Nielsen, EEDAR Partner To Track Video Game Data

The Nielsen Company and Electronic Entertainment Design And Research, which independently track different aspects of the video game industry and gamer behavior, will use Nielsen's data in EEDAR's GamePulse research service, the two companies said today. Specifically, Nielsen's Video Game Tracking service, whose data is based on a weekly survey of more than 1,200 gamers and deals with, will become part of GamePulse. It deals with consumer awareness and purchase intent, while Nielsen Monitor-Plus covers marketing spend and effectiveness. Users of both EEDAR and Nielsen services will gain access to that data within the GamePulse application. GamePulse's primary existing offering is its continually-expanded database of game information, including in-game data, sales and review performance, industry trends, and other categories. The company says it has tallied some 12 million pieces of information on over 10,000 games. A statement around this time last year had counted 4,500 games. Nielsen and EEDAR expect that Nielsen's data will be available within EEDAR's dashboard system by March 2010. "It is incredibly important to the long term health of the video game industry that, where commercially feasible, competition be replaced with collaboration," said EEDAR chairman Greg Short in a statement. "By allowing our clients...to access and integrate historically competitive data-sets into EEDAR's industry leading GamePulse service, we dramatically increase the value of each discrete source by providing contextual cross-data insights via a highly accessible and intuitive interface." "We are excited to partner with EEDAR on this initiative," said Nielsen client consulting director Mike Flamberg, who added, "More importantly, I think our clients are the real winners."