Malstrom responds to my 'Mario and his Content' forum post

[theRepublic]

liquidninja said:

theRepublic said:

liquidninja said:

@theRepublic

Can you tell me what you think his theory is?

I think you might be confused as to what he's really saying.

I'm just tired of him relating his content theory to actual sales.

He is obviously ignorant of the sales of the Zelda franschise, and I suspect the same of the Maio franchise.  As an engineer, it really bothers me that he is using that incorrect data to make a point.  Especially, since the correct data shows the exact opposite of his point for Zelda, and shows serious holes in the theory for Mario.  If you are going to claim you have a theory for why certain games are seeing declining or increasing sales you had better know the sales data.

I emailed him to point out that Zelda error two days ago.  I have recieved no response through email, and I have seen no change to the article.  You might think that two days is not a lot of time, but he managed to post his response to his blog after my first email within 12 hours.  You would think he would have time to change one sentence in two days when it only took him twelve hours to argue around my email without directly addressing the criticism.

I think content may be a great reason for popularity, or maybe even quality (although that is more subjective), but linking it to a perceived decline in the Mario (and Zelda) franchise, when the sales for those games show otherwise, is just wrong.

Sales are a part of the theory. He wants to know what makes a game sale forever (as in become a classic).

Again, he did say that he wasn't linking content to pure sales. In his Mario and his Content post the only time he even mentions sales data is with NSMB to state why it sold 20 million. Most of the time he's talking about popularity and fan reactions. He never used sales data to prove his theory. If anything he's using popularity and fan reactions to support his theory.

You're telling me this guy who writes about video game business is suddenly not writing about business?  News to me.