Project details:
This project explores historical videogame sales, ratings and genre data to understand what makes a game successful across global markets. The analysis highlights regional preferences, platform differences, and key factors shaping sales performance. It also includes hypothesis testing to compare user ratings between platforms and genres in a statistically sound way.
Description
Business Context & Problem
For an online store selling games worldwide, knowing what drives interest in different regions can directly influence marketing strategy and product placement. With thousands of titles, genres and platforms competing for attention, spotting early trends is essential. This project focuses on identifying which features — ratings, platform, year, genre — are most strongly associated with commercial success and how preferences differ geographically.
Data & Analytical Approach
The dataset included game titles, release years, user and critic ratings, genres, platforms and regional sales. After cleaning the data and selecting a relevant time window, descriptive statistics and exploratory visualisations helped uncover sales patterns over time and shifts in platform popularity. Feature engineering and grouping were used to compare markets (NA, EU, JP and other regions), build a clearer picture of player preferences and identify niche genres versus consistently strong performers.
Statistical / ML Analysis
To understand whether differences in user ratings were meaningful, two separate hypothesis tests were run using independent-samples t-tests:
- to compare average user ratings between Xbox One and PC
- to compare ratings between Action and Sports games
These tests helped determine whether any observed gaps reflected real preference differences or could be explained by random variation. The statistical approach adds confidence to decisions around platform-specific promotions and genre-targeted marketing.
Key Insights & Final Recommendations
The analysis highlighted clear regional differences: some genres consistently perform well in North America and Europe, while Japan shows distinct preferences. Several platforms showed declining sales, suggesting they should not be prioritised in future campaigns.
The hypothesis testing confirmed that Xbox One and PC user ratings do not differ significantly, meaning both platforms can be targeted similarly. At the same time, Action and Sports games do show a meaningful difference in ratings, supporting genre-specific marketing strategies.
Overall, the project outlines which game attributes correlate with higher sales, how tastes vary by region and where a store should focus its efforts to maximise the impact of upcoming releases.