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Study Shows Word Of Mouth Makes, Breaks Videogames
Thanks to GameSpot for their analysis of a new Zelos Group study on videogaming, in which it's calculated that "...over 70 percent of respondents say conversations with friends are the primary means for securing information on games." The study co-ordinator elaborates further, reporting that "...face-to-face conversations with friends is the primary source for information about games, with websites coming in second. Instant messaging among friends is probably the second most influential kind of word of mouth communication, and then online forums." However, he has this dire caveat: "Forums offer publishers the most direct influence over word of mouth outside of guerilla marketing techniques, but online forums are inherently full of noise: 'fanboy' rants and antisocial behavior foremost."
Of course people listen to their friends. How is it that game reviews are almost all uniformly over 7/10 even though most of the stuff is trash? If the gaming press had respect for their readers rather than the publishers and junkets people might actually listen to them over what their friends might say.
I think its ironic how many word of mouthers merely quote from websites and game trailers rather than actually play the game in question.
It's obvious that most online forums are full of fanboy rants. The types who post those rants are the types with no friends, so their only social interaction is the chance that some other fanboy or some other normal person will agree/disagree with their extreme fanboy point of view on a forum and they might have a conversation (flame war).
People who have friends often buy games based on what their friends say for two reasons. Reason one is they are friends because they have similar taste and they buy and like the same games. Reason two is that friends are often poor and will communicate with each other so they don't both buy the same games and therefore maximize their game/$ ration.
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So how does that explain the travesty that is the multi million sales of Enter the Matrix?
I just ask him which are worth trying
If there's one great quality filter it's having 10 new games a week to try
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I thought /. was the primary source of information for games! O_O
Probably because people are more inclined to listen to their friends than some review site which could have been paid to say good things about something. A friend is more likely to point out the bad points about a game than the good things (case in point a disatisfied customer will tell x number of people, but a satisfied customer will only tell y number. wher x>y). People tend to remember bad things more easily and when they play a game, the apsects they dont like seem to make a bigger impact on their impression of the game.
The thing that really drove it home for me how bad forums are is this set of reviews for Rockstar's Manhunt title - not released until this Thursday.
This site lets users review games before they're even out. As a result, there's a bizarre mix of "10/10 it will r00l", "1/10 this game is sick", along with 10/10s from people who never bothered to change the default rating (and are just asking where to get a demo), and oddest of all, people who rate it from 5-9 based on their understanding of screenshots and rumours.
Worst. Review. Ever.
And I'd just like to take this opportunity to rate Half-Life 3 a 7.5 out of 10 - I expect solid gameplay and stunning graphics, and some nice twists, but to be ultimately left wanting more. Can't wait for its release in, er, 2006.
-Baz
I wouldent go so far as to say it makes or breaks Video games, but it does have some impact. For instance when I started playing Final Fantasy 7 I played for maybe 10 minutes and stoped. The Graphics (in my young feeble oppinion) were terible, the horse hoves and all. But then I heard from a few friends that it was really a great game and not to let the Graphics get me down. I played it, and loved it! Also some people go by reviews alone, That never works, we shouldent let what other people think change whether we play a game or not.
I wonder if any companies are fielding artificial forum participants. A bit of programming, a bit of AI, and you could create software that automatically writes short postings to a forum and masquerades as a person. An artificial forum member does not need to pass the Turing test because it does not need to respond coherently to any and all questions.
/. real? How do we know?
A business could then spawn multiple copies with different personality tweaks or language usage parameters and let them post freely to online forums. Over the years, such artificial agents would likely become respected and carry great weight with other participants. Of course, these pseudo-posters would have carefully tuned fanboy/troll behaviors that tend to tout the company and trash the competition. Constant presence on the forum and subtle messages would bias the forum's mood toward the company.
Hmmm....are all members of
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
We're tired of clicking through Nokia N-Gage ads to get to the front page of game sites. We are also tired of clicking through Nokia N-Gage ads to get to articles. Also, we are tired of clicking through N-Gage ads to get to screenshots, or the next 'page' of the review.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
the results show that when toasted, bread becomes crunchy.
But enough about Slashdot already!
One of the biggest problems I have with reviews is trying to figure out the underlying biases the reviwer already has. As mentioned by another poster, if you give a FPS fan Max Payne 2 for a review, you're going to get a review that's going to be biased towards a good rating, in general.
Likewise, if you gave someone who hates RPGs FFXI to review, it's going to get a horrible rating, unless it's a phenomenal game.
With friends, you already know them a lot better - and they also know you. So if you ask a friend about whether you'll like a game or not, you can be fairly sure that the answer they give you will be pretty accurate. It's not fool-proof, a friend of mine and I like RPGs a lot, but our opinions on FFVIII are very different. Still, it's a lot better than trying to look at the reviews in magazines or online websites to determine if the game is worth your money.
This is sort of a "duh" concept, isn't it? What sells a video game? If it "looks cool". And to find out if it's as cool as it looks? You ask your buddy, who's already played it. I wouldn't trust some bozo in a magazine or on a review site, because I want a personalized response.
"makes or breaks" probably is too strong, but "Word of mouth has some impact on videogames" doesn't really grab you, does it?
...I would point out that friends may have similar tastes and thus the expectation match between a friend's review will be higher than with a magazine/website review.
In other words it is highly likely that the buyer will increasingly trust friends from experience, so the result is to be expected.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
I think of my absolute favorite examples of exactly that is the massive cover preview EGM did of Enter the Matrix the month before it came out, treating it as if it were God himself's very gift to gamingkind. Then - after waiting two printing months to review it because Dave didn't want anyone (snicker) "giving away the storyline," EGM completely trashed it, and has since had at least one Dave Perry joke per issue.
So what happened EGM (and kin)? What do these kind of generous previews do to your reputation? Magazines like to squirm their way out of this by making statements like, "If this game keeps on track, there's no reason why it why it won't be the hottest game of the season" and the like. The fact remains: they come as close to reviewing with these previews as possible, because they are obligated to the development studio for giving them a jump on the other magazines. This needs to end, if the magazines want to recover (?) some of the clought they've lost with gamers.
... a punch in the mouth shuts up wise-ass critics.