Predicting Success Factors of Video Game Titles and Companies

What strategies, company organisations, and design decisions render video game titles successful and secure the survivability of a game development studio? These are important questions, subject to situational and contextual variation. Nevertheless, different approaches clearly make a major impact on the public reception or economical outcome of a video game project, thereby making the identification of these factors a critical inquiry for both academia, cultural institutions, and the games industry. This work aggregated 137 (ontology-, theory- and experience-driven) variables about 144 games from 76 companies located in the European game industries, and deployed machine learning to predict success criteria on a feasible level. The most important features from these models were extracted, presented, and validated using the expertise of three long-time industry professionals, highlighting the soundness and actuality of these factors. Among others, genre, game engines, business models and protagonist characteristics can highly impact a game’s reception and/or economic accomplishments.