New game study results show M-rated games earn most money and review scores effect sales

The GTA series, rated M, is one of the best selling franchises in recent historySome surprising results have surfaced from a recent video game study. The study was conducted by the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research firm titled “Console Intelligence Brief 2007” and it focused on the performance of games by genre, rating and features.

The study showed that M for “Mature” rated games garnered the highest review scores from video game publications and also had the highest average gross sales in the United States! This is surprising because it was thought that an M-rating, much like an R-rating on a movie, would effect sales negatively due to the more restricted audience. But according to the study they showed the highest sales despite not being sold at “some major retailers”. And only 10% of all games released that the study looked at were actually rated M, which is still a surprisingly low number.

Games that scored above 90 on Metacritic (a site that averages review scores given to a particular product by combining scores from various publications) also received much higher sales in comparison to games that were rated poorly; By up to 531 percent more sales! This is despite such great games accounting for less than 2% of all titles released! The study shows that games that scored highly in video game publications sell up to 5 times better than games that received lower scores, proving that review scores do in fact effect sales. Very interesting! It also means that people do pay attention to the critical acclaim, or lack thereof, that a game receives.

Lastly, EEDAR found that action games were the most prevalent type of game released during their sample period, accounting for 24% of all titles released. The “shooter” genre however received the most sales.

The study also had some surprising results in the online department. It found that only 45% of all retails games made use of online connectivity. Wii games in particular were strikingly low when compared to the rest of the industry (as everyone knows), since only 98% of Wii games had online connectivity (a sad fact in my opinion, although it also proves that gamers will buy a game, if it’s good, whether it supports online or not).

Off-setting the low Wii online connectivity though, the Wii actually received more than twice the number of retail games as the PS3 and Xbox 360 in the seven months following each console’s respective launch.

In collecting its data, EEDAR examined 219 retail and 187 downloadable games released on the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 since each consoles release through June 1. The company used Metacritic in measuring a game’s average review score, and pulled its statistical data from a variety of sources, including “authoritative sources” and first-hand observation.