This is the paragraph where we start going separate ways. I have read and heard far too many movie reviews to believe that this is actually true. Not that I blame them: it's human nature to be easier on things you like, and harsher on things that you don't. It's tough to train that out of people (hell, we're taught to make our legal brief as sympathetic as possible because judges, in spite of their training and responsibility, will try desperately to find a way to help the people they like, and screw over the ones they don't).

Movie critics (et. al.) may do better at taking a step back and examining their subject a bit more objectively, but it's not like they're worlds better than game reviewers: they just mask their biases, whereas your average game jockey is proud to despise the "casual" gamer. I suppose it would be a victory if we got gaming enthusiasts to undergo the same training as their professional counterparts, but while it may alleviate the problem I know it won't solve it, or even come close. It may get "better," but it won't make it "good enough."

I wouldn't say you could just pick someone off the street and have them review games for you. Game reviewers for the major publications all have writing experience, they don't just hire anyone, and they all have a passion for games and have played a great amount of them. Therefore, they are at a point where they can usually give a fair rating.

Many reviewers do not just simply "throw out" scores, as has been suggested. They take into account different categories; replayability, graphics, value, story, etc, and base their score off of that. Of course, the system isn't perfect, but I would argue that it is a better reflection of overall quality than sales figures. The reviewers' scores of a game more often than not fall into line with the opinions of other gamers. For instance, if a gamer looked at the top reviewed games of 2008, he would recognize that each one of those games is a quality title, for he would either know first or second hand of that game's greatness.

An example is Super Mario Galaxy. Everyone loves that game, and the review score reflects it. Same for LittleBigPlanet. And Metal Gear Solid. And so on..

And as another knock against using sales data as a factor for quality, look at games like Okami and Psychonauts. The general consensus is that these are great games, but they did not sell well. If one were to look at games purely from the aspect of which had more sales, those titles would be passed over.

When I read in Game Informer that Phoenix Wright was moderately replayable, I lost all faith in their review system. Another thing they said was that MGS4 did well at telling an amazing story. Yeah, well, maybe if you played every other Metal Gear game and understood everything up to then. A game that you have to know all the back story isn't the best story telling game ever.

But, one graph I noticed that you had was the number of Nintendo games per year. It's going down and I'm actually glad it is. Third party developers were always afraid to make games for the Wii due to fear of being outsold by Nintendo games, so, Nintendo let third party's handle the holiday season, and, well, they did an excellent job!

As for quality? I don't read reviews anymore. After the high score that Resistance, Halo 3, and GTAIV got, I don't take anything seriously anymore.

Edit: My bad, I misread and I thought it was number of games, not number of games over 80%. My point is still valid though. See the last paragraph in response to that graph.

Sales are definitely not as accurate as critic scores to the average consumer opinion on a particular game.

Of course, you will always find a person who completely disagrees on a critic's opinion on a game. Always. But the fact that Gamerankings kindly bundles up numerous professional opinions on one particular game and averages them up into one score is most inevitably the best scale you will get today.

Take for example, movies. Your friend doesn't watch much movies, maybe 1 or 2 a year, and he says "___" is the best movie he has ever watched. You've watched the same movie, and you always watch flicks, and you say that he's out his mind, it was medicore! Why is that? Well, I have the answer! When someone who doesn't watch much movies, it's hard to point out flaws within a particular film. But once you start watching more and more films, you start to notice what the flaws are within a certain film. The same thing applys to video games.

Sales wise, you could have a blockbuster name for a certain movie or game and it could sell millions! And word will spread that this person thought that was good and this person thought that was bad. But when we all break it down, at least when I decide to buy a game, I get to hear the flaws and avoid that game instead of taking my chances buying Carnival Games because it sold well.

Writing experience is all nice and dandy, but it primarily means you know how to express your opinion, not how to form a useful one. And again, game magazines' and websites' review scores are formed on the basis of criteria which don't apply to quite a few games. Again, see Wii Sports for the biggest (but far from sole) example.

These guys, almost always in their 20's, who have grown accustomed to a single type of gaming, are actually less qualified to judge the quality of some titles than the average person off the street since, again, their tastes have been narrowed and refined by over a decade of having their tastes pandered to. They've gorged themselves on fast food for years; are we surprised that they can't appreciate a quality salad? Remember that in the end it is the customer, not a handful of critics, who determine what game is good and what isn't.

Your citation to Okami, Psychonauts, et. al. is not persuasive. If the general consensus was that they were great games, why did they not sell well? Or by "general consensus" do you mean "on the internet"? Personally I loved both those games, but let's not fool ourselves here; plunk down the average gamer in front of it, and he or she will lose interest by the end of the first cutscene. Their tastes are different than yours (and mine, for that matter), but that doesn't mean that they're therefore not qualified to judge quality.

"The reviewers' scores of a game more often than not fall into line with the opinions of other gamers." This is where you go astray, because for non-traditional titles reviewers' scores are diametrically opposed to the opinion of many, many gamers. Again, some of the biggest system sellers ever made are being treated as C-List crap by the reviewers. From this, you appear to draw the lesson that the masses must be wrong and the reviewers (whom you agree with) must be right. The rest of us are pointing out the true lesson: the review system is broken, as demonstrated by the fact that recoil in disgust at a AAA game when they learn of it.

Critical theory is the devil, run for your lives, all of you! Oh God, the medium's only 35 years old, we don't have to argue about critical theory yet!

Except that Nintendo is now making games that appeal to people who don't give a **** about reviews. Reviewers don't give the game high scores becuase the game doesn't appeal to hardcore gamers.

I believe the OP isn't really angry about the scores the games are getting, but as how are the total amount of games released by Nintendo been decreasing. It's true most of their games were for the core in the previous gen on the GC, but lately, correct me if that's not what you believe, Nintendo has been releasing less games. Maybe this recent drought and a look into Q1 09 is what has him worried, with well, nothing but 2 remakes.

The truth is that lately Nintendo hasnt released a big adventure game, the last one was SMG, all the other games released this year were good, but maybe not the game we were expecting. Ones could argue about Wario Land, but that's not exactly what most were hoping for, it could have been a great WiiWare release for example.

And things point out at another empty 09, but that's because of their secret announcement policy, which IMHO doesn't make much sense. I deeply want a Kid Icarus, a DONKEY FREAKING KONG, a new Zelda, a new Mario, a new Star Fox, an RPG, an action game, a horror game!! They got so much talent, they could be pumping those titles out.

If this isn't what you were talking about, then forgive me :P

I agree that movie reviewing is a much stronger field than game reviewing, though for different reasons.

I think the real strength of movie reviews is that there is a diversity of opinion.  Movie reviewers come from all kinds of different backgrounds and have all kinds of different tastes.

It is also my perception that game reviewers are much more scared of going against the hype, while some movie reviewers seem to relish it. Just as an example compare the reviews of the most overhyped movie of 2008 (Dark Knight) to the most over hyped game (GTA4). There was much more decent, both large and small amoungst the movie reviewers.