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

Edgeoflife on 15 February 2011
slowmo said:

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. 

Out of everything you listed sales are the worst indicator, and I never said every game that sells poorly is great, at the most I've said every game that sells great isn't nearly as good as some that have sold significantly less and I disagree with there being no accurate way to measure what is good, as long as you keep it within the genre's it's not even that hard it's not that hard to make a certeria of what makes a good 2D platformer or a good rpg, there will always be sub genres and differences of course but it's not impossible by a long shot 



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Pineapple on 15 February 2011
Edgeoflife said:
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

No, you think you're not an idiot, just as I think I'm not an idiot. And how every single other minority thinks they're not a minority.

And I'm entirely on topic. You wanted an explanation to why people think games that a game selling more is better; that is both a game-related and a philosophical question. If you're not going to bother discussing the philosophical part,  there's little reason to discuss with you.



LivingMetal on 15 February 2011
Edgeoflife said:
dsister said:
Edgeoflife said:

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


??? I don't see your point

 

Also Demons Souls and Valkyria Chronicles weren't that good. I can easily see Final Fantasy XIII being better.

You haven't played any of them have you


As much as I would prefer Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles over Final Fantasy XIII, I think you're being as opinionate as much as the ones you are criticising, with all due respect.



Edgeoflife on 15 February 2011
Pineapple said:
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.

Thats just biased, and more often then not people aren't so much enjoying the game more as trying to convince themselves they enjoyed the game more then they actually did, we are all guilty of it, a game we are really excited for turns out to be a disapointment and  we focus on the positives and make the most out of it 



superchunk on 15 February 2011

Basic logic would dictate that: IF product A sold one million units and product B sold one thousand units, then it product A was generally more appealing to consumers and thus an overall better product when most other factors are the same (price, etc).



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dsister on 15 February 2011
LivingMetal 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).

That isn't what I said at all(especially the part you bolded(and PS I actually don't own any SH or RE games yet I imported Blood Siren from Japan! :D))

 A bad game won't go on to sell millions and millions. However a good game can easily go and do that. Word of mouth is a powerful thing

That's a basic gist of the part you bolded...



Sig thanks to Saber! :D 

Edgeoflife on 15 February 2011
Pineapple said:
Edgeoflife said:
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

No, you think you're not an idiot, just as I think I'm not an idiot. And how every single other minority thinks they're not a minority.

And I'm entirely on topic. You wanted an explanation to why people think games that a game selling more is better; that is both a game-related and a philosophical question. If you're not going to bother discussing the philosophical part,  there's little reason to discuss with you.

Fine, the bottom line is anyone that follows the crowd just because they think everyone can't be wrong is an idiot, theres a reason herds of leemings run off cliffs and thats because they follow the crowd 



dsister on 15 February 2011

Also listen to Pineapple, it sounds like he is saying what I failed to say ^__^



Sig thanks to Saber! :D 

biggamejames79 on 15 February 2011

Even if ps3 has more overall sales on exclusives, it's not translating into more people buying the system than the 360.  They're not moving systems the way 360 exclusives do.  Sony dominated last Gen by a lot, it wasn't even close, but they have dropped the ball this Gen by letting Microsoft back in the race and dominate the market with the most buyers, the U.S.



slowmo on 15 February 2011
Edgeoflife said:
slowmo said:

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. 

Out of everything you listed sales are the worst indicator, and I never said every game that sells poorly is great, at the most I've said every game that sells great isn't nearly as good as some that have sold significantly less and I disagree with there being no accurate way to measure what is good, as long as you keep it within the genre's it's not even that hard it's not that hard to make a certeria of what makes a good 2D platformer or a good rpg, there will always be sub genres and differences of course but it's not impossible by a long shot 


So you're saying because you cannot quantify what makes a game good the other persons arguments aren't accurate.  This seems to be more you being pedantic to try and squirm out of an argument rather than actually accepting the facts at hand.  If that person has sales, reviews and general opinion on their side then you've lost if you cannot rebuke those facts.  I agree that a game that sells 10 million isn't necessarily a better game than one that sells 5 million.

The fact still stands though that it is the majority that decide the quality and from this standpoint any game aimed at a minority demographic can never be better in most peoples eyes.