Same can be said for anything, not just games. Consoles, PMPs, movies, music, etc. The list goes on.

I'm still trying to figure out if this is just damage control of ODST destroying Killzone 2 in sales or just another excuse to whine and throw tantrums about Wii game sales.

Probably both.

you are right. But it doesn't mean people can't gloat about sales.

I've always thought this was common knowledge undeserving of a thread. Same goes for review scores.

^ I think review scores are a much better indicator of a game's quality than sales are. I think I'd consider buying any game with a high review score, but the same doesn't hold true for games with huge sales.

Lies!

No, maths' logic and statistic incarnations are against you on this.

- If you meant: "this supports the idea that a better selling game is generally of higher quality, in general"

If quantity A being very low correlates well with B being low, it does not imply that higher B makes higher A more likely in all regimes. The relation can be totally non-linear and include other parameters, as effectively it does in this case.

"Very heavy people rarely run 100m in very low times. Isn't that an indicator that the better your 100m time, the lighter you are?"

The answer is obviously no, because being very heavy is most likely an impediment, and yet great times come from technique, muscle development etc. The best you can say is that a great time is very unlikely to be performed by a 150Kg athlete, but that does not imply that if an athlete runs the distance much better than another, then he's likely to be lighter. I.e. you're only predictive on extreme cases, but not on "normal" ones.

- If in a more limited way you meant: "this is a case where sales are an indicator of quality, in specific"

A=>B does not mean in general B=>A

Thus even if all crap games sold badly (and it isn't so), that would not imply that all badly selling games are crap. A 200Kg person being fisiologically unable to run 100m under 10s does not imply that everybody who can't run 100m under 10s weights at least 200Kg.

And in this thread we're talking about the reverse implication, ie from sales to quality.

It is what it is...I don't think anybody is going to say that Halo 3 is a better game than KZ2 on technical merit of graphics...but I've yet to see any detailed OPs outlining how KZ2 is a "better game" on the true merits of a FPS.

Let's not say things we can't take back, now.

Secret Rings was amazing :P

Buyers aren't completely helpless in the relationship between game publishers and themselves. Its a more complicated relationship and it isn't a one off event like you imply. For a title like Halo, Bungie has developed a good reputation for delivering good quality Halo titles so the public can expect a future Halo release to be enjoyable because they had enjoyed a previous installment. Beyond the games industry you have animation studios like Pixar whom consistantly release good work, so therefore you could go to one of their movies sight unseen because their reputation from consistantly releasing good work precedes them. For both Bungie and Pixar, releasing a lower quality title can effect their current projects sales and future sales as well.

Btw strictly speaking the sales numbers are a quality of a commercially released title. So for any of the games we talk about on Vgchartz, sales are always a quality of any game. Diminishing the importance of sales as a quality of a game doesn't mean that sales cease to be a quality of any game.