We all know there are games we enjoy that get poor reviews and there are games that are well reviewed but don’t sell big numbers and turn in big coin. What of the games that get crap ratings but sell big? This phenomenon has been on the rise recently with titles like Wii Play and Wii Music in the top 10 NPD sales data for November.
Brice Morrison, developer and blogger, has written a fairly interesting article bringing up the question of does a high Metacritic score equal higher sales.
But what happens when instead of being spot on, the gaming press appears to have a blind spot? What happens with poorly or mediocre rated games go on to break multi-platinum sales records? What happens when Metacritic is consistently wrong?
To sum it up if you ask the question does a Metacritic score directly correlate to sales the answer is yes, if you are Nintendo, and no if you are anyone else. I strongly suggest giving the full article a read here.
Now for a bit of shameless self promotion…..
Our very own Loot-Ninja, yours truly (plus my reluctant pal Sean), has participated in a recent design competition held by EA designer Brice Morrison over at his site and came in the top three entries.
The contest was to design a game that is both entertaining and provides a peripheral benefit to the player, whether they are learning something new, improving way of life, or having an overall positive impact on the player. My design was a game that could be described as Lemonade Stand and Drug Wars meet the Global Credit Crisis. Hit the link for more information on the contest and submissions.
This serves as nice reminder that games as entertainment are not completely restricted to blowing stuff up, killing things, or learning the useless talents of playing fake instruments. While all that stuff is fun, games can actually teach us somethings about ourselves or our world.
Does anyone have any thoughts on any mainstream games that entertained and provided some benefit to you? I can say with confidence that Spectrum Holobyte’s Falcon 3.0 taught me a lot about flying.
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