Does the gaming audience react more to reviews?

I've been wondering lately about how big a role reviews play for video games. I am under the impression that its a much bigger role than in other mediums mostly because I generally see terrible games not doing too well(though I would not call fifa and pro evolution soccer terrible, I still don't understand why the new versions sell, so even though they aren't inherently bad games, I think they are kind of the exception to this question).

I think video games have more objective elements to them which would make reviews much more relevant to the industry. For instance number of glitches, game length, responsiveness, etc. So we punish bad games much more than the movie audience would punish bad movies or the music audience would punish bad music. I think its partly because we aren't as big a fans of game designers, whilst the other mediums worship actors/singers. Anyway, its just been on my mind...Do you guys think we are more rational/well informed consumers? Why/why not?

Yeah, People seem to take reviews far too seriously. Even the publishers and developers are taking them far too seriously. It's a bit concerning. When i hear about a sequel to a pretty good game being canceled because it didnt hit 85 on metacritic that bums me the fuck out.

A semi-recent example, Dragons Dogma, it's floating around the 70's on metacritic, rightfully so. The game is flawed in alot of ways. The Pawns are kinda annoying. The story is a mess, in a 40+ hour game theres like a few times where they have to exposition dump at you for any of it to make sense. Theres no memorable characters, no real choices in the game. However its a BLAST, its one of the most fun RPGs in years. It's one of those games that didn't do great, but didnt do poorly, lots of people swept it away. But its the type of game that should have a sequel over others. Because if they can improve Dragons Dogmas flaws and keep its strengths, shit, that'd be amazing.

I do think games a higher level of critique than say, a movie or song. Since a game is fairly lengthy, the time commitment is way higher, the price is way higher. It's just a bit outof hand right now.

I don't know a single gamer who reacts to reviews. I know plenty who react to scores.

Have you seen movie reviews? They are nowhere near as blindly generous as game reviews are. Blockbuster movies review poorly all the time; blockbuster games very rarely receive poor reviews.

Movies have plenty of technical elements they can be judged on too, the difference is they aren't judged as just a sum of those technical elements, whereas games usually are. If movies were reviewed like games are, every movie would get a 9/10 as long as the cameraman never tripped over and the special effects were good. It wouldn't matter that they were totally by-the-numbers and had nothing to say about anything.

Movies are reviewed as art; games are reviewed as a science. Transformers would win Best Picture if movies were treated like games.

We're definitely the ones who get more butthurt about it.

Yeah, that's what I feel as well.

Reviews mean a lot. My store sold out copies of Last of Us on the DAY it was released. I think we had around 225 copies. It's a new IP, where did all those sales come from?

Some came from Naughty Dog fans, some came from Zombie fans and some came from people who've seen footage and liked it. But all that interest gets cut off at the knees if the game reviews in the sevens. It sold better out of the gate than any of the uncharted games by the by.

By contrast: Fuse sold a single copy across both platforms over the first two days and to date we've sold five copies of Remember Me.

Reviews matter because games are mechanical, they work or they don't. They feel good or they don't. Hell, I had one guy who read the 5/5 review in the newspaper and came in to order it because nothing ever gets 5/5 in that paper.

I think the reason why reviews are such a bigger deal for game consumers vs film or book consumers, for instance, is because of the price. Games are a far bigger investment than most other forms of entertainment and as a result people rely more on reviews (or scores or stars or what have you) to make purchasing decisions. Thus, when a score goes against the grain it is perceived as a personal attack to the validity of a gamer's investment and butthurtness results.

Online gaming communities are spoiled children when it comes to reviews. The larger gaming community that doesn't partake in online communities probably don't care.