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By the Numbers Analysis of 2008 games

The following article looks at how 2008 video games compared to 2007, more precisely the genres released last year. How many games came out in 2008? Which genres were the most abundant? How did each platform perform in the last two years? What trends are we seeing? We will answer all these questions and more.

I tried to have this article posted in the News/Article section but it was rejected by someone because he felt it was "old", as in, it dealt with old content (I guess). So I'll post it in the blog section instead. The article took almost a month to produce. I won't just give up on it because someone felt it referenced 2007 too often, even though N4G has approved articles on various 2008 topics in the last few days, some of which also refer to 2007 (can't properly analyze a year without referring to previous years).

Before we begin, a bit about our methodology. The analysis mainly looks at the North American market. We included: retail games, downloadable games, re-releases, popular imports, compilation packs, web-based games, collector editions and director’s cuts. Only commercial games with verifiable release dates were included. The same game released on multiple platforms was counted multiple times. GameObserver has its own genre branding system, which might differ from other game sites. We analyzed the following platforms: PC, Wii, DS, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and PSP. We cannot completely guarantee that it included all games released in 2007 and 2008 but the list is quite comprehensive.

All games were categorized in the following genres:

2D Platformer	Compilation	Misc	RPG
3D Platformer	Driving	MMO	Shoot-’Em-Up
Action	Educational	Music	Shooter
Action RPG	Fighting	Party	Simulation
Adventure	Flight	Puzzle	Sports
Beat-’Em-Up	Hunting	Racing	Strategy

So without further ado, here we GO by the Numbers!

Show me the numbers!

3082 games were released in 2008, compared to 2792 in 2007 -- that’s a 10.4% increase. The platform with the most games in 2008 was a handheld: the Nintendo DS with 810 titles. It had the largest overall market share percentage of new games last year with 27%. The platform with the least amount of new games was also a handheld, the PSP with 167 titles (a meager 5% share), followed by the PS3 with 187 titles. Games released in 2007 and 2008 per console:

Only three platforms released fewer games in 2008 than in 2007. Those platforms were:

PS2 (28.4% decrease)
PSP (18.9% decrease)
PC (13.1% decrease)

Despite the 13% decrease, the PC was still a formidable platform in 2008 in terms of sheer numbers, which gave it second place. Those numbers don’t give us a complete picture (as you will see later) but they discount some of the myths that the PC is a dying platform. If the trend continues though, the PC might experience a crisis. Both the PSP and PS2 will eventually be replaced with newer platforms; the PC will not, so a downward trend cannot be a good thing in the long run.

It is interesting to note that the PSP had a drop even though the platform isn’t obsolete like the PS2 or experiencing (apparently) the scorn of developers like the PC. 2008 was not a good year for Sony title-wise, with the PSP, PS3 and PS2 having released the fewest amount of games of all platforms. Having the PS2 in fifth place in terms of new releases is cause for mixed reactions for Sony. The nine-year-old console beat out its newer brethren in the last two years in the amount of new titles despite being well past its prime. PSP numbers would have been lower had the console not ported games from other platforms -- it tends to port rather often and has few original titles.

The biggest surprise has to be Nintendo. Both its platforms surpassed Sony and Microsoft in titles released last year. The Wii even surpassed the Xbox 360 and PS3 in categories that are normally reserved for “mature” players, which the latter platforms claim to target. In some genres the DS was so ahead of the competition, the combined games of all other platforms could not approach Nintendo’s handheld in terms of numbers.

But other platforms also had something to brag about. The Xbox 360 had the largest growth in titles from 2007 to 2008 with a 41.4% increase, and the PS3 no longer had the fewest releases (the honor went to the PSP).

How did the genres do?

The most popular genre across all platforms was Adventure with 409 games, followed by Action games with 358 releases. Sports had a strong showing and moved up a spot to third place with 290 titles, surpassing Puzzles in 2008. Music had the largest leap, going from 15th spot to grab 10th place from RPG. RPG, on the other hand, fell to 11th place in 2008.

Top 10 genres in 2007:		Top 10 genres in 2008:

1.	Adventure (335)	1.	Adventure (409)
2.	Action (316)	2.	Action (358)
3.	Puzzle (279)	3.	Sports (290)
4.	Sports (242)	4.	Puzzle (287)
5.	Misc (232)	5.	Misc (285)
6.	Strategy (204)	6.	Strategy (210)
7.	Simulation (149)	7.	Simulation (164)
8.	Educational (137)	8.	Educational (135)
9.	Shooter (133)	9.	Shooter (125)
10.	RPG (108)	10.	Music (120)

Puzzles had a strong run in 2008 mainly thanks to the PC and DS, which together represented 54% of all Puzzle games released across the major platforms. The genre with the largest notable increase was Music, which saw a 93.5% increase, going from 62 titles in 2007 to 120 titles in 2008. Sequels like Rock Band 2 and the various SingStar volumes were all the rage in 2008. We considered “volumes”, “track packs” and other Music expansions as separate titles because they were all commercial products regardless of their distribution method.

Other notable categories in 2008 were Shoot-’Em-Ups, which saw a 41.4% increase, Adventure games with a 22% increase, and Sports games with 19.8%. We say notable because some genres don’t usually release many titles so any change has a large percentage impact, like Hunting games which increased by 44.4%, going from 9 titles to 13.

The DS and PC had a combined 59.6% of all RPGs released in 2008. Both platforms also released 65.2% of all Strategies last year. More impressively, the DS and the PC released 78% of all Simulations in 2008. In all three cases both platforms had more games than the other consoles in the aforementioned genres. What distinguishes both platforms from the rest of the flock? Point-and-click. The PC and DS offer similar controls -- the PC with its mouse and the DS with its stylus -- and those genres are best played by pointing and clicking.

Notable genre increases from 2007 to 2008

Music: 93.5% (62-120)
Party: 50% (18-27)
Misc: 22.8% (232-285)
Adventure: 22.1% (335-409)
Sports: 19.8% (242-290)
Action: 13.3% (358-316)
Racing: 13% (92-104)
Simulation: 10.1% (149-164)

Party games surprised us with their small numbers in the last two years (18-27). With the rise of casual gaming one would imagine that Party tiles would gain popularity with each passing year. Though they did increase by 50%, their numbers still indicate neglect from developers.

Which games lost popularity?

The more telling changes were noticed in the 2008 decreases, though not in the degree in drops but in the genres that saw a decrease. The most surprising has to be Shooters. The common impression would have been to assume that Shooters would increase in popularity in 2008 now that many PC developers are switching to consoles, but in fact they experienced an overall 6% decrease in 2008. The change is negligible but it shows a plateau in the pure Shooter trend, maybe because developers are looking for more creative ways to design their games for consoles, ways that brand their titles into different genres like Adventure, Action RPG or Puzzle. A perfect example of that is Fallout 3, which we categorized as an Action RPG.

The biggest notable drop in 2008 was also a surprise: Beat-’Em-Ups. While they might have been very popular in the 90’s today this venerable brand of Fighting games can’t even break the mid double digit mark. There were 49 Beat-’Em-Up titles in 2007 and 2008 saw 29 titles -- a 40.8% decrease. Another struggling 90’s relic is the 2D Platformer, which fizzled down by 21.9%. Driving games (car games that don’t involve Racing, like Carmageddon or Twisted Metal) also saw a significant drop with 45.7%, but since 2007 and 2008 offered 35 and 19 titles respectively across all consoles, this change isn’t worth reading too much into (or is it?). Driving is a niche category that consistently releases few titles, much like Flight games (25% drop).

Notable genre decreases from 2007 to 2008

Driving: 45.7% (35-19)
Beat-’Em-Ups: 40.8% (49-29)
2D Platformer: 21.9% (73-57)
Compilation: 19.1% (47-38)
Shooter: 6% (133-125)
RPG: 3.7% (108-104)
Action RPG: 2.3% (43-42)
Educational: 1.5% (137-135)

RPG and Action RPG both had a very similar 2008, having experienced slight decreases in their title base with a combined 3.3% drop from 2007. This consistency can be attributed to the same companies releasing RPGs. The same can be said of Educational games with a 1.5% change towards the red.

Overall Notes

In general, 2008 can be summarized with the core genres (Action, RPG, Shooter, Racing, Simulation, Strategy and Sports) experiencing negligible change. Of the aforementioned genres, Sports had the largest change with a 19.8% increase in 2008, mainly due to the large amount of new quasi-Sports titles released on the Wii.

Games that don’t have creative flexibility, like Driving, Flight, 2D Platformers and Beat-’Em-Ups, have lost presence in 2008. Genres with more flexibility gained ground. Titles in the Misc category usually break the mold with creative gameplay and they released 22.8% more games in 2008. But it was Music that saw the biggest revolution in 2008. Last year clearly belonged to it, further proving that casual gamers are a coveted market. Next, we will analyze each individual platform.

For complete summary tables click here.

The full article has 7 more pages, each detailing specific platforms. Click here for the whole analysis.