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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Opinion   >   How many people finish a game

How many people finish a game

By on November 28, 2011

I wrote a post about why episodic gaming doesn’t work, and got many comments back about how my logic (that you lose a large percentage of your audience between episodes) is flawed.

I accept that my illustration of losing 50% of your audience between episodes is contentious. My point, however, is that few people finish story-driven games, and when the future of your studio relies on people finishing the first game and then a growth in demand (or at least staying flat) for your next episode.

I saw this fascinating chart on game completion rates on Gamasutra showing how many people finished popular Xbox games. I was surprised by how high the completion rates were, but they are still challenging for an episodic developer.

Gamasutra game completion rates

 

If you’re interested, you should check out the full article on Gamasutra.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com