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, I'll analyze video game critic and user scores as well as sales data for the top 400 video games released since 1977. I'll search for a golden age of video games by identifying release years that users and critics liked best, and I'll explore the business side of gaming by looking at game sales data.
The database contains four tables. Each table has been limited to 400 rows, but you can find the complete dataset with over 13,000 games on Kaggle.
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
| 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
| 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
| 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 |