How sales numbers can lie: the Pac-Man Fallacy

[haxxiy]

jarrod said:

haxxiy said:

Nice read but that was back in the early 80's. I doubt such a thing would happen today with a crapton of magazines and the internet being a fast way to get access to information and game reviews - that's a reason they exist, after all.

Well, it's not like the current industry is entirely resistant to smoke and mirrors when it comes to the consumer... the tight relationship between the industry press and PR has led to some mini-blowback this gen, like with the GTA4 'reviews'.

Yeah, but if you look at the overall picture, that would be just a minor setback. At least, as far as I remember, it happened only with huge blockbusters that could be considered good games and had already a pretty good userbase. It was not like the press tried to deceive with positive reviews gamers into buying a title like Daikatana.