Since you said it's a one-time script, perl may be overkill for what can be done in one or two shell commands.
Create your table: 
mysql -u [username] -e "use [database name];CREATE TABLE games (file v
+archar(30) primary key, name text, description text, counter int)"

[download]
Populate it with the data file: 
mysql -u [username] -e"use [database name];LOAD DATA INFILE '../data/g
+ames/descriptions.txt' REPLACE INTO TABLE games FIELDS TERMINATED BY 
+'\t' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n' (file, name, description, counter)"

[download]
Replace [ database name ] with the database you are using, and [ username ] with your mysql username. What you are trying to acheive with $count appears to be handled automatically by the REPLACE part of the LOAD DATA command.

In reply to Re: How to insert a tab delimited text file to a mysql database by Withigo
in thread How to insert a tab delimited text file to a mysql database by Nik

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.