M-Rated Games See Huge Increase in Average Revenue in 2007

It might come as a bit of a surprise to you, but in the world of console games, only Mature rated games saw an increase of average revenue from 2006 to 2007. Everyone, E10+ and Teen all saw a drop in average revenue in 2007, which – if you look into it – actually makes sense.

Consider the amount of shovelware you can find on Wii, and the numbers suddenly start to make sense. With all of that garbage out there that doesn’t sell, the average revenue of games with those ratings (generally E and E10+) is going to drop. Factor in the monster sales of games like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3, and the decrease in number of M-rated releases in 2007 versus of 2006, and the numbers become almost laughably predictable.

Average revenue for handheld games saw a dramatic drop per ESRB rating across the board, particularly in the M-rated category. With a push for a younger demographic on the PSP, there simply wasn’t much of a market for M-rated games on handhelds last year. However, in spite of this, estimates see the handheld market having a 16% increase in software revenue compared with a 38% increase in the console world. (Yes, it’s a bit strange to think of average revenue per-rating dropping yet, as a whole, seeing an increase in total revenue.)

Head over to Next Gen for more numbers and graphs for you to contemplate, and then come back and leave some predictions for how you see 2008 working out.