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Game Scores Do Not Equate To Sales
Gamasutra reports that a study shows what we all already knew: high game scores do not equate to high sales figures. From the article: "The study ... attempts to find correlations under more specific scenarios, such as with blockbuster games in the Madden, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo series; within the same franchise, and within the most specific example, within sports games concerning the same sport. However, as the authors state in their conclusion: 'After going through multiple scenarios, we believe a game rating, in most cases, is not a reliable tool for predicting game sales.'"
The games that sell really well tend to be approachable to a wide audience. That's why The Sims, Tetris, and even Halo (great game, but also easy to pick up) have done so well.
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Maybe this means game companies will stop aggressively courting reviewers, who might wake up one day with an ounce of accountability, and actually start doing their job.
We have good, critical film reviewers, why is the game review industry flooded with exuberant fanatics?
Reviews simply are not reliable. I was a game reviewer and actaully quit writing for certain publications that did not allow low scores for key titles. To me this is why just about all reviews are worthless.
I partnered and created a 100% independent review site. One time I had panned MGS3, and GT3 for being piss poor while everyone else couldn't slap "Must Have" and "Best Buy" and "Gold Sticker" all over them. I called MGS3 out for being as interactive as Dragon's Lair, and GT3 for having no AI whatsoever. I got some of the quickest and angriest calls and emails from the companies and their reps. I explained that the reviews were accurate and were not going to be changed. They said they would not send titles any more and that they would speak to my supervisor... They were infuriated to learn I was the owner and they could do nothing.
My point is that 90% of the reviews out there are biased and inflated for various reasons. Ever notice how big magazines give everything easy passes and then they always dog out one budget title which they aren;t receiving any ad dollars or kickbacks for anyhow to seem as if they are real. It's all rubbish.
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People would rather buy Fantastic Four than Beyond Good and Evil/Psychonauts.
Sales are a product of MARKETING, pure and simple.
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
I'm going to have to disagree with some earlier posters who said that there's no news here.
My first reaction was the same as theirs: Of course reviews don't correlate to game sales. Why would they, when most people don't even look at reviews?
But the news story here is not in the results of the survey, but in the *fact* of the survey.
Someone cared enough to pay a company to do this research. Who would have a financial interest in the correlation between review scores and game sales? Who would have an interest in the correlation between *anything* and game sales? It's certainly not the player, because he doesn't care whether the game sells well or not. He only cares if it's fun. No, it's the publisher who cares.
And the publisher only cares about a correlation if it's a high one, and there's some way he can use that information to drive up game sales. If reviews did correlate to game sales, that would still be useless information to the publisher, as game reviews are an independent, objective evaluation of a game's enjoyability.
Unless they aren't.
And there's your story.
What the survey is saying to its target audience is that they're better off spending their money on more direct forms of marketing than on buying reviews.
Game reviewers all want "the exclusive" first review and so seem to manage to review a 300+ hour monster RPG like Baldur's Gate in a day. So what does that matter? It is not like car reviewers drive a car for 10 years before giving them their review? Well no.
But car reviewers, the real ones, use science to test things like actuall fuel usage. And crash tests and such. Real car reviews are lengthy articles wich take a lot of time to do but that is okay because cars are a very big industry.
Sure you got the fluffy "reviews" were some airhead did a testdrive but these are not reviews, they are impressions.
Games and Cars are not like movies. Use the word "review" in a different context "I will review your work" and you will see that it implies a certain amount of test. This is not needed for a movie review. You do not need to check if the movie will properly play in the cinema the consumer will visit or wether it won't blow up if the user exists the theather to go take a leak. "Bugs" can be found in movies but they don't really matter if they aren't obvious at first glance. No movie has ever crashed a projector. No movie has ever failed frozen because the user missed a vital clue in the first ten minutes.
So for a movie an impression is good enough. For games it is not.
PC-Gamer even tried to give a indication of how the game would perform on different systems but can you imagine the time this takes? Just installing it on 3 systems for a fair perfomance test can take longer then it takes to watch a movie.
Even if game reviewers had the time to fully test a game most are just to hungup on their own opinion, or impressed with big name people to do a real job. Everyone must surely remember Black & White? Molyneux or what is his name could do no wrong. Even after Dungeon Master. I actually seen reviews of Dungeon Master 2 that said that this was what version 1 should have been. Eh right so why did you give the original a 9.5 score? The guy is an old hat but of late his games have been lacking. But writing that in your review does not seem to be done.
For me the point where I stopped buying game mags was when I read a review for two soldier sims, Operation Flashpoint and one of the bigger names. OF was not liked because it had a rather akward interface and a bad save system. Instead the other sim was raved about because of its "real" tactics and weapons. Except that what is the point of having a "real" sniper rifle that can kill at 2km range if the maps can't be bigger then a few hundred meters. Compared to OFP gigantic mission areas it seemed clear to me that the reviewer was talking crap and mistaking openaired doom for a soldier sim.
Of course that was just my opinion against the reviewers but the point is that the way the review was written it was clear the reviewer was only looking at the surface, not the true depth of the game. He had not played the games at any length.
So when a game like "The Longest Journey" gets high review scores but totally bombs at launch it is because like me many gamers don't believe reviews. Instead TLJ went on to become a sleeper making its money as word spread amongst gamers that it was good.
With the internet word of mouth spreads at the speed of light across continents. Who needs reviews?
We know that reviewers are either corrupt or stupid. I use review sites more as a release schedule then anything else.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What's the deal with averaging 4 or 5 factors I absolutely don't care about into one meaningless number that somehow I am supposed to take seriously? Movies aren't reviewed this way.
Aeon Flux
Plot: 76 It kind of made sense if you saw the movie
Graphics: 92 Charlize Theron looks great!
Sound: 83 The soundtrack was okay. Some may like it.
Value: 50 It was too short. I like 80 hour epics!
Reviewer Bias: 95 I'm a big fan of Peter Chung
Total: 79.2%
I have no idea how this is supposed tell me if I should see the movie or not, but it's how games are rated.