Everyone’s tastes are different, whether it’s your favourite food, the kind of hobbies you have, the football team you support, your idea of interior design or the clothes you buy – we’re all different and that’s what makes us who we are. Gaming is another industry in which people’s opinions differ, and this means that different games are popular at certain periods of time.
It’s not just the titles that swap places in terms of popularity, but also the genres. Sometimes it’s a role-playing game that tops the charts in terms of sales, next it might be a simulator – quite often it depends on the title being released, but many come out within weeks or months of each other in an attempt to top the charts on their own right, not just because there isn’t much competition.
Many games are released around certain times, such as Christmas, in order to sell by the million across the globe to people desperate for Santa to put a copy underneath their tree; while others are released in time for a new console – such as the recent release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Others, however, seem to come out around the time that the title is popular elsewhere, such as the range of different online games featuring the X Factor which is on our screens in the UK at the moment.
Over the years, different titles have remained popular even when our tastes might be changing and the demographic are getting older. Way back in the early ‘90s, some games were particularly popular but even today they’re right up there in terms of sales figures each year as a newer, updated version is released to satisfy the public’s demand for a new game.
Over the years, these newer titles have taken on new forms. We’ve seen them released onto different platforms, new characters introduced and some amazing updates released that make us wonder how we ever managed to play them in their early days when the graphics were nothing compared to what they are now. It’s amazing to see the number of sales of each title, too, especially those that have been around for many years now.