“Hi Dali.”
“Oh, hi Aunt Gloria. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for games for your cousins. What are the best games for kids?”
That’s a typical conversation I experience around Christmas each year, and any avid gamer will probably experience the same. “What are the best games?” or “Where do I go for game information?” are common queries. While it’s easy for me to list off 4 or 5 great spots for game information, my friends and relatives generally don’t have the curse luxury of being knowledgeable about modern gaming.
This afternoon a similar conversation occurred at work, and it caused me to ponder about where the non-typical gamer gets their information. The obvious answer is to hop online and search. What were the most search-for videogame websites? I was off to Google to find out.
Well, not to Google’s physical headquarters. Rather, I was hopping online to do a search for the term “videogames” to see what would turn up. Would some of my favorite websites appear on the front page? My search returned a slap in the face:
“Did you mean: video games“
Crap. I forgot that there was still some issue with the topic being divided into one or two words. I decided that I would click the link after searching for the single entry.
The results for: videogames
On: Google
- Gamespot
- Gamestop
- Gametrailers
- Wikipedia entry for – Video Game
- IGN
- Amazon’s Video Games page
- Gamefly
- Toys R Us Video Games page
- Nintendo
- Best Buy’s Video Games and Gadgets page
Interesting results. Three of the top five returned listings being media websites was a surprise, as I’d have thought that Amazon or even eBay would have been at the top instead. Nintendo stands as the only developer/publisher on the list. Gamespot is at the top more than likely because they had wisely purchased the videogames.com domain name many years ago, redirecting it to their website. The biggest surprise was Gametrailers — I had no idea that they were that popular. Maybe the Spike TV tie-in is helping. There was also a smattering of feed-read videogame news that Google was sharing at the bottom of the list.
I decided to re-run the results with the separate terms to see if that changed anything. Surprisingly, it did.
The results for: video games
On: Google
- Gamespot
- Gamestop
- Gametrailers
- IGN
- Wikipedia entry for – Video Game
- Amazon’s Video Games page
- Xbox.com
- Toys R Us Video Games page
- Gamefly
- EBGames
Yeah, there were some surprises there. Firstly, IGN hops into the top 4 and journalism nearly fills up the top spots. Nintendo drops out of the list, replaced by Microsoft’s Xbox division. Finally, EBGames, the alternate division of Gamestop, shows up to round out the Top Ten. That’s essentially two listings for one company on that front page of Google. There was also a huge map section of the search results devoted to “Places for video games” that pointed me in the right direction should I be tempted to buy a game at midnight. News and even books about video games had their own sections within the results, as did the ability to click on similar keywords related to the subject, one of which was… “eb games”. Yep, they show up here again.
Google brought some interesting results, and it’s pretty clear that to the layman user that Gamespot and Gamestop would be most frequented during searches.
I then shifted gears. What do the results look like on other search engines? I couldn’t very well visit EVERY search engine to see the results, so I chose two popular search analyzers to retrieve the results: Alexa and Bing.
I began with Alexa.
The results for: video games
On: Alexa.com
- Gamestop
- IGN
- EB Games
- Arcadegames.gr
- Video Games Live
- Gamestop
- Nintendo of America
- GamesWarehouse.com.au
- AddictingGames.com
- Xbox
Whoa. Did not expect THAT to happen. Apparently, EB Games is more popular on Alexa than Gamestop. Also on the list were a couple of free flash gaming websites (one in Greece!) and a now-closed Australian gaming website. It’s worth noting that the Alexa analytics are vastly different than the ones Google uses.
I tried combining the words to see what would happen to the list.
The results for: videogames
On: Alexa.com
- Gamespot
- IGN
- EB Games
- CVG
- GameFAQs
- Gamestart.it
- Play
- Gamestop
- Videogames.it
- GAME
Italians love their gaming, and the British love to shop for games. GameFAQs showed up for the first time on the list, adding to the Gamespot family. There was a heavy European influence with Alexa overall.
Finally I turned my eyes to Google’s competitor, Bing.
Do you mean video games?
No I do not. Not yet, at least.
The results for: videogames
On: Bing
- Wikipedia entry for – Video Game
- Gamespot
- Gametrailers
- Kotaku
- IGN
- Barnes & Noble’s Video Games page
- Bizrate’s Video Games page
- G4TV
- Gamestop
- Wikipedia’s list of banned video games
Well, that’s kind of interesting. Although we see some new faces on the list — Bing’s blog-friendly search engine picked up on Kotaku — we also see a heavy focus on consumers to purchase games as well as a pseudo political statement with the “banned” listing. Again, Gamespot and Gametrailers reign at or near the top.
The results for: video games
On: Bing
- Wikipedia entry for – Video Game
- Gamespot
- G4TV
- Kotaku
- Gametrailers
- A Yahoo blog post about their Video Games section
- IGN
- Gamestop
- VideoGameTalk.com
- Amazon’s Video Games page
This listing is interesting for two reasons: 1) Yahoo! still managed to find to find itself even remotely relevant, if only to announce the death of something in October of 2010, and 2) Video Game Talk is the David of blogs up against the Goliaths.
Overall the popularities of Gamespot, Gametrailers, and IGN are hefty, and retail has Gamestop and Amazon to thank. But, it’s when those smaller websites break in that we get giddy. How will Google’s new enforcement of content affect these listings, we won’t know for a while. But at least now we can just tell our friends to go to Google and have a pretty safe assumption of where they’ll end up.
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