Why is FF7's shocking moment considered the most shocking *spoilers*

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

getsallad said:

Final-Fan said:
But honestly, all the factors you mentioned -- "innovation, originality, gameplay, storyline, replay value or controls" -- are much more subjective: the quality of those are subject to individual judgment on how "good" they are, e.g. how important is innovation, is this or that innovative and to what degree, etc. etc.

Sales is not so vague. This many copies were sold, bam.

But even that is not rock solid proof of "popularity", because of used game sales and rentals and even plain old local multiplayer. Some games tend to see more of this kind of circulation than others, so popularity isn't a simple function of sales IMO.

Yes, thanks.

You're absolutely right, popularity isn't such a simple function, but sales is probably the biggest factor, and the one that's the most reasonable to measure. Which is what my original point was, however ill-worded.

There we go.  And when you factor in all the other stuff that was brought up, you can see that even sales gets influenced by popularity and other outside sources so it can't be a solid measure of popularity.

If anything, popularity is just an abstract concept or an ideal.  A buzz-word people on the internet use to attach to games that sell well.  But if people then try to equate strong sales to 'popularity', then they start to run into problems.  And not all games that are deemed 'popular' are 'successful' in the sales category.  And vice versa.  A game that is deemed 'unpopular' can sell more than a game that is 'popular' (look at tons of examples on the Wii and DS compared to all the 'popular' games on the HD consoles for example).