Why use sales figures as a metric for winning?

[JerzeeBalla]

WereKitten said:

Squilliam said:

If Game A/B have ~ = Reviews (Having never played the game) the only recourse is to assume the one that sold the more might be the better game. (All else remaining relatively equal as well)

 

Not really. That's only true if you 1) trust the mainstream opinion to be indicative of your own tastes, and if you 2) trust the sales for those games to be strictly related to an informed opinion by the buyers at large. Let me clarify both:

1) let's say we have two hack and slash games, and let's say they are reviewed more or else equally. Let's also say that I love really hard and punishing hack/slash games in the style of Ninja Gaiden, that I find rewarding dedicating countless hours into getting better into such game. I can assume that the better sales will go to the less extreme experience, and as such it would be further from my personal tastes.

2) let's say that two FPS are reviewed more or less equally. But one is marketed to death on all tv channels and at every street corner and with every happy meal. The other is the first work of a small hungarian studio. Let's say the former sells 50% more than the latter. Would you really infer a better quality of the first game by the sales?

Let's also say that by "All else remaining relatively equal as well" you also cover fairly equal marketing - very hard to estabilish, and hardly taken in account on this site when looking at the naked numbers. There might be other reasons for which one has more mainstream success: it could have a theme/setting that is less disturbing for the target demographic. It could have a more generally likeable art style.

In all these cases one game would be discarded even before being examined, and as such the sales don't even reflect an informed opinion on the content of the game. Would you trust sales to gauge the quality of a game that you know delves deep into, I don't know, existentialism? Would you trust the low sales in NA of an adventure game from the point of view of an Iraqi Republican Guard soldier?

 

 

This is a great post. Kudos WereKitten.