that Rockstar's full AO-rated Manhunt 2 (or a beta version) may have leaked to pirate sites. If the leak's legit, do we call it accidental? Or -- in light of Rockstar's content tweak and the ESRB's rating downgrade to 'Mature' -- brilliantly press-timed?

Comments

Not a proponent of censorship at all, but where do we as a society draw the line. I believe these kinds of games have potentially a severe impact on the brain of some children who are still in the developing stages where they are forming the difference between reality and fiction. This will inevitably land in the hands of young children who are not being supervised. Do you believe acting out Murder with your own two hands is acceptable? ------> http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=629

PollM

October 03, 2007

7:55 AM PT

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