I was perusing the top 10 best-selling games for August and noticed something--there's not a single original title on the list. Every game is a sequel, spin-off or derivative work.

Just to make sure that this was as out-of whack as I suspected, I even compared the top 10 films for the end of August to see how much that industry relies on sequels to fill up its summer fun.

The following chart summarizes The NPD Group/NPD Fundworld's the top selling video games for August, and IMDB's, the top-grossing films for the last week in August:

	Console Game	Platform	Movie
1	Madden NFL 2004	PS2	Jeepers Creepers 2
2	Madden NFL 2004	XBX	Freaky Friday
3	Soul Calibur II	GCN	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
4	Soul Calibur II	XBX	S.W.A.T.
5	Silent Hill 3	PS2	Open Range
6	NCAA Football 2004	PS2	Seabiscuit
7	Soul Calibur II	PS2	Freddy vs. Jason
8	Ghost Recon: Island	XBX	The Medallion
9	SW: Knights Republic	XBX	Uptown Girls
10	Grand Theft Auto 3	PS2	American Wedding

A few observations.

First, this month might be biased because of the heavy interest in the new Soul Caliber game and the annual football game buying frenzy. Also, Island Thunder and Knights of the Old Republic could be considered original titles. They are not exactly sequels. But as extensions of pre-established franchises, they are not as independent as, say, Kevin Cosnter's Open Range

On the film side of things, even if you exclude The Medallion as basically something out of the Jackie Chan franchise, the movies still can claim two new properties, Open Range and Uptown Girls. Seabiscuit is problematic because the film business has a long history of adapting literature. Remember, To Kill a Mockingbird was a novel before it was a vehicle for Gregory Peck.

So, my unscientific conclusion from this data is:

• Sequels and derrivatives are swamping popular artforms.
• But the problem is worse in video games than in other media.
• Even though there are mitigating factors that make best-sellers for one month potentially unrepresentative of the entire industry, it's still amazing that not one original game made the top 10. Not convinced? In the next 10 best-selling games, not one original title shows up:

  11. MARIO GOLF: TOADSTOOL
  12. MADDEN NFL 2004
  13. POKEMON RUBY
  14. GRAND THEFT AUTO:VICE
  15. F-ZERO GX
  16. POKEMON SAPPHIRE
  17. DONKEY KONG COUNTRY
  18. SPLASHDOWN:RIDES WILD
  19. DRAGONBALL Z: GOKU II
  20. VIRTUA FIGHTER 4: EVO