Does popularity equal quality
Published Monday 23 Aug 2010 1:14am |
12
Modern Warfare 2 is a popular game. It's sales are spectacular with feats such as being the biggest entertainment launch in history bringing in $310 million in it's first 24 hours. Since it's release it has topped the weekly Xbox live activity charts showing that it is the most played console game (I assume PS3 charts would be similar). The critics loved it with an impressive score of 94 on Metacritic.
Taking into account all of these factors MW2 should be considered one of the greatest if not the greatest current gen game but.......
If you look at any Internet forum this is quite the opposite. The majority of posts including MW2 are very negative. Whether their comments are regarding the glitches , overpowered classes, the disappointing campaign or the actual people that play MW2 one thing for sure is that the Internet crowd do not like MW2 .
This stark difference in opinion is a strange phenomenon but it is not that unusual. Halo 3 has had a similar, but less extreme, divide in opinion. Popular music artists/groups such as Lady Gaga or Nickelback have huge amounts of fans yet most people speak negatively of them. It is this phenomenon that brought about the phrase popularity does not equal quality.
I often wonder about how the quality of games and music should be judged and I have come to the conclusion that in fact popularity does equal quality. If a game is enjoyed by a lot of people even if it is flawed, requires no skill, is shallow etc. the simple fact that people enjoy it should be enough to say it's a quality game.
While personally I found MW2 to be an alright game (I prefer third person shooters) I think MW2 deserves the title of greatest game this gen purely because it's the most popular.
So what do you think ?
Do you agree that popularity equals quality?
How would you decide what the greatest game is ?
Thanks for reading my blog. Constructive criticism is welcome.
COMMENTS (12)
Also read this for a helping hand on how to write more substantial blogs: http://nzgamer.com/takuyafire/blogs/1012/bloggers-guide-to-blogging.html
Good things: You used a troll for a catch phrase...that's bound to score you readers so kapai.
Answers:
1. No.
2. Certainly not.
3. By how good the game is.
In regards to that last answer, there really cannot be any one true "greatest game" because we all have different viewpoints on what is good and what isn't. I mean hell go look a the NZGamer StarcraftII comments.
Not only that but you need to take into account the amount of gamers now vs the start of this "gen" as well as the media increase in hype. MW2 was hyped so bad that when they released it people were pissed off at how terrible the game really was...we expected MW1 but better...what we got was a multiplayer expansion pack with a turd of a singleplayer.
So in my opinion a "greatest game" really can't exist or it literally has to be able to please everyone and I'm struggling to think of such a game in the current gen...I know games like NFSU really and even Diablo2 made a lot of people happy in the past...but now? Hell...maybe Mass Effect 2? I'm not sure.
You can never objectively/empirically define quality, because it's all down to the tastes of the person.
This means most people are shocked and disbelieving when you point out a game like STALKER has sold more copies on PC than Bioshock, for example!
Also, quite often I will be quoted the combined sales of the console and PC version versus the sales of a PC only game.
You also have the false advertising that the media buys into and regurgitates, like Bethesda saying Fallout 3 had sold more copies than Fallout 1 and 2 combined, and nobody pointed out that Fallout 1 and 2 were PC only and Fallout 3 was on 2 consoles and PC! If you just compare like with like, Fallout 3 on PC did not sell as many copies as Fallout 2, let alone both combined!
So let's hope the games media becomes a little more independent from the games business and starts asking harder questions. If they don't, we will see the quality of games continue to go down and the interest in retro gaming continue to grow (Can 6 million DOSBox downloads not tell us something?)
With MMO's, yes.
With anime, No.
The only things you're going to see written on the internet, are things by people who have very strong opinions. And the people who love the game are off playing it.
Negative press attracts attention too, so of course there will be more talk on the bad points of a game.
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