Reviews Aren't That Important To Gamers When Buying A New Title

A recent survey by the Cowen Group has revealed that game reviews are the least important factor to consumers when considering a video game purchase. Company analyst Doug Creutz commented it's more about word of mouth determining a game's success:

“We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game."

“We note this, in part, because of persistent rumours that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by grade-grubbing after the fact.”

Source: CVG