Stats | GameSpasm

Dragon Age ‘TidBits’ drop stats like a Fluffy punch

March 9th, 2010 No comments

Game Informer's latest "TidBits" column features a a glorious list of "inside baseball" stats from Dragon Age: Origins. Some of the numbers are simply cute, while others are positively frightening: "QA analyst Bruce Venne played 1,957.55 hours of Dragon Age PC in 5,352 games." Consequently, "The Bruce" was awarded to staff that played more than Venne in any given month -- the honor was bestowed only once.

While the list is mostly packed with numbers, there are some notable non-numerical did-you-knows, like the staff's affectionate nickname for the Ogre, "Fluffy," and, unsurprisingly, the revelation that one of the BioWare crew makes chain mail "from scratch."

Check out the full list of Dragon Age tidbits on Game Informer.

Dragon Age 'TidBits' drop stats like a Fluffy punch originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: Bioware, dragon-age, dragon-age-origins, Ea, game-informer, Stats, tidbits

Japan’s Xbox Live stats indicate proneness to Japanese-developed games

January 6th, 2010 No comments

It'd be impossible to discuss Japan's Xbox Live usage stats, recently released by Microsoft (and posted after the break), without pointing to the overwhelmingly Japanese-developed composition of them. Taking first place among the top XBLA purchases of 2009 was last year's Virtual On port -- a game so popular in Japan that it currently holds second place in the region's all-time bestsellers list. Games like Ikaruga and Trigger Heart Exelica populate the rest of the XBLA stats, though Western-developed Castle Crashers notably takes the number one position in all-time popularity.

The sheer Japanosity of these stats is even more apparent in the download numbers for all that other stuff. From demos (75 percent Japanese-developed) to Games on Demand (90 percent) to DLC (also 90 percent), Japanese players clearly have a hankering for homemade games -- even on their Western-developed consoles.

[Via Andriasang]

Continue reading Japan's Xbox Live stats indicate proneness to Japanese-developed games

Japan's Xbox Live stats indicate proneness to Japanese-developed games originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Tags: castle-crashers, digital-distribution, games-on-demand, ikaruga, Japan, Stats, trigger-heart-exelica, virtual-on, xbl, Xbla, xblm, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade

Nielsen Tells Us Who Buys Movie Games [Movie Games]

December 16th, 2009 No comments

Since no one here will admit to buying video game movies - so few rise above the category's shovelware reputation - Nielsen done some research on the demographics most likely to buy titles like Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Sooprise, sooprise, "households with kids ages 6-12 represent the 'sweet spot' for these products," writes Nielsen on its blog. Also, these households tend to be wealthier, with incomes above $70,000. But lest you think this is strictly a suburban whitebread consumer template, Hispanics and Asians were most likely, among ethnicities, to pick up this type of game, too.

What is interesting to me is the console breakdown of video game movie buyers. The PlayStation 3 is the clear leader, followed by the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. The Wii? A distant fourth.

This is probably attributable to the first three consoles outnumbering the Wii for development of video game adaptations. But as Nielsen started this by painting the picture of a comfortable, dual-income family with kids younger than 12 in the house, and with most major film adaptations going to all consoles, the Wii turning up so low is kind of a surprise.

Movie-based Video Games and the Households that Buy Them [Nielsen Blog]

Tags: Hollywood, Movie Games, nielsen, Numbers, PS3, retail, Stats, Wii

Nielsen and EEDAR join forces to provide ‘unprecedented’ game tracking data

November 2nd, 2009 No comments

Stat-tracking firms The Nielsen Company and Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) are teaming up to deliver "unprecedented insight into the video games industry." Nielsen's data, which has brought plenty of controversy on its own, will be integrated into EEDAR's GamePulse subscription service. Nielsen gathers its data from 1,200 "active gamers" through a weekly survey, while EEDAR data mines and organizes using various categories.

The data will be combined beginning in March of 2010 and be available to both Nielsen Video Game Tracking and EEDAR subscribers. This may not mean much to the average gamer, but to stat-obsessed executives and folks in marketing departments, this is like licking triple-chocolate ice cream covered in bacon and honey.

Nielsen and EEDAR join forces to provide 'unprecedented' game tracking data originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.