The Definitive Video Game Database

With an estimated market size of $167.5 billion, the video game industry has come a long way since its humble beginnings around fifty years ago. Once marketed almost exclusively towards kids and teens, video games have now matured to create unique experiences for adults as well. This is helped by the fact that the children who grew up playing video games in the 20th century stuck to their hobby and are now adult gamers.

A video game database is a structured collection of data related to video games, encompassing both consumer-facing catalogs and internal systems that support a game's logic. As a result, managing and organizing a personal video game collection has become increasingly important, and databases play a crucial role in helping enthusiasts and collectors track and view their collections across platforms.

This blog will cover what video game databases are, the different types available, what they contain, who uses them, and why understanding video game databases matters for organizing collections and supporting industry operations. Video game databases are essential for managing live operations, storing player data, and running multiplayer services in real-time, making them indispensable for both consumers and industry professionals.

A natural consequence of this evolution is that there are now multiple genres of games to choose from, with each game further having several sub-genres and other elements that make it unique. Even for the most passionate gamer, it can be hard to keep track of the multitude of games arriving in the market each year. These databases allow users to organize, catalog, and manage their collection, making it easier to track and sync their video game collection across multiple devices and platforms.

What is a Video Game Collection Database?

A Video Game Database contains intricate video game data on multiple aspects of each game. There were some databases that started in the 1990s, became popular and in fact continue to thrive today. These were almost always crowd-sourced and worked as a good source for gamers and enthusiasts.

Crowdsourced Databases

Crowdsourced databases serve as encyclopedic resources for enthusiasts to discover, rate, and track their personal game collections.

Professional Databases

Professional databases are managed by experts to provide detailed metadata for research and analysis, including rigorously defined video game genre taxonomy.

Since then, Video Game Databases have continued to evolve and gave rise to niche Professional Databases for more intricate requirements. They are maintained by teams of video game experts, who take great care in curating the data entered into the database. Their goal is to provide curated and classified high-quality video game data for the gaming ecosystem. Searching within these databases is a key function, allowing users to locate relevant information efficiently. Users can search by game title to retrieve details such as cover art and information, making cataloging and identification straightforward. Before we dive deeper into the two types of databases mentioned above, let us examine the need for a Video Game Database in the first place.

The Need For A Database Of Video Games

With thousands of video games releasing on just one popular marketplace (Steam) every year, it is clear to anyone who works in the industry that there needs to be a process through which one can organize and study data regarding major releases. This is where a database of video games comes into the picture. A properly managed database can provide accurate information about an assortment of games. Game databases often serve as the semantic backbone of gaming systems, enabling reliable search, discovery, and recommendations, addressing many of the systemic data challenges facing the video game industry. Video game databases are essential for managing live operations, storing player data, and running multiplayer services in real-time.

The two major types of Video Game Databases – crowdsourced and professionally managed – are both essential to organize and understand the huge stream of data pouring in each year. Users can filter games by platform to better manage large collections, making it easier to find titles for specific gaming systems or devices. This video game data, when used efficiently, has several applications, the most prominent of which is to help consumers make smart purchases in an environment where online stores have transformed game discovery and rely on rich metadata.

Now let us compare the two major types of databases, looking at the benefits and limitations of each one.

Crowdsourced vs Professional Databases

Crowdsourced Databases

Crowdsourced databases serve as encyclopedic resources for enthusiasts to discover, rate, and track their personal game collections.

Professional Databases

Professional databases are managed by experts to provide detailed metadata for research and analysis, including rigorously defined video game genre taxonomy.

What does a Video Game Database contain?

Video game databases typically store metadata including titles, genres, release dates, and technical gameplay data such as achievements and patches.

Video Game Metadata

This includes information like the game’s release date, developer/publisher, age ratings, release platforms, and so on. Video game metadata typically stores data such as titles, genres, release dates, achievements, and patches, enabling users to quickly identify core information about a game and manage their collections. For a broader understanding of how comprehensive metadata for video games supports discovery and data management across the industry, this metadata can then be used to find games with similar data.

Game Breakdowns and Teardowns

A breakdown/teardown of a game analyzes the various concepts and components that make up a game, such as Genre (e.g., RPG), Gameplay Actions, Game Concepts (design choices used in the game), Perspective, and Types of Elements used (weapons, mods, and so on). Games are organized across numerous dimensions, including genres, mechanics, narrative themes, platforms (such as NES and PlayStation), and accessibility. Building upon information collected in a game breakdown, games can be classified into groups, helping to identify patterns between games and making it easier to filter and organize large collections, highlighting the urgent need for a flexible game taxonomy that can capture modern game complexity.

Game-related Multimedia

These include screenshots, high-definition trailers, and gameplay videos. Backend systems are also used during a game's runtime to store player statistics, inventory, and world states, and can feed data into sentiment analysis for video games to help understand how players feel about specific features or updates.

Relations – This information analyzes how a game is related to other games in a series or franchise. For example, a series includes games that continue their story with sequels. An example of this is the Halo series. A franchise is a group of games that all revolve around a common theme, but have their individual stories. An example of this is the Assassin’s Creed franchise (which, interestingly, also has a series of sequels included)

This varied mix of information enriches the value that a database can provide, giving rise to many potential applications. So, who exactly taps into this potential?

Who Needs A Database Of Video Games?

eCommerce Stores

Digital game purchases have gone up by leaps and bounds in recent years. This makes it important for online game stores to ensure that they provide accurate data that are always up to date about each game to their customers using high quality video game metadata. For these businesses, boosting game discoverability with quality game content is crucial. It is also in their interest to provide smart game recommendations for returning customers. These recommendations are powered by algorithms, which in turn need a database to feed them.

Game Developers & Publishers

Market research is a key phase in the development of any video game amidst the video game industry. Game developers of all sizes spend a considerable amount of time analyzing the in-trend game features and their competitors' games to make their games better. Such video game data can easily be provided by a professional database.

Advertisers

Advertisers can use video game data for creating better ads, powered by sentiment analysis. This allows advertisers to pick an opportune moment to run their campaign, by reaching out to a targeted and engaged audience, that is already invested in the kind of game(s) being advertised, much like e-commerce platforms use well-managed video game information on their websites to improve targeting and conversions.

Media Outlets

As competition heats up in the media space, larger outlets can differentiate themselves from their competitors by providing richer and up-to-date video game data to their users via an API that is powered by a stream of data fed by a Video Game Database. Leveraging localised game metadata for eCommerce-style platforms can also help them better serve regional audiences. The data is then supplemented with high-quality screenshots, trailers and artwork related to the games.

And it's not just limited to these four; many digital distribution platforms, gaming websites and forums also require access to an up-to-date video game database.

Conclusion

The recent boom in gaming due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to sustain well into the future. As the number of gamers across the world increases, businesses in the video game industry will need to serve this rising audience more efficiently. Using the functions of a well-maintained database is a step in the right direction.

Gameopedia's professionally maintained database and high quality video game data can serve multiple needs of businesses in the gaming industry. We provide a vast array of customizable services, powered by our database that contains more than 5 million video game facts/insights and up to 13,000 Game attributes for more than 180,000 games, illustrating why large firms in the video gaming ecosystem rely on niche partners like Gameopedia.

Our database keeps growing every day and we are excited to work in the dynamic, ever-changing video game industry. Get in touch with us to know more.