Current Events > [Study] The irrefutable link between Nintendo's ad budget & review scores

(+) Yeah! (+)

Here is a graph illustrating the relationship between Nintendo's ad budget & the review scores they receive

On the horizontal axis are Nintendo's annual advertising budgets (in millions yen) over the last 7 years. Nintendo reports the figures in their public financial statements.

On the vertical axis are the highest Game Rankings averages among Nintendo first party games in each year. Numbers come from Game Rankings (obviously).

The purple dash line is the trend line.

Nintendo may not pay off game critics directly, but it's undeniable that big ad dollars spent on major gaming media can and do affect the review scores they publish.
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Correlation =/= causation.

Perhaps they simply spend more money advertising games they know are top tier. There's no real reason to believe that reviewers are giving these games better scores because of more marketing hype
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iGen topic
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So Mario 3d world and Galaxy 2 are legitimately good games while Pokemon Sun and Zelda skyward sword were not?
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Xenoblade had a higher marketing budget than Mario Maker, Pokmon and Smash Bros?
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Would Xenoblade's ad budget be for the 2010 Japanese release? Because a Gamestop exclusive game certainly didn't get much advertising in 2012.

0AbsoluteZero0 posted...

Correlation =/= causation.

Basically, this. I'm not saying there isn't corruption in the game industry and game journalism, but I don't think this is enough to prove anything solid.

Unbelievable - you're telling me that Mario isn't the second coming of Jesus?
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Raikuro posted...

Would Xenoblade's ad budget be for the 2010 Japanese release? Because a Gamestop exclusive game certainly didn't get much advertising in 2012.

Shh, let's not spoil TC's topic with objective facts.
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Nintendo pays off everyone.
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