Matt Matthews of Next-Gen has done some digging into the vast databases of our old friend Metacritic, and he has interesting observations about the quality of game releases based on month. He didn’t stop there. He made a color-coded chart! Be still my statistics-loving heart!
Taking the average of the Metacritic ratings for games released in each month between January 2002 and December 2007, Matthews noted a few characteristics:
- February turns out to have the best average review scores at 70.6%.
- August is a close runner-up at 70.2%
- May through July are rotten, with averages from 65.0% up to 66.2%.
- December – unsurprisingly – is the absolute worst, with a stinky 64.1%
The article doesn’t merely aggregate these data. It also offers a few opinions on why this might be the case. Matthews is quick to attribute the more positive ratings in August to the debut of Madden:
August is an easy one: few people want to go head-to-head with Madden NFL in August, so fewer games are released and those games that are released are of higher quality.
While this is certainly one way to interpret the results, it seems equally plausible to me that video game developers are releasing few trivial titles because the days of summer are coming to a close. In the absence of a seemingly infinite amount of summer sun and freedom, people are less inclined to spend their few remaining days of bliss on some tripe that a developer has pushed out to make a quick buck. Thus, fewer crappy games debut around then. I would say that my interpretation is based on observation, but I spend most of August playing Madden anyway…
By contrast, Matthews’ explanation for December’s sheer mediocrity rings true:
And then there’s December. Why drop a really good game in amongst the rabble during that rush up to Christmas? It’s just going to get missed in the scramble to pick up those last-minute Christmas gifts, so better to keep good games for a later time…like February the following year!
Matthews also noted a general downward tendency in the reviews over the years, which could certainly be attributed to the public’s demand for more honest criticism:
Another [explanation] is that reviewers, and the media in general, have been more critical of games in the past two years. As the industry itself has grown over the past couple of years, the media which report on videogames have evolved into a more critical institution. With blogs competing with bigger sites for consumer eyeballs, the bland reviews of old have become unacceptable. The populace is more prepared than ever to call bull when they see a bogus review.
Whether or not review scores actually mean anything is open to debate, but it’s certainly an interesting analysis regardless. Isn’t it great that the best video game sales come in the month with the worst reviews? People sure do love quality.
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