are game sales dictated by critics?

[unit003]

there is something of a scurge in the market that is gaming and I'm willing to name it upon the reviewer of the more popular media by saying that their opinions reflect too great an influence upon gamers, thus leading to the possibility of how certain game titles fare in the industry.
Why am I saying this? Well, let's take a game like chrono trigger. It was without a doubt a new step in gameplay for RPG's in a time when dragon warrior and final fantasy were the so called "be all, end all" of RPG's. It was given high marks and grades along with great number of opinions telling of how great it is and so and so. Now take another game, like Shenmue... it turned out that with the new coming of age in gaming, reviewers were split down the middle on weather to recommend it to players, or to pass it like the plague. That didn't lead to great sales compared to higher standards and alot of it had to do with the reader's source of material, say if it was
EGM they read and there was a negative opinion on it, do you think the person would say he's now willing to buy it? Likely he's not going to becuase of his belief in the view of who he's reading his source material from and that sadly hits a large group of people who don't know enough to take more then just one opinion to get the hint on what they may be passing on. Throw in other games like ecco, wild 9, spawn, thunderforce 5 etc etc...

so what do you think? are they controlling the content for what could be a good game? or do you think that sales are still well-deserved depending on how the game goes over with the public?

[StriderKyo]

Not really, otherwise every highly rated game would see big sales. I do think it plays a role, but certainly not a determining one. I'd say EGM is just in touch with what the common gamer wants most of the time.

And btw, EGM didn't bash Shenmue, I recall them giving it decent marks, just not straight 9s. Speaking of which, Jet Grind Radio is the perfect example of critics not making much difference., as straight 9s is what EGM gave it.

[unit003]

well no, I didn't exactly say that they gave Shenmue a bad review, but in the case that if they were to bash it, would the game have been worse off then it is now? Also I agree with you on Jet Grind. it's still the one true gem that sega made and everyone just ignored it...

[MechDeus]

I think previews more then reviews and scores affect people. Previews often get front-cover of magazines (to show off how up-to-date they are) and the largest articles. Reviews get comparatively small areas and are taken up much less by the pretty screenshots and showing off magazines love to do.

This applies to gaming websites as well, as places like Gamespot horde early screenshots like no other and they all update with every scrap of news for previews, which is what gets people excited, and then word-of-mouth travels and everyone's hyped well before the game or reviews come out.

[unit003]

hype + bad game = "uh oh"

(cough*superman64*hack)

[MechDeus]

Originally posted by unit003
hype + bad game = "uh oh"

Bingo. And this happens far too often.

Luckily, more companies are offering demos and we're getting them for all the platforms so more try-before-you-buy is becoming accessible, which is only a good thing. The only time this doesn't help is with those games that really need time to develop, but there's no way around that without the full game.

[James]

I've got Spec Ops and every Army Men game ever made on the line. They say, and I quote "HA-ha!"

James

[GameFreak]

Of course they do.


If a game gets bad-mediocre scores there aren't going to be too many people rushing out to spend $40-$50 on the game.


If a game gets great scores and gets the cover of magazines, logic dictates the interest in the game will be increased and more people will choose to buy that game over the games with bad-mediocre scores.


Take Soul Calibur on Dreamcast as an example, most Dreamcast games didn't fare well in the sales department but Soul Calibur did, why? Because it was the ONLY Dreamcast game that was acclaimed by EVERY magazine and EVERY website.


Does this mean every game that gets great scores sells well? Of course not, but it does help sales just like bad reviews hurt sales.


That is why I no longer purchase magazines, in the past I sometimes thought that some mags were "selling out" and giving great reviews to mediocre games, why? Use your imagination.



Does anyone remember back in the Snes-Genesis days that Capcom pulled it's ads from a certain magazine because that magazine was blasting their port of Super Street fighter 2 by calling it another obvious attempt by them at milking the SF2 franchise for all it was worth?

[Johnny Nighttrain]

Jet Set Radio

[Lordmrw]

I think to a certain extent they can affect a games sales. For the big releases that are hyped up to the sun, their opinion doesn't really matter as most people have already made up their minds to buy them. For the middle ground titles that don't get as much hype or no hype, what they say might convince a certain amount of people to buy them.