For all game developers, one of the main questions is “How will our game do when it hits the shelves?”. Obviously, there is no guaranteed way to predict the future, but short of divination there are quite a few sources that can give you at least an idea where you’re headed - “leading indicators”, as the stock folks call them.
The main way to gauge potential for success is having a look at the expectations surrounding an upcoming game. Easier said than done, of course. If you happen to be an executive in a game company, you’ll have appropriate resources at your dispersal.
If you happen to be a grunt in the trenches, that’s a bit harder. But not impossible - thanks to the web.
The main source of information of course is Google. “Wait a minute”, you say. “What has Google to do with games?”. Well, that’s easy - the number of search results for a particular title is closely related to the number of web sites mentioning that title. Of course, there’s also Yahoo! Search and MSN Search - which, by the way, look surprisingly similar to Google these days! - and dozens of other search services.
If you want to look at more industry-specific sites, there is Gamespot’s Most Popular Games. It only lists the top 100 games, but if you made it there, you at least know you’re not a complete unknown any more.
If you want to know what people are searching for, there’s also Yahoo’s Video Game Buzz, which gives you the top 20 searches for video games on that day as well as the top-20 movers - i.e. searches with the highest change in volume.
Google has something similar with Google Zeitgeist but it’s so generic that it’s almost useless for our purposes.
Once the game is released, you can of course look at the scores at GameRankings or the sales rank at Amazon. After all, sales numbers are treated as if they were top secret in this industry - there’s little chance for the average developer to have a look at them in a timely fashion.
And if you like tracking the Amazon sales rank, there’s always Jungle Scan - a web site that tracks Amazon sales rank over time.
If you guys know any similar links, please let me know - I’m thinking of building a buzz tracker site.
Tags: Game Industry, videogames, buzz
Gamestats has a buzz rating subsection. http://www.gamestats.com/
Thanks for the link! And good to see you’re still alive