Seems like a poor argument. In fact, you've made exactly the opposite argument regarding movies and extrapolated that to gaming.

That reminds me, must buy Carnival Games.

1. The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted: attributed their success in business to hard work.
2. 1. The gaining of fame or prosperity: an artist spoiled by success.
   2. The extent of such gain.
3. One that is successful: The plan was a success.
4. Obsolete A result or an outcome

Wait...so now you're saying that if millions of people buy a game then it's a good game....that would mean that sales are relevant to discussing quality. My head is spinning!

@Naz: If everything opinion related was 100% subjective, how could we differentiate between the good and bad? How could we have masterpieces like those written by Homer and Shakespeare? Bod explained it very well. The idea of complete subjectivity makes any discussion entirely worthless. It is almost impossible to know the complete truth, and until you do, something is subjective.

This means that we must draw a line in terms of subjectivity. If something is generally agreed upon by those with experience in dealing with such things that it is good, then it is good. I dislike horror games, movies, and the like. For this reason, I can't stand Resident Evil 4. However, I think Resident Evil 4 is a great game. A masterpiece, even. Why? Because it is generally agreed upon by experts in the field of video gaming as very, very good. One opinion doesn't matter.

Edit: I realize I'm late to the party, but I had to put my two cents in.

I understand what you're saying. I'm saying there aren't too many variables. There are lots of variables, but not too many. We just... disagree.

Here's a reasonable and easily understandable analogy. Lots of people on NeoGAF hate VGChartz on principle, but there are a few who object to it in a reasonable fashion. Their objection: data that is off +-15 percent on a consistant basis is not worthwhile. For data to be worthwhile, to them, it needs to be NPD/Media Create quality, or within +-5 percent.

And that's a reasonable opinion, I think: they draw the line at a different place than we do. Similarly, what you think is too fluid and inconsistent is something that I think is concrete and consistent enough to be calculable.

Okay, but if a game has only thousands of fans is it overrated?  What about Zack & Wiki?  Is it a good game or a bad game?  By sales it's bad, but by reviews it's good.  Are we to consider both sales and reviews individual identifiers of quality?  If a game has one, but not the other is it good?  If a game has both, does that make it the best? 

What if a game has neither, but is still loved.  Example:  Ace Attorney games are reviewed in the high 70s and low 80s, but me and many others on the internet consider it one of the best franchises ever made. Are we all wrong?  Are we not allowed to think that?  Are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people wrong because they enjoyed something more than something else?  

Another example:  Final Fantasy has many games that have sold in the multi-millions, but it's fans are strongly divided about the quality of each individual game in the series.  All games in the franchise have high sales and reviews, and yet there isn't a single game in the franchise that doesn't have a group of people who strongly dislike it.  There are very few FF fans who don't strongly dislike at least one of the franchise.  Does that make every FF game good? All of them bad?  How do we define it?  

Again, that's not even considering games that don't sell in one part of the world but do in others.  Quality has far too many variables of meassure. 

When does sales data become worthwhile, Naz? When it's +-15 percent? +-1 percent? +-.0001 percent? +-50 percent?

How do we even know for sure that VGChartz is off, ever? Theoretically, it's possible that every single figure they've ever given is 100% accurate. It's... very unlikely, but it's possible that Media Create, NPD and other sources are consistently wrong, in some cases, wrong by rather large amounts. 

Where does it end, Naz? Where do you draw the line?

If we go down that route, of Homer and Shakespeare and the classics of our time, then I think Frank had the right answer: Take the long route, and let history decide.  The problem with that is a lot of amazing things are forgotten by history, and only those truly defining will stand out.  Right now, in the present, we don't have the tools to objectively analyze the quality of video games.  We can easily subjectively analyze them though.  

Eventually, history comes into play. "Greatness" is a measure of importance, including its cultural relevance and influence among other things, not simply a general agreement on subjective quality. "Importance" does have some subjectivity in it, but less than "quality."

Whether RE4 is remembered as a "great" game remains to be seen. Though the likes of MP or RE4 may have reviewed higher and face less criticism, it is safe to say that the likes of Halo and GTAIII will be remembered as "greater" because of their importance.

LOL at Legend. Good discussion in this thread, but he's the one pulling it off path, of course. "Any game with millions of fans isn't overrated." What was your original point again?