Video games are big business: the global gaming market is projected to be worth more than $300 billion by 2027 according to Mordor Intelligence. With so much money at stake, the major game publishers are hugely incentivized to create the next big hit. But are games getting better, or has the golden age of video games already passed?
In this project, you'll analyze video game critic and user scores as well as sales data for the top 400 video games released since 1977. You'll search for a golden age of video games by identifying release years that users and critics liked best, and you'll explore the business side of gaming by looking at game sales data.
Your search will involve joining datasets and comparing results with set theory. You'll also filter, group, and order data. Make sure you brush up on these skills before trying this project! The database contains two tables. Each table has been limited to 400 rows for this project, but you can find the complete dataset with over 13,000 games on Kaggle.
game_sales table
game_sales table| Column | Definition | Data Type |
|---|---|---|
| name | Name of the video game | varchar |
| platform | Gaming platform | varchar |
| publisher | Game publisher | varchar |
| developer | Game developer | varchar |
| games_sold | Number of copies sold (millions) | float |
| year | Release year | int |
reviews table
reviews table| Column | Definition | Data Type |
|---|---|---|
| name | Name of the video game | varchar |
| critic_score | Critic score according to Metacritic | float |
| user_score | User score according to Metacritic | float |
users_avg_year_rating table
users_avg_year_rating table| Column | Definition | Data Type |
|---|---|---|
| year | Release year of the games reviewed | int |
| num_games | Number of games released that year | int |
| avg_user_score | Average score of all the games ratings for the year | float |
critics_avg_year_rating table
critics_avg_year_rating table| Column | Definition | Data Type |
|---|---|---|
| year | Release year of the games reviewed | int |
| num_games | Number of games released that year | int |
| avg_critic_score | Average score of all the games ratings for the year | float |
-- best_selling_games
SELECT *
FROM game_sales
ORDER BY games_sold DESC
LIMIT 10;
-- critics_top_ten_years
SELECT game_sales.year, COUNT(game_sales.name) AS num_games, ROUND(AVG(reviews.critic_score), 2) AS avg_critic_score
FROM game_sales
INNER JOIN reviews ON game_sales.name = reviews.name
GROUP BY game_sales.year
HAVING COUNT(game_sales.name) >= 4
ORDER BY avg_critic_score DESC
LIMIT 10;SELECT u.year, u.num_games, c.avg_critic_score, u.avg_user_score, c.avg_critic_score - u.avg_user_score AS diff
FROM critics_avg_year_rating c
INNER JOIN users_avg_year_rating u
ON c.year = u.year
WHERE c.avg_critic_score > 9 OR u.avg_user_score > 9
ORDER BY year ASCThe "best_selling_games" table reveals the top ten video games that have sold the most copies of all time, with "Wii Sports" for the Nintendo Wii selling more than double the next closest game.
The "critics_top_ten_years" table shows that 1998 was an exceptional year for gamers, with video games achieving an impressive average score of 9.32/10 as rated by critics.
In the "golden_years" table, we identify six years where video games released had either an average user score or an average critic score exceeding 9/10. Notably, 2004 stands out as the only year among the top six where the average critic score surpassed the average user score.
The year 1998 emerges as the pinnacle of gaming according to the average player, with the highest average critic and user ratings among the six years from the "golden_years" table. There is a noticeable dip in ratings for games released between 1999 and 2007, with only 2004 games achieving either a critic or user average score above 9. In conclusion, the "Golden Era of Video Games" undoubtedly began in the late 1990s and concluded in the late 2000s.