Common sense and facts: “most awaited” holiday titles

It’s common sense that “what goes up must come down,” but you need specific formulas if you’re going to send a space shuttle into space. In other words, you need solid data and clear numbers.

So we appreciated the data we found in a Gamasutra article about BrandIntel, a market research company out of Toronto, and BrandIntel’s “Top 50 Video Games Report.” The study took data from both “online and human analysis from January 1, 2006 to October 31, 2006 for over 1,200 titles” – including those that have only been announced. “The games were broken down in terms of audience interest and sentiment score, and then subsequently ranked.”

The results. So which games got the most audience (customer) interest?

1. Gears of War
   The game is from Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios is unstoppable. (We had to use Tim Buckley’s Ctrl+Alt+Del comic take on it from ctrlaltdel-online.com.)
2. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
   Any “hardcore gamer” should be willing to show respect for this venerable franchise steeped in gaming tradition from Nintendo EAD. *bow your head and ask for Miyamoto’s blessing* LOL
3. Madden NFL 07 (with versions for the Xbox 360, for the PS3, and for the Wii)
   If you’ve been reading QJ comments, you’ll see people’s interest vary depending on the platform. Some versions for some consoles are ridiculed for bugs and because EA Sports has lost its touch, but some versions are praised for innovations.
4. Halo 3
5. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (with versions for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii)
6. Fight Night Round 3
7. Call of Duty 3 (with versions for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3)
8. Assassin’s Creed (with versions for the Xbox 360 and PS3)
9. Resistance: Fall of Man
10. Tony Hawk’s Project 8

The research took “online consumer communities such as message boards, discussion forums, blogs and other internet social communities,” as well as “over 670,000 raw search results, of which 48,000 consumer mentions on next-gen video games were used in compiling the data.”

The trends. According to the study, there are some trends: moving away from World War II shooters and moving towards futuristic shooters, action adventure got discussed because of “open-ended game play and highly-interactive environments” but sports games got discussed (dissed) for “inaccurate and unrealistic” gameplay.

That makes sense to us: it’s easy to diss a sport game because you play the sport in real life or watch it on TV. You don’t usually have to deal with aliens or monsters unless you went to snooty high school, so a futuristic shooter will tend to make us notice (in a positive way) the atmosphere and effects and gameplay.

It’s common sense that “what goes up must come down,” but you need specific formulas if you’re going to send a space shuttle into space. In other words, you need solid data and clear numbers.

So we appreciated the data we found in a Gamasutra article about BrandIntel, a market research company out of Toronto, and BrandIntel’s “Top 50 Video Games Report.” The study took data from both “online and human analysis from January 1, 2006 to October 31, 2006 for over 1,200 titles” – including those that have only been announced. “The games were broken down in terms of audience interest and sentiment score, and then subsequently ranked.”

The results. So which games got the most audience (customer) interest?

1. Gears of War
   The game is from Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios is unstoppable. (We had to use Tim Buckley’s Ctrl+Alt+Del comic take on it from ctrlaltdel-online.com.)
2. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
   Any “hardcore gamer” should be willing to show respect for this venerable franchise steeped in gaming tradition from Nintendo EAD. *bow your head and ask for Miyamoto’s blessing* LOL
3. Madden NFL 07 (with versions for the Xbox 360, for the PS3, and for the Wii)
   If you’ve been reading QJ comments, you’ll see people’s interest vary depending on the platform. Some versions for some consoles are ridiculed for bugs and because EA Sports has lost its touch, but some versions are praised for innovations.
4. Halo 3
5. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (with versions for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii)
6. Fight Night Round 3
7. Call of Duty 3 (with versions for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3)
8. Assassin’s Creed (with versions for the Xbox 360 and PS3)
9. Resistance: Fall of Man
10. Tony Hawk’s Project 8

The research took “online consumer communities such as message boards, discussion forums, blogs and other internet social communities,” as well as “over 670,000 raw search results, of which 48,000 consumer mentions on next-gen video games were used in compiling the data.”

The trends. According to the study, there are some trends: moving away from World War II shooters and moving towards futuristic shooters, action adventure got discussed because of “open-ended game play and highly-interactive environments” but sports games got discussed (dissed) for “inaccurate and unrealistic” gameplay.

That makes sense to us: it’s easy to diss a sport game because you play the sport in real life or watch it on TV. You don’t usually have to deal with aliens or monsters unless you went to snooty high school, so a futuristic shooter will tend to make us notice (in a positive way) the atmosphere and effects and gameplay.