Video Games Data Analysis

Many videos games are published annually from a variety of companies across platforms and genres. With this variety comes different critic/audience responses. Some websites like VGChartz provide data on video game charts, game sales, top sellers, and overall game data. Additionally, metacritic provides critic ratings for each game upon release. Kaggle has considated data from both sources into one dataset.

Figure 1.1 below shows a comparison between the critic score/count and the user score/count for each video game with the scores using the right axis and the counts using the left axis. They show that there isn't a direct correlation between number of users and their scores and the same for critics.

Figure 1.2 below shows a comparison between global sales in millions and critic/user score. The bar graph has each point labeled, and show that the two scores consistently differ from each other. While the critic score is always significantly higher than user score, so do the global sales. Even though there are many wavering factors, the graph shows that the best selling console game has consistently been the Wii where global sales are significantly high and high critic scores even though they have low user scores. This shows that while critics may have favorable impressions towards certain games, users may not share those same ideas.

Figure 1.3 below shows the relationship between critic score and genre. The genres that have high critic scores are action and racing, while misc and puzzle games consistently fall short and sport games are in the middle. This shows that there is a relationship between genre preference and high critic score, however like all data, it can reveal the underlying bias as critics prefer one genre over others.

Name	Platform What console/where the game was released	Year_of_Release When the game was released	Genre Genre of the game	Publisher Who published the game	Critic_Score Aggregate score compiled by Metacritic staff	Critic_Count The number of critics who participated in deciding the critic score	Global_Sales Total worldwide sales (in millions)	User_Score Score by Metacritic's subscribers	User_Count The number of users who participated in deciding the user score
Grand Theft Auto V	PS3	2013	Action	Take-Two Interactive	97	50	21.12	8.2	4009
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas	PS2	2004	Action	Take-Two Interactive	95	80	20.81	9	1606
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City	PS2	2002	Action	Take-Two Interactive	95	62	16.15	8.7	736
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec	PS2	2001	Racing	Sony Computer Entertainment	95	54	14.98	8.4	314
Mario Kart DS	DS	2005	Racing	Nintendo	91	64	23.22	8.6	465
New Super Mario Bros.	DS	2006	Platform	Nintendo	89	65	29.81	8.5	433
New Super Mario Bros. Wii	Wii	2009	Platform	Nintendo	87	80	28.38	8.4	595
Mario Kart Wii	Wii	2008	Racing	Nintendo	82	73	35.57	8.3	712
Wii Sports Resort	Wii	2009	Sports	Nintendo	80	73	32.78	8	193
Wii Fit	Wii	2007	Sports	Nintendo	80	63	22.7	7.7	146
Wii Fit Plus	Wii	2009	Sports	Nintendo	80	33	21.79	7.4	52
Wii Sports	Wii	2006	Sports	Nintendo	76	51	82.54	8	324
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day	DS	2005	Misc	Nintendo	77	58	20.15	7.9	50
Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day	DS	2005	Puzzle	Nintendo	77	37	15.29	7.1	19
Kinect Adventures!	X360	2010	Misc	Microsoft Game Studios	61	45	21.86	6.3	106
Wii Play	Wii	2006	Misc	Nintendo	58	41	28.92	6.6	129