Review Scores Don't Matter

[voltz]

It wouldn't make a difference. If the game was made to sell for the crap community, it'll sell for them and any other chump who doesn't give a shit about serious gameplay.

And if you want to talk about games that totally ignored the rating system, look no further then superman 64.

[James]

a game rating, in most cases, is not a reliable tool for predicting game sales.

*jumps up and down*

Yep, gravity still works too. So long as we're investigating the obvious, I thought it best to check.

It's true that making a game good will help it sell better than just making it licensed, but when the money is good enough as-is it just doesn't seem worth the publisher's time. Someone can probably say something about the development time/resources to profit ratio better than I can, but that's it in a nutshell.

James

[Bacon McShig]

Yet another hard-hitting expose from Duh! magazine.

[frostwolf ex]

we all already knew this. though they do help unsure people. for us they are useless.

[Andy]

Actually, they do matter. But what they matter to are the lower profile games, the ones that people years later champion as the cult classics. Or, in this case, compare next to 50 Cent Bulletproof, and complain about how reviews didn't matter. They did matter. Just in relation to those cult classics, not 50 Cent.

Anyway, reviews help or hurt games without a sizable built-in audience. I think the positive reviews help games like Okami and if Yakuza wasn't being docked 15% for not being GTA: Kabukicho it would be a big hit.

Exactly.

Anyway, Next-Gen.biz is one of the worst gaming sites on the Internet now. I get linked to their articles all the time, and I've never seen a site post so many inaccuracies, or even blatant fallacy. And it is all the more shameful considering they do it under the guise of being such a professional, industry trade website, and on the grave of a magazine that actually did that job, and did it well.

I think I'd rather read a Matt Cassimisina post than a Next-Gen.biz article. At least with Matt, I know what I'm getting.

[g0zen]

Game reviews serve the same function as movie reviews, simple as that.

Actually, they do matter. But what they matter to are the lower profile games, the ones that people years later champion as the cult classics. Or, in this case, compare next to 50 Cent Bulletproof, and complain about how reviews didn't matter. They did matter. Just in relation to those cult classics, not 50 Cent.

I would think that TNLers, of all people, should be wise enough to know that all that glitters is not gold and that some so-called 'critical darlings' are actually terrible and deserve to be the obscure failures they are.

[JefmcC]

Is that the sequel to Shaq-Fu?

Just the phonetically challenged version.

[Metal_slime]

It's kind of disheartening that people are so willing to drop $50 on something without, apparently, reading reviews for it. Either that or they read the reviews, and still wanted to really play a game endorsed by 50 Cent. This is why I avoid reading sales charts for anything. It will just make me confused/sad.