Nielsen To Begin Tracking Game Play

Gamespot is reporting that Nielsen is now going to be tracking game play statistics. The same 10,000 sample households that dictate what succeeds and fails in the television world will also have their game playing habits recorded by the company. From the article: "The rating system will monitor the goings-on of game consoles, including next-generation models such as Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. Data will include which games are played most frequently, along with corresponding information about the demographics of the players. The video-game rating system is also intended to offer insight into what television and Internet trends the players follow. Called GamePlay Metrics, it will be the first project to come out of Nielsen's new Wireless and Interactive Services Division, which itself launched today."

Comments

This is a setup to selling in game advertisements

[RichMan]

See subject,

This is a setup to selling in game advertisements. Once they get a demographic they have a defined audience and can start finding paths and selling spots.

Enjoy, this game, powerd by fruity-soft-beverage

Laughable

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or is this laugable un-important. It doesn't matter how *long* you play the game (even glossing over the different play lengths of games) so long as you buy it. The same applies to consoles. It really doesn't matter HOW MUCH you play the darn thing it just matters that you are shelling out the money for it. The only *possible* thing Nielson's could really help with is for side interest purposes (demographics) and for in-game advertising. Overall greed is going to win out on the "How much does it sell" side of the arguement I bet.

It's not like TV where you have to know who's actually watching to determine if the show is successful or not. The game sales charts tell you that.

Wow...

[Thad Boyd]

...this must be the "how many different ways can people misspell 'Nielsen'?" thread.

Always-On Consoles + Neilsen Metrics

[thatguywhoiam]

This is something I've wondered about for awhile. So-called next gen (is it this gen yet? are we there yet?) consoles will all have some kind of always-connected status. This has got to have people like Nielsen salivating.

Your Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii will all sit there like lumps on your network, sending whatever they like back and forth to the mothership (yes, I know you have a linux firewall. Most don't.) Nintendo and MS have even touted this as a feature. It makes me a little nervous. If your X360 decided to start telling MS about not just how much time you're playing games, but what movies, which music you are listening to? It is a 'pseudo media PC' after all. Nintendo will obviously only be able to track gameplaying (does the Wii play DVDs?). X360 and PS3, if they are used to play ripped music, show photos, watch downloaded episodes etc could provide a pretty rich set of stats on your habits.

You know what the annoying thing about this is - they could have all my stats if they wanted, just not associated with my name. Really I would not care about anonymous collection of media habits. Hell if it keeps a tampon ad out of my copy of DragonFireMasterKiller VIII or whatever, I'm all for it. But the bastards want my name and my habits, and that I have a problem with.