GameCo - Video Game Sales

GameCo is a new video game company with markets across the globe. They want to understand market trends to inform the development and marketing of new games.

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  • As a data analyst, my goal was to analyse regional sales trends to support GameCo in making data-driven decisions.

    1. Are certain types of games more popular than others?

    2. Have any genres decreased or increased in popularity overtime?

    3. How have sales figures varied between geographic regions overtime?

  • Historical sales of video games that have sold over 10,000 copies between 1980 and 2020 - from VGChartz.

    (click here for raw data)

  • All data cleaning, wrangling, and analysis was carried out entirely in Excel.

    PowerPoint was used to compile visualisations and findings in a final presentation.

  • This is a project I completed as part of the data analytics course at CareerFoundry.

Approach and Process

Data Preparation

  • Conducted an exploratory analysis to find and address inconsistencies, duplicates, and missing values.

  • Calculated simple descriptive statistics (averages, maximums, minimums, counts, etc.) to aid in identifying incomplete data and thus refine the range of data to be analysed.

Comparison of original data to cleaned data with easy-to-read formatting and filters to make analysing the data more accessible.

Data Analysis

  • Pivot tables were used to group and summarise data by region, genre, and publisher. Calculated fields were also created to obtain percentages of the market share in each region.

  • Filtering options were utilised to focus on relevant years with consistent data.

Spreadsheet with percentage data for North America, Europe, Japan, and other countries across four categories: Action, Shooter, Role-Playing, and Sports from 2012 to 2016.

Pivot table showing percentages of sales in each genre across geographic regions between 2012 and 2016.

Visualisations and Presentation

  • Created doughnut charts, line charts, and 100% stacked column charts to visualise market trends overtime and between geographic regions.

  • Utilised advanced formatting options in PowerPoint to construct clear data visualisations and communicate findings to stakeholders.

Pie chart titled 'Global Sales by Region in 2016 (%)' showing North America at 31%, Europe at 37%, Japan at 19%, Other Countries at 12%, with a black and white globe icon in the center.

Doughnut chart showing global sales distribution in 2016.

Line graph showing the yearly distribution of video game sales by region from 2007 to 2016. North America had the highest sales percentage, peaking around 52% in 2007 and declining to about 32% in 2016. Europe increased from about 25% to nearly 40%. Japan's sales fluctuated, with a noticeable rise towards 2016. Other countries maintained a relatively steady percentage around 10%.

Line chart showing market shifts across different geographic regions.

Bar chart showing global sales percentages of top genres by region from 2012 to 2016, including Action, Shooter, Role-Playing, and Sports, with regions Europe, Japan, North America, and Other Countries.

100% stacked column chart showing changes in sales proportions of the top 4 genres across different regions between 2012 and 2016 (advanced formatting used to focus on the North America region).

Results and Deliverables

Summary of Results

  • Found that video game sales in North America have been declining and recommended increased marketing to counteract the decline.

  • Identified sport and shooter games growing popularity in Europe. Also, Europe has overtaken North America as having the greatest sales numbers in all regions.

  • Highlighted a recent boom in the action and role-playing genres in Japan, and this should be marketed more to captialise on the growth.

Deliverables