Shouldn't success be measured by the games?

[Bodhesatva]

naznatips said:

Bodhesatva said:

naznatips said:

Bodhesatva said:

What is this defining source?

Retailers, trackers, and reported shipments from publishers. All of these give evidence to mediate sales discussion. None of it is 100% accurate, but it's accurate enough to have a data set. 2+2 = 4. 2.1902342+1.933452 ~ 4. Both allow for a meassure of analysis within a certain degree of accuracy.

Show me a reasonable collection of data on a term as ambiguous as "quality" Bod.

Sales, metacritic, and legs (As in, how long it sells for) would be the three I'd point to. They are reasonable metrics for quality, and I believe they suffice to reach consensus in clear cases.

Okay, so, let's break that down a bit with an example.

Professor Layton is averaging over an 85% on gamerankings. We'd all agree that's within range of being considered quality by reviewers. It's sold 40K in a week in NA. Far below the rate most consider successful. On the other hand in Japan it's sold almost 900K, and was also reviewed highly. We can't check legs for North America yet so we'll leave that out.

In Japan it's got 2/2 qualifications for quality. In America only 1/2. Is it a better game in Japan than America? Should 18 reviewers really be a meassure of the average opinions of tens of millions of gamers? You yourself pointed out that there is a huge disconnect between reviewers and the current gaming market. Are you saying you now consider them a valid meassure of quality? And who are they a meassure of quality for? My Mother wouldn't enjoy Halo, but she loves Nintendogs.

There are far too many factors here Bod. At best, we could try and divide everyone into categories to meassure quality for individual markets, but even then there are a lot of variables, and there is an entire genre of games (mini/casual) that doesn't have a single highly reviewed game in it. Is there no quality at all in the genre? By your own suggested standards of meassurement there are not.

I have no problems getting into a discussion of standards of opinion on quality of games with you. Comparing my opinion to yours, and defending my own. I will do that with anyone, but there is no good standard of meassure for a categorical discussion of "good" and "bad" in video game quality.

Why would we need to divide it into markets? Take Halo, as an example. It sells well here, and in certain European countries, but poorly everywhere else. Yes, that absolutely means that this game is less good than it would be if everyone in the world liked it. A better game would do better in Japan. Regions shouldn't matter. The better a game sells, the more that speaks to its quality.

You're saying that the picture is fuzzy, and thus we can't reach conclusions. I'm saying the picture is fuzzy, but we can reach conclusions anyway.

Make sure we note that: I'm not arguing that the picture isn't fuzzy. I'm arguing that all pictures are at least partially fuzzy, so where do you draw the line? Where does a picture become so fuzzy that "fact" becomes "opinion?" VGChartz is consistently 10-15 percent off, on average, on a monthly basis. NPD states they're 1-2 percent off. And this is just what they tell us is true: what if they're wrong? They could lie. It would require a vast conspiracy, and while I don't think a vast conspiracy is likely, it's possible. As in .00001 percent, but that's possible.

Clearly, you draw the line before I do. I think I can objectively and conclusively say that Bioshock is a better game than Motorstorm, as an example, because it excels in all the metrics we've presecibed. Bioshock against Halo, though? That is, in my opinion, too fuzzy, so that's about where I'd draw the line, personally.

Given that there is nothing absolute, everyone draws the line for "opinion" and "fact" in different places. I draw the line at a different place than you.