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A recent study has found that not only do review scores affect the way gamers perceive games before they play them, but they even strongly affect their perception of the game after having had firsthand experience. <\/p>\n
Method<\/strong><\/p>\n The study, conducted in conjunction with SMU earlier this year, involved 188 participants, of which 23 were disqualified after being deemed “inappropriate” for the research. Each participant was asked to spend 20 minutes playing PopCap’s critically acclaimed Plants vs. Zombies, a game which none of them had any previous knowledge of. <\/p>\n Participants were divided into three groups. Before playing the game, the first group was given high-scoring reviews to read. The second group was given low-scoring reviews, and the third group was not given any reviews. Following their time with the game, each participant was asked to give the game a score out of 100. They were also offered $10 in payment for their time, or alternatively, their own copy of the game. <\/p>\n Results<\/strong><\/p>\n The group that was first exposed to the positive reviews scored the game on average 6 points higher than the group who was not exposed to any reviews. The group that was given the negative reviews scored the game on average 14 points lower than the control group. <\/p>\n “Even with first-hand experience of time spent playing the game, those exposed to high review scores give the game a higher review and those exposed to low review scores gave the game a lower score,” the study noted. “Clearly, this initial review exposure influenced their opinion, even after they played the game themselves.”<\/p>\n Furthermore, 38 percent of the group that was shown positive reviews before hand, elected to take the game as payment instead of the $10. Twenty-one percent of the control group took the game, and just 17 percent of the group shown negative reviews took the game. <\/p>\n “The findings of this study indicate that critic reviews, independent of product quality, significantly influenced participants’ willingness to purchase the product,” the study found. “As painful as it may be for developers to consider, even with the creation of a high quality game, a game is likely to achieve greater commercial success if reviewed highly, than if reviewed poorly or not at all.”<\/p>\n Not only did the reviews have an impact on the participant’s rating of the game, as well as whether or not they valued it more than they valued $10, but it also affected how likely they were to recommend it to a friend. <\/p>\n Ninety-one percent of the participants who were shown positive reviews said they would recommend the game to a friend. Seventy-nine percent of the control group would recommend it, and 65 percent of the negative review group would.<\/p>\n