Poll: The System Works. Skyrim vs. COD: MW3

[jason27131]

McDonalds has a lot more revenue than a 4 star restaurant simply because it's a huge francise .Does it mean that the food quality and taste is better?

That's like comparing COD MW3 to TES 5.

 

[crazyarms33]

Total sales. (not sure where you got your sales numbers from, but I'll play along)

The vocal minorities love to ***** about things that are popular, and they are popular for good reasons. When 7 million people buy a game known for adding little to it's next sequel, and as little as 4,000 users critic it, and a third are positive (out of the near 100% positive critic scores) it's clear that just because a bunch of whiners complain loudly, the game is still great. Now if 5 million people cried out against the game, it might be bad.

Less than 1,000 cared to comment on Skyrim so far. Skyrim didn't have sales numbers like CoD.

Neither Skyrim nor CoD MW3 are art, both are just great games. If 7 million buy any game, it's at least a 'good' game.

360 metacritic numbers used.

By that logic you can say that Justin Bieber is good music, certainly better than say Johnny Cash, the Beatles or Mozart in recent sales figures. Does it mean that as far as quality goes its better music? It depends on your opinion... much like the answer to this poll.
Sales matter because it has a fan base, but why does the fan base like it? Is it trendy, cool, or a quality product? Something in the middle?
You also have to look at the demographics. To a mid 20 something Bieber's music will suck. To a teenage girl it will be fantastic. If you want an actual meaningful statistic it must come from the same group. IE most MW3 gamers are not going to be playing Skyrim and vice-versa. I personally love BF3 and loathe MW3. But MW3 has higher sales and I'm fine with that. It doesn't change my opinion at all nor should it. Higher sales doesn't make it a "better" product, just a more popular one. More sales and more money doesn't equate to a more solid or superior product when compared to any other, merely a different one.

 

[CleverCover]

...how about playing the games and finding out for yourself?

/thread.

Seriously? How much did Beyond Good and Evil sell? Psyconauts? A little arcade game I found called Costume Quest? Space Channel 5 Part 1 or Part 2? If it was up to total sales, I would ignore some of these games too.

Majority opinion isn't always right either. I enjoyed DA2. If I followed the masses, I would hate it instead without giving it a chance. Doesn't mean that you'll like it, but I did. Go play the damn thing yourself if you want an opinion.

We have a brain. Maker only hopes that we actually try and use it.

 

[x434343]

Way I see it:

Modern Warfare 3 is better economically. It basically pushed Call of Duty into being one of the most prominent franchises, in terms of recognition (no Mario, no Zelda, games might not be for kids), and generated a ton of cash in a stagnant economy.

Skyrim is, personally, very buggy. It has potential to be great, so I'm holding out for a patch.

Winner? There is none, currently, to me.. MW3 works a lot better than Skyrim, yet everybody says Skyrim is better. Call me crazy, I value a functioning game over a game with a ton of potential, but lagging every 20 seconds (on Low quality graphics, despite a reccomendation for medium graphics).

 

[Heaven's Guardian]

Aren't those two options the same thing, really? The game that sells more copies is the one that the plurality of gamers who bought at least one of the compared games chose to buy. Ergo, the majority votes with its wallet. Like a number of above commenters said, we're looking at a sample tainted by self-selection bias when looking at Metacritic ratings, because the vast majority of gamers can't be bothered and only those with very strong opinions vote. That considered, I don't see how you can determine majority opinion in any fashion other than sales figures.

 

[Nazulu]

Face it man, your poll is flawed. They are both an awful ways to judge a games quality.

How do I tell which game is better before buying? I watch videos of them on Youtube, and I read up about them on independent websites. Neither sales nor Metacritic rating are a reliable way of telling which is a better game for me, nor a better game overall (As if such a thing could exist).

It's not about which game is better for you, it's overall which game is better. These things do exist. At the end of the day, which game is better from an unbiased view and which point of reference is the best to judge it from? That's the question.

I agree with Joccaren that researching is the best way to find something you'll like. Watching youtube vids and reading reviews with interests similar to yours is good for those with certain tastes.

However, I agree with Dailon that quality can be measured, just not by popularity. Good luck finding someone unbiased though, it's a state of mind that's not common. And the best way to judge a game is to look at it's strengths and weaknesses in detail.

 

[Nazulu]

As far as (your words) recent sales go, hell yeah. Beib is king. Millions love him. You think this is all some sort of lie perpetrated by 'the man'? People aren't buying Johnny Cash as much today. Why would you use the words recent in this situation then bring up legends from yesterday??

Higher sales don't always equal better, we agree there. But high sales equals good. That is an undeniable fact. It might not be what we like, but we have to acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. You'd be surprised how many mid 20's kids love that plastic faced nimrod.

Seriously? Kinda, eh?

(for the record, I have no interest in the Beiber, and I like MW3, while I love beyond any game Skyrim, and Johnny Cash has a horrible voice)

Undeniable fact. Really? Where the hell do you get those facts from? I know your not going to give me a good answer on that, that's a fact.

I agree art quality can't be objectively proven, but they can be judged by people who have the skills for it, though they are very rare (especially unbiased).

 

[Radeonx]

Do you have any ideas how means work? Because 0 bombing will bring down the overall score greatly, skewing the "majority opinion" statistics.

The fact is that more people said it was negative than positive. 2,323 gave a negative review, while 1,308 gave a positive one.

I..okay? I wasn't arguing whether or not more people gave it a positive or negative review. I wasn't arguing whether majority opinion was right or wrong. I was pointing out a blatant flaw in your logic, which you are now covering with a statistic that didn't have anything to do with what I was talking about.

Actually, it does. You claim that "0 spamming" brought down the score. More people voted poorly than well, even if they had picked any number other than zero, the negative review would have been given, it would not have saved. It wasn't skewed, more people voted negatively.

I was talking about the mean score, not the total number of scores.
I thought that was blatantly obvious when I started talking about the mean score.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

How about emotional impact? Amount of fun had while playing? How much the hype made you want to vomit on someone's copy?

How about we try number of man hours consumed while playing? Number of infants killed by neglect? Or how about a system where two games, of different genres, featuring different thematic elements, control schemes, histories, modes of play, and content are judged not against each other, as shooter versus fantasy epic, but as two kinds of fish, found in entirely different parts of the world, to be weighted against each other in terms of how well each goes with a lemon zest, and on no other principle?

Which is the better game, from the voice of the majority? The majority are playing two different styles of game entirely. This is not a contest. Independent sales of one hardly affects the sales of the other. Fans of CoD will get Cod, and fans of Skyrim will get Skyrim. Fans of both with most likely get both, over a period of time. How will they know they are fans, you chime? Because, in one, you shoot everything that moves, or just hang around and spam 'fix tank' for some unaccounted for points. In the other, you're a dragonslayer who can beat up a world, but get squished between the toes of a giant. You cannot measure these things against each other--they require two different units of unconvertable measure. Given at least a third component, e.g. number of near-naked men running around putting buckets on people's heads, you can compare the two. But alone, they are separate. There is no objective 'best' in terms of wholes, only a 'best' in terms of given comparisons.

 

[crazyarms33]

Total sales. (not sure where you got your sales numbers from, but I'll play along)

The vocal minorities love to ***** about things that are popular, and they are popular for good reasons. When 7 million people buy a game known for adding little to it's next sequel, and as little as 4,000 users critic it, and a third are positive (out of the near 100% positive critic scores) it's clear that just because a bunch of whiners complain loudly, the game is still great. Now if 5 million people cried out against the game, it might be bad.

Less than 1,000 cared to comment on Skyrim so far. Skyrim didn't have sales numbers like CoD.

Neither Skyrim nor CoD MW3 are art, both are just great games. If 7 million buy any game, it's at least a 'good' game.

360 metacritic numbers used.

By that logic you can say that Justin Bieber is good music, certainly better than say Johnny Cash, the Beatles or Mozart in recent sales figures. Does it mean that as far as quality goes its better music? It depends on your opinion... much like the answer to this poll.
Sales matter because it has a fan base, but why does the fan base like it? Is it trendy, cool, or a quality product? Something in the middle?
You also have to look at the demographics. To a mid 20 something Bieber's music will suck. To a teenage girl it will be fantastic. If you want an actual meaningful statistic it must come from the same group. IE most MW3 gamers are not going to be playing Skyrim and vice-versa. I personally love BF3 and loathe MW3. But MW3 has higher sales and I'm fine with that. It doesn't change my opinion at all nor should it. Higher sales doesn't make it a "better" product, just a more popular one. More sales and more money doesn't equate to a more solid or superior product when compared to any other, merely a different one.

As far as (your words) recent sales go, hell yeah. Beib is king. Millions love him. You think this is all some sort of lie perpetrated by 'the man'? People aren't buying Johnny Cash as much today. Why would you use the words recent in this situation then bring up legends from yesterday??

Higher sales don't always equal better, we agree there. But high sales equals good. That is an undeniable fact. It might not be what we like, but we have to acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. You'd be surprised how many mid 20's kids love that plastic faced nimrod.

Seriously? Kinda, eh?

(for the record, I have no interest in the Beiber, and I like MW3, while I love beyond any game Skyrim, and Johnny Cash has a horrible voice)

I used legends of music because I cant think of any modern bands I like with equatable sales figures. Also I used them because even if people don't like them, they can at least respect them.

I did not mean to imply that MW3 is not good. I'm sure it is a fine game for most people, just not for me. I meant to say that the idea of comparing these two seems silly to me when you limit your criteria to either sales or mass opinion. Sorry for the confusion!

 

[WalkableBuffalo]

Skyrim was rated a 96/100 by critics and a 8.7/100 by the users. COD: MW3 was rated 89/100 and 3.2/10 by the users.

Are you sure you meant 8.7/100 and not 8.7/10?
Also Majority Opinions because time and time again it has been proven that there are many good and amazing games that did not sell much at all, even if most of the people don't know it themselves.
But I would much rather just have people play it themselves and decide or have an official review about the game to decide by someone like Gamespot, either way listening to anyone doesn't really do a game justice

 

[crazyarms33]

Total sales. (not sure where you got your sales numbers from, but I'll play along)

The vocal minorities love to ***** about things that are popular, and they are popular for good reasons. When 7 million people buy a game known for adding little to it's next sequel, and as little as 4,000 users critic it, and a third are positive (out of the near 100% positive critic scores) it's clear that just because a bunch of whiners complain loudly, the game is still great. Now if 5 million people cried out against the game, it might be bad.

Less than 1,000 cared to comment on Skyrim so far. Skyrim didn't have sales numbers like CoD.

Neither Skyrim nor CoD MW3 are art, both are just great games. If 7 million buy any game, it's at least a 'good' game.

360 metacritic numbers used.

By that logic you can say that Justin Bieber is good music, certainly better than say Johnny Cash, the Beatles or Mozart in recent sales figures. Does it mean that as far as quality goes its better music? It depends on your opinion... much like the answer to this poll.
Sales matter because it has a fan base, but why does the fan base like it? Is it trendy, cool, or a quality product? Something in the middle?
You also have to look at the demographics. To a mid 20 something Bieber's music will suck. To a teenage girl it will be fantastic. If you want an actual meaningful statistic it must come from the same group. IE most MW3 gamers are not going to be playing Skyrim and vice-versa. I personally love BF3 and loathe MW3. But MW3 has higher sales and I'm fine with that. It doesn't change my opinion at all nor should it. Higher sales doesn't make it a "better" product, just a more popular one. More sales and more money doesn't equate to a more solid or superior product when compared to any other, merely a different one.

As far as (your words) recent sales go, hell yeah. Beib is king. Millions love him. You think this is all some sort of lie perpetrated by 'the man'? People aren't buying Johnny Cash as much today. Why would you use the words recent in this situation then bring up legends from yesterday??

Higher sales don't always equal better, we agree there. But high sales equals good. That is an undeniable fact. It might not be what we like, but we have to acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. You'd be surprised how many mid 20's kids love that plastic faced nimrod.

Seriously? Kinda, eh?

(for the record, I have no interest in the Beiber, and I like MW3, while I love beyond any game Skyrim, and Johnny Cash has a horrible voice)

I really hope this doesn't double post, but I'm sorry if it does! I used legends of music because I can't think of any modern bands I like that have comparable sales figures haha. But I also used them because even if people don't like their music, they can still respect them.

I did not mean to imply that MW3 is a bad game. I know most people like it, its just not for me. I was more or less trying to point out the silliness of comparing two games using only these two criteria. Sales and mass opinion are all well and good, but to me its more important whether or not the individual likes it. Sorry for the confusion!

 

[Twilight_guy]

I see that you want me to argue the validness of both of these two points. Neither is a valid measure of the quality of a game so I refuse to acknowledge your sentiments and instead declare your question to be a choice between two wrong answer. The correct answer is that the quality of game is unrelated to price or metacritic score.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I would be much happier knowing that a few people played and enjoyed my games, rather than lots of people liking it and the fanbase becoming large enough to attract idiots, which then attract idiot-haters so they start hating on my work by extension.

 

[Blazing Steel]

So many things wrong with this discussion...

Neither. Both methods are flawed. 'Better work of art?' Did the developers say they were trying to create 'a work of art' cause it not I feel it's a bad way to judge them if one game was going for a more artistic game. Metacritic is not to be trusted. Ever. You can take the results into consideration, but not base anything just on them. Also you can't compare a RPG to an FPS, it's like comparing Monopoly to Assassin's Creed. They're both games, but you wouldn't comparing them. Since you're new I should inform you the escapist frowns upon vs threads.

 

[Rastrelly]

I'd agree that this is a strange choice due to relativity of any inducted "scoring", but, hey, WTF? Measure by sales is a priori meaningless. Aggressive PR can sell even a hedgehog's shit or make a blockbuster from trash. On the other hand, in the first days consumer score is also not objective. Euphoria if project was good or over-criticism if project was bad often strongly affect marks which players do. Consumer score will become more or less precise only after about a couple of month and if you have at least 2000 of respondents.

 

[nsqared]

Just because a game makes a lot of money doesn't mean it's good, while some people may still enjoy it, majority opinion is much better. It's like most of the top most viewed videos on YouTube, they have a lot of views because the thumbnail looks like it's porn, but it's not. The videos got a lot of views, but that doesn't mean that they are good.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Remember way back in the day when versus threads used to be frowned upon? I miss that.

And thinking along the lines of this, I'd say just about every single MW3 user review is a result of backlash (it was hated because it was a CoD game), so you can't really take that into account.

Yeah... Metacritic is a terrible site. I don't know why people still use that as a credible source anymore.