Top 50 Games of 2012: 68% Violent Content, 38% Guns

The Guardian has used data from VGChartz to produce an infographic that displays to what extent violent content and realistic firearms feature in the top 50 games of 2012. According to the data, 68% of those 50 bestselling games last year featured at least some violent content, and 38% featured guns.

Around one side of the circular graphic, the top 50 games are listed in order of units sold, with colour intensity (i.e. varying strengths of blue) representing how many millions of copies were sold over the year. Around the other side of the graphic, a green section lists different kinds of content as named by the ERSB (Entertainment Ratings Safety Board): blood and gore, sexual themes, use of alcohol, and so on. Here the colour intensity represents how many games feature that kind of content; the most frequent is intense violence. The red section of the graphic focuses on weapons, from handguns to grenades to swords. Again, the colour intensity represents how frequently these weapons appeared; 19 of those top 50 games featured handguns or pistols, for example.

Joining together all these pieces of data are hypnotic and colourful curved lines, and the really cool thing about this infographic is that you can hover your mouse over one item to see only its connections. Hover over the bestselling game for the year, for example, and you'll see that Call of Duty: Black Ops II features intense violence, strong language, blood and gore, suggestive themes, use of drugs, and a whole range of realistic weaponry. Compare that to the second bestselling game, FIFA 13, which has none of the content listed or indeed any realistic weaponry. Or you could hover over “Nudity” to find out which games had naked people in; in 2012, this was Far Cry 3 and Resident Evil 6.

Does information like this interest you? What do you think it says about the industry?