Top Video Games

Preregistration of analyses

Analysis 1

How does the number of players affect critic scores vs. user scores? Do general users enjoy multiplayer games more than critics? Do critics enjoy single-player games more than general users?

Hypothesis:

  • The number of players in a game has an effect on the difference between critic and user scores. Single-player games will have a higher critic score compared to multiplayer games, while multiplayer games will have a higher user score than single-player games.

Method:

  • Collect data on game titles that have both critic and user scores from popular review websites such as Metacritic and GameSpot. Record the number of players each game can accommodate, and classify each game as either single-player or multiplayer. Use regression analysis to determine the relationship between the number of players and the difference between critic and user scores. Conduct a t-test to compare the difference in mean scores between single-player and multiplayer games, both for critics and users.

Analysis 2

What platforms are the highest rated of all time by critics? What about general users?

Hypothesis:

  • The highest-rated platforms by critics would be games that received the highest meta score. In this case, as the ‘meta_score’ increases, the platform with the highest score would be “Nintendo 64”.

  • Similarly, the highest-rated platforms by general users would be games that received the highest user score. In this case, as the ‘user_score’ increases, the platform with the highest score would be “Dreamcast”.

Method:

  • Group the games by platform and add a new variable to categorize platform family (eg. PlayStation, Wii, XBox). Then, use R to calculate the mean critic (meta) score for each platform. Repeat for the mean general user score for each platform. Output a tibble displaying all platform names along with their corresponding mean critic scores and mean user scores. Create two scatterplots — one for critic score and one for user score — that displays all of the mean values, color-categorized by platform family. Determine which platforms and platform families have the highest scores, for both critics and users.