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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Game Scores Do Not Equate To Sales 47

Posted by Zonk from the we-already-knew-this dept.
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.'"
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Game Scores Do Not Equate To Sales More

Game Scores Do Not Equate To Sales

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  • In other news... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Friday December 09, 2005 @03:40PM (#14222355)
    Movie reviews don't make box office smashes.

    Reviews are (supposedly) an objective opinion of the merits of the game from various perspectives: game play, art, value, etc. Sales reflect something different entirely: marketing dollars spent, brand recognition by purchasers, perceived "coolness" of the game.

    There is a hard core contingent (I'm one of them) who reads reviews before purchasing games. They are the minority.
    • So we accept that there is a disconnect between game scores and sales, but that alone isn't very informative. Is the problem that games are not really scored according to quality, or that customers don't use reviews as a guide when purchasing?

      Also, does this data apply only to a-list titles (games $40 and more) or to all games? The distinction is crucial.

      My own prediction: Sales are based mostly on how much shelf space the game gets. This would explain why games like Deer Hunter (N) (where N is a whole n
      • Also, does this data apply only to a-list titles (games $40 and more) or to all games? The distinction is crucial.

        Yeah, I said basically the same when Joystiq published this story. I'll paraphrase (and maybe expand upon) my comments there, here.

        The thing that this study seems to show is not that poorly rated games sell well, but that highly rated games often don't. That's where the disconnect in the correlation is. There's a relatively flat distribution correlation of game sales to ratings, but generally
        • I think you are on the right track. Many of my "highly rated" games in my collection hit strange itches of mine. I like turn based strategy games. I like more story-driven RPGs. While I also like "mainstream" games (Need For Speed, Most Wanted is awesome once you get past the cringe worthy FMV garbage at the beginning) I tend to pick up games from smaller publishers that cover obscure wars. Highly rated, not they *can't* be a hot seller.
  • Movie ratings do not predict movie sales.
    Cd reviews do not predict cd sales.
    Oh the list goes on.

  • Good enough for a lot of people (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @03:42PM (#14222374) Homepage
    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.

  • Maybe this means... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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?
  • That is sad. Well reviewed game should raise sales, not publisher, developers or even name renown.

  • Reviews are not reliable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @04:15PM (#14222701) Homepage
    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.
    • Link to your review site please?
      • Actually I left the business as we had spent 4 years covering the PS2, and the lack of innovation and interest with that system really was not a good basis for us anymore. I used to write for Maxim/Stuff and I helped found/design/run ps2insider, and GamezCore. I am currently re-entering the console website game and it will be RevolutionInsider - the site is still in development and should be live by the end of January.

        The Revolution is the first console in some time to ignite my interest in gaming again. I
        • Still interested in URLs - I buy old games, and would like to read the reviews. I can always go back to the old pages via the Internet Wayback Machine.
          • Well, I didn't give the URL's because they are now both owned by squatter companies and for one: I don't want to give them any traffic and two: they contain mad amounts of pop-ups and try to reset your homepage. They are ps2insider.com and gamezcore.com. Gamezcore was more laid back and fun, it was never a commercial site so it isn't as serious. They were both built on top of CMS systems so the wayback machine doesn't do that great of a job with them, but best of luck!
    • The poster is correct about the relationship between reviewers and game publishers. Scores get inflated artificially in order to maintain their connections within the game industry. Reviewing games gets expensive when you consider that new games cost $50, and that dozens of mainstream games (and several more smaller scale games) are released every month.

      Some sites try to buck the trend, such as GamersInfo.net [gamersinfo.net] (full disclosure: I've written reviews for them without direct compensation), but it's hard when
    • I think there's also a tribal element to it as well with the platform specific mags. They don't want to enrage off the fanboy section of their audience by "betraying" the platform by giving a much hyped game the score it deserves. These days the only magazines whose reviews I'll trust are Edge and GamesTM. It's interesting, given the assumption that it's presure from advertisers that's mostly responsible for absurdly high review scores of certain games, that Edge is published by Future, the same company th
      • I've received some of the nastiest threats, including death threats, over simple reviews. I once received a death threat over the score of 3/10 for MGS3 that I mentioned above. But they are just hollow threats from little fat kids in mom's basement so I just brush them off. Plus I wrestled/boxed/hockey for some years so I'd *love* for some fanboy to try to actually make good on a threat :).

        I also had received a death threat over my panning of the PSP in a preview I did. While I didn't bash the device itself
  • The findings from this is very plausible. First of all, the ratings are subjective. One guy might love the game and score it a 9 whereas another place will think it has flaws in a couple areas and give it a 6. If two people look at the reviews, but 1 only looks at the 9 review, and the other only looks at the 6 review, the person with the 9 might buy it, but the one reading the 6 review might not. So that's where ratings can cancel each other out.

    There's too many variables to really be able to find a co
    • With the new low cost game rentals I would think rent before you own would be the way to go. Not everyone has the same taste. I loved games like Harpoon but a hard core FPS friend of mine thought they where too much like work.
      • At last someone that know that renting game just saves you a lot of money...
        • Even though I'm not a subscriber (yet), I was actually using Gamefly.com as my website to browse the games when giving my list of priorities. Renting is definitely an excellent way to go because while it may cost you a little bit to rent the game, if you beat it in 2 days and it has no replay value, you just saved yourself from having to spend $50 on the game brand new. The only downfall to renting is that you need to be able to dedicate time to playing the same game in a short amount of time. Gamefly al

  • Sad really (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Strell ( 877448 )
    People would rather buy Fantastic Four than Beyond Good and Evil/Psychonauts.

    Sales are a product of MARKETING, pure and simple.

  • There's got to be a pony here somewhere... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dbhankins ( 688931 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @04:41PM (#14222923)
    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.
    • Well then kiss almost all of the gaming magazines (even the so called independent ones) goodbye, as they solely exist as corporate mouthpieces. I've worked as a reviewer and have seen things that turned my stomach as an honest person.

      Since I have worked in this field, people ask me all the time what a "reputable" review site/mag is then... my answer is always the same: None and all of them.

      Aggregate review sites such as Rottentomatoes and Gamerankings which give an average score based on all reviews are the
    • Atari threatened that they would slash payments for games that didn't get a minimum score (can't recall if they backed out of that or not). Of course publishers care about reviews: a good review acts as some amount of "free" advertising. But the bigger story is that sales and reviews are at cross purposes. A sequel to a "big" game may sell very well but be docked by reviewers as "not innovative".

      Of course, a company like Atari might have commissioned the research to ensure they were not slicing thier own th

    • 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.

      I think it's a bit more subtle than that. For the most part, game reviews aren't objective. Go read recent reviews from IGN, Gamespot, etc. For certain games, there is quite a bit of whining about how the game is hard, or there are elements they don't like, etc. I'm going to pick on IGN here, because

    • 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.

      Not true. The player cares because if they enjoy the game, then they will want to play more games like it. High sales usually translates to a high likelihood of sequels and similar games from other publishers.
    • Good point.

      Of course, if publishers stop buying reviews, the quality of the reviews might improve. And then there might be a reason for consumers to pay more attention to reviews.

      Then it will be time for another one of these studies, and the sine wave will continue...
  • High sales rarely equate with the quality of the review, whether it be cars, movies, songs or wine. Why should games be any different.

  • Low scores? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by UberChuckie ( 529086 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:14PM (#14223218) Homepage
    The article did not seem to say whether a low score drove potential buyers away.

    Specifically, were there any games that had poor reviews but good revenue?
    • Specifically, were there any games that had poor reviews but good revenue?

      Enter the Matrix [gamerankings.com] and Driv3r [gamerankings.com] are two shining examples of games that games that got terrible reviews (most game review sites seem to go on a 7 to 10 scale, so anything less than that is pretty terrible) but sold millions.

    • Even moreso than the ones the previous reply mentioned, all those hunting and fishing titles sell like crazy and all get horrible reviews.
  • Arrested Development was a critically acclaimed show, but regular people didn't like it. It never got watched and has now been canned.

    Same must apply for video games: just because a game is highly touted by every critic doesn't necessarily mean that regular people want to buy and play the game.
  • How many people actually buy a game based on the reviews in the press? If it's a big-ticket item, the reviews are going to be but one part of a marketing onslaught. If it isn't, the reviews aren't going to affect much: these days, especially with computer-related stuff, the hardcore has much more effective ways of getting at what's cool.

  • Because game reviews suck? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @09:00PM (#14225311) Journal

    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.

  • 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

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