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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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Show me a single positive review of it then. Personally I think that the reason it sold so well may have something to do with the fact that review copies were only made available after the game had shipped.
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
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
For those too lazy to actually look at the site, review scores for the PS2 version of Enter the Matrix typically are in the 7-9 range with 2-6's sparsely mixed in, and a handful of 10's. It's good but not great*.
*: Actual results may vary.
Worthplaying - Xb - 91%
Gamers Hell - PC - 86%
Ferrago - PS2 - 82%
Gamesradar - PS2 - 81%
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.
i dunno..
the last good review i saw in a game magazine was from 1989 or something.
the review said (in finnish): "sh*tty commando clone".
nothing else, i guess nothing else was needed really though. and this from a magazine that would have usually written several paragraphs about any shit game.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.