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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Are 80% of games rubbish - if only 20% make money?


2007 saw video game sales topping $9 million, but according to a new report, only twenty percent of finished games actually turn a profit.
Forbes originally reported that only 4 percent of games are profitable, but the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research company quoted in the story was quick to clarify: Computer and video games, Nov. 24: This means that 4% of all games which start production will eventually make a profit, but a far-more-likely 20% of finished products will see profitable returns. ...
the average Xbox 360 title shifts 216,000 units and that Mature-rated titles are generally more popular on the Xbox 360 than those rated Teen.

However, the EEDAR stood by other statistics in the report, including the following: Computer and video games - The study concludes that the average total sales for an Xbox 360 game is around 216,000 units, while the average PlayStation 3 title sells 192,256 copies.
Therefore, any title shipping on both platforms is expected to sell on average 408,336 units. ... Interestingly, implementing a co-op mode is claimed to boost sales by 12,400, while a multiplayer mode could add 25,000 copies to a game's sales roster.
That's about $1 million in revenue, so well worth it if the said developer can whip up an online mode for less, notes the EEDAR study.
So, does this mean that 80 percent of video games suck?
Game reviewers don't seem to think so. Of the 526 Xbox 360 games on Metacritic, only 54 have garnered meta-scores of below 50 percent. Conversely, a full 210 — or 40 percent — of games earned meta-scores of 75 percent or above.

Perhaps these figures simply point out that the majority of likely consumers want mature titles with multiplayer elements for their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

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