This is a different discussion now.
Yes, I also think that what I like has more value than what anyone else likes. The total amount of players in the world that has any influence or validity on what I consider what is a good game is 1: me.
Yes, I also have reasons to like what I like and consider that what I like is more enjoyable than what others find enjoyable. The reason is, I like it, and don't care what the hell others think about it.
The whole point was demographics, and objective satisfaction rate, which is directly linked to quality and enjoyment - you are only satisfied by things which you enjoyed, you enjoy things which stand out because of the quality of the service.
It never had anything to do with how many people play the game, this was repeated time and time again and it still baffles me that some of the people I've been discussing with from the beginning of the thread haven't managed to get a grasp on the principle - what is being looked at is the % of satisfaction from the players that do play the game, exactly from all of them, not any trimmed section. If 600 players reviewed a game, then we look at all 600. If 3 million players reviewed the game, then we look at all 3 million of them. What we are not doing because it has no statistical value is taking a game with 3 million reviews, and selecting out of them only the 600 reviews that favour our interests. We take, in all cases, 100% of the data available, because the more data, the more accurate it will be when averaging out. Number of reviews doesn't matter, only matters that we take the 100% of them so the data is as accurate and as objective as possible.
Then we will have a lot of valuable data, but we will also have things like:
- People that are clueless and downvote the game for problems they imagine and don't exist. (ie, found an unbeatable enemy - turns out it's an optional encounter you can avoid and return to later)
- People who lack any criteria and only vote 10 or 0 because either the game is made by the studio they're honeymooning with, or the studio they have some biased issue with. (ie, BioWare fanboy/hater doesn't care about the game, just boosting/boycotting the company)
- People who can't separate reality from fiction, and upvote/downvote games for political/religious/social reasons that had nothing to do with the game's quality (ie, the game had a lesbian character in it).
All games suffer this, but regardless of what you'd like to believe, your favourite game isn't more subject to it than any other. Of course, the larger the data pool, the more accurate the results, but statistically this variance tends to neutralise between different games with the same target audience (ie, CRPGS), since the target audience will be mostly the same, and they judge the games under the same lenses. Also none of the games I presented in the premise of my argument (DAO, PoE, DOS, PF) have any sort of DRM, so they all bypass the DRM filter that might apply any further variances for more stable and reliable results.
When all is said and done and the dust settles and all data is collected and averaged out, some games come clearly on top of others. Not by 2-3% margins that could be explained by variance, but by 10-20% margins that clearly prove a vastly superior rate of user satisfaction.
Now I understand some people don't believe in user reviews, or critic reviews, or anyone that is not themselves and their group of friends. That's fine. I'm not talking about that. I don't care about what you trust or you believe. I'm presenting irrefutable data, I didn't make anything up, I'm not manipulating anything or using fairy spells or Jedi magic to explain why in my own world those numbers don't mean a thing.
The numbers, the reality of things is there, for all to see, and that is how it will pass down in history. And after that, you are free to believe what you want.
Anyway, I'm happy to let the conversation keep going wildly offtopic at this point, as everyone has spoken their minds.
If it makes anyone feel better, I also don't give a crap about what fanboys or haters say about any game. But documented history does, science and statistics do. So you'll have to deal with it - unless you plan to be alive in 500 years to explain to people who look back at the best games in human history to tell them "Actually… I think Kingmaker was better than PoE". Because all they will see is that PoE was better than KM, and the reason for that is simple: PoE was better than KM.
Fallout 4 has 15,884 and Witcher 3 has 10,000+ and it is pretty big on Gog too. The EA of BG3 has 2400 people, Solasta has a measley 430, and DOS 2 has 9,226.
