A look at the top 10 best-selling games of 2009 would lead you to believe that with the exception of Modern Warfare 2, "family friendly" titles are driving the market. And while it's true that Nintendo dominated the market, the overall trend in 2009 (and even the past five years) is that Mature content was in control.
EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich explains: "Sales of Mature rated (or 16+ and 18+ PEGI) games remained flat in 2009, which outperformed all other ESRB (and PEGI) ratings which all had sales decline in the double digits. In fact, over the last five years, Mature games have had one of the most stable economies and reinforces a theory that whether a recession or economic boom, the core of our industry has and will continue to remain healthy. The biggest decline among the ESRB/PEGI ratings was in the Teen rated (or +12 PEGI) games."
EEDAR's findings would seem to square with the idea that core titles remain hugely important to industry growth. In the second half of 2009, core game sales were up 17%.
Divnich also pointed out that part of the reason that Teen games saw the biggest decline is that the Music category was the genre with the greatest decline worldwide, dropping 40% year-over-year. Conversely, "the largest revenue gains produced year-over-year were in the Shooter genre, which came on the backs of titles such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, Halo: ODST, Resident Evil 5, Killzone 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and catalog sales from Call of Duty 4 and World at War."
