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Forums - Sales - Why do people think a game that sold more is automatically better?

Pineapple said:
Edgeoflife said:
dsister said:
Edgeoflife said:

the gameplay isn't good, it's just flashy and the graphics are of course amazing but the game isn't good mediocre maybe, and it might have sold less then those but it still sold more then demon's souls and Ressonance of fate and Valkyria chornicles and pretty much everything this gen that's not a shooter or racing sim 

I've heard several people on this site say the game was good. Not great but good.

Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicle are kind of great examples of what I said actually. Games with little advertising that if weren't massively hyped by good word of mouth neither of them would have even thought a million was possible

Are you really comparing a game with a massive multi-million dollar marketing budget to that of games whose advertising budgets consisted of magazine and flash ads? :3. You have to keep it in reality somewhat...

Thats what anyone who argues sales=quality is doing realize how riddiculas it is now?

The problem is, pretty much nobody is stating that sales = quality. People are saying that sales indicate quality.

If you choose to argue against the minority who claim that sales = quality, you will get no sensible discussion. If you'd rather take the discussion of whether sales indicate quality, and to which degree that's true, you'd get a proper discussion, not just two sides stating their opinion at each other.

Sales don't indicate quality very well either though, sure there is some connection to sales and quality but it's a pretty weak connection and hard to recongize, pretty much the only sales trend thats a good indicator it's how well it is, is how it sells months/years after it's been released compared to how it sold when it was released 



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Edgeoflife said:

You haven't played any of them have you


I own and have played Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicle



Sig thanks to Saber! :D 

Edgeoflife said:
LivingMetal said:
youarebadatgames said:

Sales are the only thing that matters to companies and quality is entirely subjective, however sales is a good reflection of what a large population thinks about a game...


Stop right there.  The majority isn't always right.

In my experiance the majority is usually wrong 

By claiming that what the majority likes is bad, you're claiming that a minority knows quality better than the majority. It's easy to say that.

Problem is, every minority thinks they know better than the majority. The majority is really just a huge group of minorities thinking all the other minorities are wrong.

Sure, you can point to dozens of times where the minority was right. Problem is, every single time one minority was right, a dozen others were wrong.

How can you be so certain that the minority you're in is the one that is correct, and that all the other minorities are wrong?



Pineapple said:

Or in simple terms

A game not selling much doesn't mean it isn't a great game.

A game selling a lot means it's almost always a great game.

Derivating quality from sales isn't a brilliant way of doing, but it's better than all the other methods we have.


I agree with this, although IMO if low selling titles were really great, then they would have gotten the advertising budget to match it.  If they don't, it's no one's fault except the publisher or the dev misjudging public appeal and not investing enough to maximize returns.  It is hard to predict expected sales sometimes, but that doesn't excuse them if they have a great opportunity and they miss it.



dsister said:
Edgeoflife said:

You haven't played any of them have you


I own and have played Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicle

Then you have some serious delusions about FF13, I tried it at a friends house yesterday, I couldn't even play it, it was too easy, the only deaths were the cheap ones, the game was so linaer and boring, I wouldn't be surprized if it was beatable with your eyes closed 



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dsister said:
LivingMetal said:


Dude, that is so wrong.


How so?  Specific examples please. kthxbai

Edgeoflife said:

See that not really true either, if a game is from a popular franchise it will sell alot often dispite the quality, the initial sales especially have the least to do with quality since no1 knows if the game is good or not, movie games especially but even if it's a sequel to a popular game or carries the same name FFXIII is a good example of that 

I've heard FFXIII is a good game just a bad FF. And if you were to compare the sales of the PS3 version to past games in the series you can actually the sales reflecting what I said


I'm a survival/horror fan.  I've played games in the Siren, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil franchises.  From best to worst, I would rank these franchises in the order of Siren, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil.  In regards to good sales, it's the exact opposite.  Also, Resident Evil does hardly anything for me.  Are you trying to tell me that I'm suppose to  think that the Resident Evil series is a better series than Siren just because it has sold more?  Are you trying to tell me that I should not be enjoying Siren more just because it sold less that Resident Evil?

Dude, you and I are FIF fans.  With your flawed logic, you're saying that Justin Beiber is better than FIF. Are you a bigger fan of Beiber over FIF.  I'm not (Thank God).



Pineapple said:
Edgeoflife said:
LivingMetal said:
youarebadatgames said:

Sales are the only thing that matters to companies and quality is entirely subjective, however sales is a good reflection of what a large population thinks about a game...


Stop right there.  The majority isn't always right.

In my experiance the majority is usually wrong 

By claiming that what the majority likes is bad, you're claiming that a minority knows quality better than the majority. It's easy to say that.

Problem is, every minority thinks they know better than the majority. The majority is really just a huge group of minorities thinking all the other minorities are wrong.

Sure, you can point to dozens of times where the minority was right. Problem is, every single time one minority was right, a dozen others were wrong.

How can you be so certain that the minority you're in is the one that is correct, and that all the other minorities are wrong?

Because I know I'm not an idiot, but this discussion is more philosophical then game related, so I suggest we keep it more on topic



So every game that sells poorly is great?

Your argument is even more flawed than the person you're disagreeing with.  There is no accurate measure for what everyone likes, hell even most reviewers stipulate that a review is a guide not a accurate representation of what you may think about a game.  Sales are an indicator of the quality of a game, just like reviews, play time and just general word of mouth. 



youarebadatgames said:
LivingMetal said:
youarebadatgames said:
Edgeoflife said:

Not bad just worse then alot of other games that don't sell as much, and you'd still be wrong nomatter what you say 


Oh yeah?  Prove it.

Yeah, you can't when the value of a game is an opinion.  BTW, my dad can beat up your dad.


Were you the one who thinks that a game is better just because it sells more than another?


It is to the majority of people.  Might not to everyone, but games with wide appeal are usually doing something right.

 

At the very least, marketing, which doesn't always translate to quality of the product.



Edgeoflife said:
Pineapple said:
Edgeoflife said:
dsister said:
Edgeoflife said:

the gameplay isn't good, it's just flashy and the graphics are of course amazing but the game isn't good mediocre maybe, and it might have sold less then those but it still sold more then demon's souls and Ressonance of fate and Valkyria chornicles and pretty much everything this gen that's not a shooter or racing sim 

I've heard several people on this site say the game was good. Not great but good.

Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicle are kind of great examples of what I said actually. Games with little advertising that if weren't massively hyped by good word of mouth neither of them would have even thought a million was possible

Are you really comparing a game with a massive multi-million dollar marketing budget to that of games whose advertising budgets consisted of magazine and flash ads? :3. You have to keep it in reality somewhat...

Thats what anyone who argues sales=quality is doing realize how riddiculas it is now?

The problem is, pretty much nobody is stating that sales = quality. People are saying that sales indicate quality.

If you choose to argue against the minority who claim that sales = quality, you will get no sensible discussion. If you'd rather take the discussion of whether sales indicate quality, and to which degree that's true, you'd get a proper discussion, not just two sides stating their opinion at each other.

Sales don't indicate quality very well either though, sure there is some connection to sales and quality but it's a pretty weak connection and hard to recongize, pretty much the only sales trend thats a good indicator it's how well it is, is how it sells months/years after it's been released compared to how it sold when it was released

Oh I disagree with that. You're looking at how good a game is as something objective. It isn't. How good a game is is different to everybody, and it's largely affected by factors that aren't even in the game. A very large part of your enjoyment of a video game is psychological.

If someone expects a game to be brilliant, they usually end up thinking it's a great/brilliant game. In other words, a game that has the qualities you put into a great game (good graphics, gameplay, story, controls, or pretty much the mechanics of the game) isn't necessarily liked more than a game which lacks those abilities, as the poor game is expected to be better by the buyers.

The problem of defining the quality of a game solely by the game itself, and not the outside factors, is that the quality o the game suddenly doesn't represent how much fun the average person has playing it.