Hey guys. I have no idea which forum is best suited for this question, so I'll ask here.

Does any of you know, or know where to look for information about, how many game titles have been released since the industry's day 1 of 1st Generation? Or whatever other benchmark is realistic to start from? I got a feeling I need to get this info the hard way, and it might even be impossible to get an exact number. But fingers crossed, and I only need to get an estimate (albeit as accurate as possible).

I'd like to figure this out, because I think the knowledge could help me design better games or similar, but I'll have to figure that out once I've seen how far I can get into the rabbit's hole. It's just a personal project of mine, although I might share the information online later, as a hypothesis (or several), or just pure data.

Thanks in advance.

Consoles have gatekeepers (Nintendo, Sony, MS, etc), which means that records are kept.

There's no way to know stats for non-gated platforms though, e.g. how many flash games have ever been hosted on the web... How many kids wrote barely-shared games on their C64's and Apple IIe's... how many people made total conversions for Doom or Quake that have been lost to the BBS's of time...

....and How would you figure in your statistics the number of games released for different platforms? Example : EASports releases it games for PC, XBox, PlayStation etc..

would they count as 1 or once for each platform.

What about games released soley as Arcade only machines, do you want to count those ?

I think I would rather learn to speak Klingon (LOL) than research this.

Thanks for the answers, I guess I'll first look into gated games and then make some rough estimates about the other ones. As mentioned, I don't need to know about every single title and I can leave the first generation or two as a sidenote, since the industry hadn't really taken off yet at that time. Those magazines would also be a thing happening on the side, even if they helped spawn a new generation of programmers.

But we'll see.

However, if you can tell us what you want the information for and what you're actually counting as a released game for your purposes then perhaps we might be of more assistance with a more specific number or estimate.

Well, I'm thinking of maybe make various graphs, such as the following ones:

1. How much the industry has increased in titles sold (and maybe compare that with copies sold of each title, at least for the most popular games).

2. How much money is spent making each game.

3. How much each genre has evolved and which year each genre was introduced on the market (and what genres there are).

4. The evolution of platforms and introduction of new ones.

5. Are there any genres that I've completely missed playing, myself, and which?

6. Which years the industry has gone better or worse, and how that correlates to other global events - e.g. the financial crisis.

I'm aware that I shouldn't expect too impressive results. But if nothing else, then at least I've learned to what extent it's an impossible task. I'll just start with the AAA platforms and work my way into tigerland.

By first writing down the title of each game and its platform(s) and then write the appropriate graph based on it. And I already know Klingon. (No, just kidding )

I might write Spreadsheets for each platform where most or all titles are known, for instance. Also, depending on the statistic, some of those concerns aren't as relevant.

how many games that have been released since the industry's day 1 of 1st Generation? I got a feeling I need to get this info the hard way, and it might even be impossible to get an exact number. But fingers crossed, and I only need to get an estimate (albeit as accurate as possible).

As mentioned, I don't need to know about every single title and I can leave the first generation or two as a sidenote, since the industry hadn't really taken off yet at that time.

Folks said before that your quest was unclear. Your clarification makes it even more unclear! Folks asked why you want to know, and you answered "Well, I'm thinking of maybe make various graphs". That's not an answer to the question.

A lot of people would be very interested to have the information you seek, but the results you obtain will still raise questions like the ones asked above. Is this a Ph.D. project? Are you hoping to publish this study? Are you hoping to sell it (the way statistics and market research are sold)?

Folks said before that your quest was unclear. Your clarification makes it even more unclear! Folks asked why you want to know, and you answered "Well, I'm thinking of maybe make various graphs". That's not an answer to the question.

Good point, I guess. I think this is one of those things where it's impossible to even ask one question and expect any conclusive answer, because that answer will only reveal a piece of the puzzle. But for now, I just want to know what titles of games have sold for which platforms. In some cases, I know that's impossible to know. I'm just trying to figure out what makes it impossible to know these things, as well as get whatever information that is possible to know about.

As for why I want to know these things, it's mostly something that I think could help me design better games. Knowing which games have released, won't itself help me much. But whatever I can subsequently produce out of that information, could potentially be helpful. Like comparing two games of the same genre and setting, one that succeeded and the other bombing terribly - and why those things happened.

I'm asking according to a line of thought, really. I might publish it as various hypotheses at best, and I've never considered making money on this. I'm likely just gonna make it publicly available on my upcoming website. As of now, I've been just writing down a game list that I thought I'd extend upon as far as possible. Mostly games that I've played myself (roughly estimated to around 600 total), but then I got this Gumpish idea of "I'm already doing this, so might as well do that...". So, I'm gonna see where that takes me.

I also appreciate that you point out the issue with clarity. I'll think about that, because I don't want to ask redundant questions. But I feel like I've gotten some good answers already, and google, wikipedia and yahoo are definitely my friends here.

(I'm also looking into how to get better at datamining.)

Edit: Fixed the OP somewhat.