$1\mathrm{.}0-$ Why are some games better than others?

A little while ago, we explored how critics and users rate games. Now let$$s turn our attention to this question: Why are some games rated more highly than others?

$1\mathrm{.}1-$ Let$$s get your first impressions. Why do you think some games are $$better$$ than others?

About the gamesales data

We will be using the gamesales data set. Because there are over $30$ platform categories in this data frame, these data have been filtered to include only three platforms that were produced by popular competitors and were released around the same time $($between $2005-2006)$:

PS$3($Sony$,2005)$

Wii $($Nintendo$,2006)$

X$360($Microsoft$,2006)$

Since we are loading the data from a CSV$,$ there is no documentation for the data frame. That means you can't use gamesales to get more information about the variables. Instead, here is a description of each of the variables:

Variable Description

Name The video game's name

Platform Platform of the game$$s release; PS$3,$ Wii, and X$360$

Year$\_$of$\_$Release Year of the game's release

Genre Genre of the game

Publisher Publisher of the game

NA$\_$Sales Sales in North America $($in millions$)$

EU$\_$Sales Sales in Europe $($in millions$)$

JP$\_$Sales Sales in Japan $($in millions$)$

Other$\_$Sales Sales in the rest of the world $($in millions$)$

Global$\_$Sales Total worldwide sales $($in millions$)$

Critic$\_$Score Aggregate score compiled by Metacritic staff

Critic$\_$Count The number of critics used in coming up with the critic score

User$\_$Score Score by Metacritic's subscribers

User$\_$Count Number of users who gave the user score

Rating The ESRB ratings $($Entertainment Software Rating Board$)$

$1\mathrm{.}2-$ Let$$s consider one hypothesis as a class:

Game developers might create better games for some platforms than others. Maybe that$$s why those games might then be rated more highly.

Let$$s call this the Platform hypothesis. Before we look at the data, what do you think about this hypothesis? Do you think it$$s true? Which platform might have better or worse games?

$2\mathrm{.}0-$ Exploring the Platform Hypothesis with Critic Scores

$2\mathrm{.}1-$ If we think a game$$s Platform can help us explain the variation we see in Critic$\_$Score, how can we write this idea as a word equation? Which is the outcome and which is the explanatory variable?

$2\mathrm{.}2-$ Try to create a faceted histogram to help us see whether Platform might be related to critics$$ ratings of games.

$2\mathrm{.}3-$ Looking at the histograms, what do you notice about these distributions? Does any Platform seem like it tends to have better or worse critic ratings?

$2\mathrm{.}4-$ Now try using a boxplot or jitterplot to explore the same hypothesis. $($Optional: Can you overlay the two?$)$

$2\mathrm{.}5-$ Looking at this other visualization, do you see the same pattern you saw in the histograms? What pattern do you notice?

$2\mathrm{.}6-$ Based on these visualizations, if you knew that a game was a Wii game and had to guess it$$s critics rating, would you adjust your guess to be a little lower or a little higher? Why?

$3\mathrm{.}0-$ Exploring the Platform Hypothesis on User Scores

$3\mathrm{.}1-$ As we all know, users are a little different from critics. Do you think we will see the same relationship between platform and ratings when we look at user scores? Why or why not?

$3\mathrm{.}2-$ If we think a game$$s Platform can help us explain the variation we see in User$\_$Score, how can we write this idea as a word equation? Which is the outcome and which is the explanatory variable?

$3\mathrm{.}3-$ Make two different visualizations $($your choice!$)$ to check out the Platform hypothesis on user ratings.

$3\mathrm{.}4-$ Looking at the visualizations, what do you notice about these distributions? Does any Platform seem like it tends to have better or worse user ratings?

$3\mathrm{.}5-$ If you knew that a game was a Wii game and had to guess it$$s user rating, would you adjust your guess to be a little lower or a little higher? Why?

$4\mathrm{.}0-$ Wrap$-$up of the Platform Hypothesis

$4\mathrm{.}1-$ One definition of $$explain variation$$ is that if we know a little bit more about a game, we can use that information to make a better prediction of some outcome. Now that we$$ve explored the Platform Hypothesis, does Platform help us explain variation on some outcome $($either critic or user ratings$)?$ Which outcome?

$4\mathrm{.}2-$ When we look at a visualization and think $$ yeah, this one looks like some of the variation is explained $$ what features of the visualization should we look at$?$

$4\mathrm{.}3-$ What are your overall conclusions? Does Platform matter for $$how good a game is$?$

$5\mathrm{.}0-$ From Data to Decision$-$Making

$5\mathrm{.}1-$ Hmmm... just out of curiosity, let$$s check which platforms have the top $10$ highest selling games globally $($using Global$\_$Sales$).$ Which platforms have the highest game sales? Are they the same platforms that seem to have higher ratings? What explains this?

$5\mathrm{.}2-$ If you had to write a public relations statement on behalf of Wii games $($Nintendo company$)$ based on all the analyses we$$ve done so far, what would you say?