My Battlefield 4 campaign review...

[fatslob-:O]

bazmeistergen said:

I wrote a beautiful reply to this touching on religion, political ideologies and the void within us, as well as more down to earth stuff regarding the choice we make to do with quality, perception of quality, marketing, value and commonality promoting purchases. Then as I posted the Internet died and it was lost. Might write it again later, but for now you'll have to make do with this teaser.

You wanna hurry up on that ?

Mummelmann said:

Actual value - percieved value - market value, those are the three measures of value for any product. I guess one could throw in sentimental value, but that's a useless metric for a sales discussion. Actual value is determined by R&D, production costs, distribution and advertising, percieved value is one out of the two that can be most easily manipulated, this is simply what consumers imagine something it is worth based on a multitude of factors, hype can easily be built around a product with mediocre or even bad quality, thus raising the percieved value (such as products going on Ellen or Oprah, a lot of women go crazy for it, percieved value rises without the prodcution costs etc changing one bit, the fact that something goes on Ellen or Oprah does not change the quality either). The 360 is a good example of this; it had terrible hardware quality for a good while but maintained a high percieved value throughout, and partly still does. Market value is a combo of the two firts, adjusted for inflation, currency and exchange rates, profit margins, stock and sellthrough, among other things.

Why has Apple gone downwards lately? Has the quality of their product gone down? No, their percieved value, and thus their market value has gone down, due to increased consumer awareness, multiple choices on the market and an open source (or more) alternative edging them.

Quality is in no way related to sales numbers, not even close. Even your hero Malstrom knows this.

Why is it that almost no one on sales site can grasp these very, very basest of market principals. The other tools in your box also need replacing, you're just basing everything on desires and wishes, not a good foundation for any argument.

I am talking about what the general consumers see as quality and value. Marketing alone won't help make the product go off the shelves. In the long run it is how the consumers see the quality of the product.

@Bold Malstrom says very differently. (I guess you don't check him out often enough. )

Mr Puggsly said:

Maybe the masses buy it for the multiplayer, but people are surely buying it for the campaign as well.

People hope for the total package, good campaign and multiplayer. I don't believe sales would be as strong if it were multiplayer only.

You overestimate the value of a campaign for battlefield games. Battlefield games were not known to have single player originally. I'm not too sure about your statement of the sales being if it were multiplayer only. How about we make a bet that Titanfall will sell over 800K in it's first week on vgchartz ?

curl-6 said:

Yep, agree to disagree.

 

@Everyone (Except for pugglsy and maybe curl.) These blog posts from malstrom are extremely interesting and people should take a look at it. (You'll all know where I'm coming from.)

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/sales-not-reviews-determines-product-success/

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/email-do-greater-sales-mean-greater-quality/

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/email-do-you-really-believe-better-sales-means-better-quality/

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/email-regarding-the-email-do-you-really-believe-better-sales-means-better-quality/

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/email-more-on-sales-and-quality/

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/email-sales-and-quality/

@bazmeistergen

I'm going to guess your post is going to be a response to the idea of quality.

@Mummelmann

What's not a good foundation for any arguements is not using those number. How else can quality be measured if we have nothing to base it on ? The definition of quality is redefined by the mass market. Sales numbers for a product will only tell the ones creating it whether it is good or bad. If alot of people see call of duty as a good franchise then so be it the sales numbers will support that claim, that is how Activison will see it. 

@curl-6 

I don't think I have anything to say more to you since you probably made your mind up but an input on what you think of these blog posts would be nice.

@Everyone 

I love how people hate sales numbers sooo much. They are the ones to speak about the truth of the quality of the product.