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happydolphin on 19 April 2012
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Soleron said:
happydolphin said:
...

You clearly didn't read my post with the NES games and their sales, the market Malstrom was talking about created by Mario.

You're mixing two things up, Malstrom's views, which confuse sales and awesomeness, and Rol's pov.

Like most of us, Rol wants to see Nintendo do well. In that case, he wants them to sell well. But if you look earlier in the topic, I asked Rol, what is most important here, sales or awesomeness, and he told me awesomeness. So the question is, if a game is fantastic, yet it doesn't sell all that well, which desire is the most important, for Nintendo to do well, or for their games to sell.

You'll tell me, they're one and the same, when a game is good, it will sell. But the fact of the matter is, many games don't sell all too well (relatively speaking) despite being gems. Galaxy is by far a much better game than NSMBWii, but which one sold better, we both know the answer to these questions.

Bottom line, if that is your stance, that you discuss sales as sales and don't equate sales to quality, don't bash a game if it doesn't sell well, be SPECIFIC. Just say: "this or that game would have sold better", don't use other confusing rhetoric such as "this game didn't sell well because it's not a real Mario".

 

And I'll gracefuly close this with

"..."

Wasn't really responding to you, was making a point Rol made stand out more.

Not, when a game is good it will sell. The games that sell IS the only decent measure of quality (obviously you can hold a subjective ranking but it's not worth discussing on the internet as your preferences are your own). Plenty of quality games that I like haven't sold, and they didn't deserve to sell either.

Galaxy had higher production values, yes. Was it doing the job the market needed it to do, not really. Nintendo put no effort into NSMB Wii (recycle art, sound and level design) and yet it sold more. If Nintendo had put NSMB Wii on an equal pedestal development wise we wouldn't need to have this debate, it would just be so high that Nintendo couldn't continue to be in denial about what they need to spend money on.

I disagree with Rol if that's what he said, I believe sales are the important thing. I desire Nintendo to do well because they will then have enough money to do projects that don't make sense - the games I like e.g. Galaxy.

"not a real Mario" is Malstrom shorthand for "a sequel to the original Marios that people who liked those would want to buy, and that new gamers can experience the same as what SMB did for 80s gamers".

@bold. It's all very ambiguous. Malstrom seems to be saying that, since 2D Mario created a market for such great games, then we need to encourage 2D Mario, his point is founded on awesomeness. But then, at other times, the argument is that, since Nintendo makes more money with NSMB, then that's what matters since that will fuel higher quality games. Yet when said higher quality games are released, people are upset, so what's the dealio?

Well, I think they should make up their minds. If it's Mario that creates a market for awesome games, then so be it, but if it creates a market for cheap revivals yet makes loads of cash, then nobody's happy.

Also, sales are not a measure of quality, they're a measure of appeal. What is a measure of quality is objective: time spent on the project, talent working on the project (which teams), the ultimate score (reviews, metascore), the longevity (is it a classic?). All these points taken TOGETHER are the right metrics for quality, sales is not. It's a measure of a baseline quality, enough so as to not be put in the shovelware category, but sales generally measures appeal, not quality, and appeal requires a baseline of quality, not much more. As for the rest, as we all know, appeal requires certain themes or dynamics that people like, and that's about all there is to the secret recipe.