| super_etecoon said: determines actual quality. |
Value is marginal and subjective, not intrinsic. For that reason there's no such thing as "actual quality" when we refer to value-based judgements. Now if we start with an axiomatic assumption, like," game-breaking glitches are bad", and then we make a conclusion using that assumption, "therefore a game with fewer game-breaking glitches is better than a game with more game-breaking glitches," we can make more objective statements on value, but that is only if all persons involved subscribe to every assumption (in this case the assumption is pretty universal.) So even then, we can only talk about actual quality if we agree with the premises. When the mainstream disagrees with some niche it is mostly because they have different premises of what makes a game (or movie) good or bad, and therefore both are referring to "actual quality" in their relative schemes. Ideally, for the game (movie) producer, they can hit the sweet spots of as many groups as possible, and that means mainstream success does correlate somewhat to the subjective evaluation of the purchasers.
