Sometimes when you look at sales charts for sold games it contains a lot of crappy games. For instance, I saw this US sales chart for jan 2002: 1. The Sims: Hot Date—EA 2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer''s Stone—EA 3. The Sims—EA 4. RollerCoaster Tycoon—Infogrames 5. Return to Castle Wolfenstein—Activision 6. Zoo Tycoon—Microsoft 7. Empire Earth—Vivendi Universal 8. The Sims: Livin'' Large—EA 9. Madden NFL 2002—EA 10. Civilization III—Infogrames On this there is only few games that match what the game media likes and what are considered top performing games. I am puzzled, how does this make sense? I have a few suggestions: 1. Is it because these chart are on unit sales and because some of those game sell very cheaply? 2. Is it because people that buy games don''t read the media and only buy games that have good license? Or what? Jacob Marner

I would guess that the easier games to play are the ones the gather the largest crowds.

Quake 3 had (still does?) a VERY intense following (as did Unreal Tournament), but only the FPS players liked those games.

Rollercoaster Tycoon and The Sims are a much more generalized style of game.

Remember Myst? Click an area on the screen, go to the next view, solve puzzles... VERY popular game.

The games aren''t crappy, they just aren''t the kind that WE would buy or would be so excited to make.

I for one would like to see a 3D in-the-cockpit RTS with military craft, intense sound effects and anime-style explosions (much faster than Battlezone). Don''t know if anyone would actually want to PLAY it, but it would be cool!

Those numbers are accurate, I watch them ever week and EA typically owns the 7 out of 10 items on that list. Typically all 3 Sims expansion packs and the original Sims are on the list. That list is an accurate representation of the best selling games. Care to see the most played games? Check this page out. Not too dissimilar to the top 10 selling games.

the answer to your question is simple if you consider the big picture.
Out of everyone you know, how many of these people actually make games?
For me it''d be myself only, and I know potentially hundreds of pople. Therefore % of people making games is less than 1%.

Out of everyone you know, how many people play (or more importantly BUY games). For me this is about 3 or 4.
Therefore % of people buying games is less than 5%.

Buggerall of everyone (Im talking the ENTIRE population, not just the gamers) buys games. Even less of everyone makes games.

Those poeple who buy games don''t necessarily like the types of games we (game dev''s) do. They don''t care if you''ve got per-pixel lighting, or are actuall tracking each projectile in realtime or whatever your game is doing. They care most about how it plays, if its got a story thats interesting (eg. Harry Potter) etc.

Games that make a million bucks aren''t necessarily the most ground breaking technologically speaking. Games like DOOM and Quake are probably an exception ( but these were released in the days when 90% of games were bought by game heads). Today probably 20-25% of games are bought by game heads, the rest are bought by the (perhaps "ignorant") public, that digs The Sims and Sollitaire.


Gobsmacked - by Toby Murray

Thanks for the replies,

As for the most played game it is no surprise that Solitaire is at the top. It is bundled with Windows.

I think that sales charts are interesting since it says something about where the money are.

Now the next question.

It seems that most people agree that to get a game published it must be very cool and state of the art.

This seems like a contradiction to me. If it is the family and womengames that sell, why does so many publishers and developers alike seem so fixated on technology?

One guess of my own could be that "technology helps". Writing a smash success seems to require a hot license (Harry potter or pokemon), much advanced technology or something that enables to capture women (The Sims is the most successful game at this yet).
Given that licenses are hard to get and woman games are hard to get right I guess that most developer house just do technology because that is all they can do. Am I completely wrong here?

Jacob

Actually I see that there''s a trend in the industry today to move away from blockbuster titles and into the wider "parlor" game market. EA acquired pogo.com, Microsoft has the msn Gaming Zone. We are seeing alot more Sim-**** games, railroad Tycoon, startiopia, trpioco, "sim-theme park", "sim-zoo" (names in quotes I can''t remember the real name for). Publishers are starting to realize the market potential of the casual gamer.

[qote]As for the most played game it is no surprise that Solitaire is at the top. It is bundled with Windows.

I think this is true, but if you look at the rest of the list they are predominantly solitaire like games. It''s no coincidence that Microsoft’s gaming packs typically include these types of games.

But this still doesn''t explain the technology fixation many software houses have. I was recently at a game job interview and the interviewers asked me details about how good my assembly language skills were - that isn''t exactly needed to do solitare like games.

Or is the technology/performance fixation just an effort to make the games run on as small machines as possible?