E3 awards don't make good games, so no.

honeymustard

I'm not going to say JGR should have sold more since it's better than those other games, since it's probably really only better than two or three of them.

But it should definitely have sold more because it was a great game. I actually preferred it to the XBox sequel since the DC one let you use your own graphics as graffiti.

KaneRobot

Awards don't translate into sales. HYPE translates into sales. E3 winners are usually games that have already been getting a considerable amount of hype beforehand, too.

Monsieur Fap★Fap!

Jet Grind Radio was great game, sad to see not many people played it.

greeble

This seems like a rather stupid point to be made. "People buy the stuff we write about" No shit. It's called marketing. If I make a commercial of it, you write a review of it, someone else plasters billboards up of it, people will know it's there and go buy it.

Darascon

I love Jet Set Radio. Definitely up there in my top 10. O the memories you just brought back.....

RET_Ghost

Fallout will easily be one of the best sellers this year

Alchemy_Comrade

Moot point, Mister UBS man, moot point.

Kamesen

@okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore: More like, "a well marketed and hyped game always sells". Love the game or hate it, everyone knows this is the case example with Halo.

ƒox

@Gray665:
"that the games critics are most interested in are the ones that get the most press"

That's because in this industry, the critics are the press.

AlbenoEpiX

I think the headline asks the wrong question. The real question is, why is it in so many instances the winners of the "E3 awards" are these huge, much hyped games? Don't get me wrong, I like (most of) these games as much as the next guy, but all of them, even JGR, had tons of ink written about them well before their corresponding E3 even began.

chantastic

It's sort of a chicken/egg thing when you look at sales. Are they getting good sales because of the awards, or are they getting awards because they're good, or do the awards add to the media buzz that generally translates to good sales?

I think that they do, simply as a way of awarding the best (looking or playing) games so people are aware of them. Awards for the sake of awards. Game of the year sales probably are more important for long-term sales, but E3 awards gets the hype train rolling.

thefais

The Dreamcast version of Jet Grind Radio is one of my all time favorite games.

JustJake

Gotta love that Halo... a good game always sells. Seeing it tower over everyones else like that brings a tear to my eyes and touches me in warm and squishy parts. I think awards can be translated into good buzz that can ultimately be converted into sales but it wont happen by itself. You need sharp PR and aggressive advertising to make that fact known.

okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore

Interesting. I think you have a point Fahey, that the games critics are most interested in are the ones that get the most press which leads to more promotion/exposure and ultimately more sales. I'd imagine LBP will be no exception.

Gray665

"people buy the games because the press love them.."

Which is usually reflective of the quality of the game being discussed.

AlbenoEpiX

Or it might be that these games are actually good, so people are more willing to shell out good money to buy them.

zgreenwell

@okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore: Well a good game can still have a lot of hype sales and still be a good game. I mean, everyone goes on about LBP but noone's really played it, most of everyone is going on hype. If it turns out to be a good game, hype is justified.

I think a lot of people here use hype as a negative thing, like it's something artificially created by marketing and some bulled up screenshots. Hype can also be conjured up by actual desire for a game, an interest in a gameplay trailer, a hands on demo from PSN/XBLA or demo disk. Or just a real interest in the artwork and storyline, the artistry put into a title.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

Anyone else just run to Wikipedia like me to try and find a handful of games that don't stick to this rule, only to find that there were barely any? Then who else went to the Games Critics Awards website to look at all the past winners, and was shocked to see that Escape From Monkey Island came out in 1999 (thought it was way before that!)? Who else ran desperately around in vain looking for any game, any peripheral, anything to make a valid point on this forum, and then remembering some of the games from years past, thinking about getting nostalgic, forgetting you have work to do, then checking your email quickly, quick look on Facebook, then just back to Wikipedia to be sure you didn't have some good material for the forum, then onto here to post a post about what you'd just done, thinking you couldn't be any more of a loser but hoping someone else had just shared in a similar experience?

I'm so lonely.

thewisestfool

@ƒox: I'd say the premier online shooter of last gen which basically invented matchmaking on a console sold well for more reasons than just being well marketed and hyped. Just saying.

Gray665

@ƒox: Having one of the largest online multilayer communities out there, you'd think some of that hype was real but then again... it is an M$ product so I'm sure what ever success the game's garnered was purchased with money hats :|

okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore

@AlbenoEpiX: Same with Movies and TV Shows and Books and everything else really.

Gray665

That towering Halo 2 bar just makes me want to cry. ._. There is no justice in this world.

ara

I'll refer back to myself from an earlier thread.

Then I'll wonder why I have seen more Jet Grind Radio mentions on Kotaku in the past month than I have seen anywhere in the past two years. And it will fill me with a sudden flash of warm hope. Then I will look at any Sega interview and will begin weeping again.

Jazhuis

@Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.: Anything can be hyped... I agree. I just rather have something good get hyped then something bad get hyped (ie... HAZE, Alone in the Dark, etc...). The hype ultimately did good for the game and the games industry in general in Halo's case but people try to use it to minimize the success of the game itself which feels backwards.

okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore

And the real lesson here, kids, is that correlation != causation.

badasscat

@Jazhuis: Why would you want another JGR?

I am a huge fan of JGR (hated JSRF though), and would rather Sega not come back to it anytime soon. Look at what happened with Sega resurrected NiGHTS.

chantastic

On a personal level, I have to say that indeed "sometimes" they do matter.

I sometimes fall out of the loop of the gaming world because the real-world comes calling and I simply don't have any time anymore. When I come back into the fringe of things I like to do a little research about where to start. Gaming awards are always a great place to begin, but never the place to finish.

I remember buying Half-Life because of all the Game of the Year notoriety it received.

tybeet

I think that E3 awards were much more important when E3 was still the biggest US-based event of the year for video games. This year, there weren't nearly as many major announcements or big surprises, so we already know about the best games at the show. In past years-- especially in those years when new consoles were announced-- E3 marked the first time we got an in-depth look at unexpected or highly anticipated games. In that situation, there were a lot more titles that really felt like they were competing for Best in Show and the coronation was quite significant. This year, though? I don't need anyone to remind me that Fallout 3 or LBP is going to be great.

17-A

"Do awards translate into higher sales? The answer is yes, but not always."

Am I the only one who read this as "Yes, but no."?

Koztah

@okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore: Well I think most intelligent people can usually perceive what hype is generated by actual interest and a good title, and what is just marketing ploy, and artificial, blind fan-hype. And of course, with blind fan-hype, there's always blind fan-hate. Some people can't separate a good game from a game they'd play that's good.

@17-A: Really, the more we convert into an internet-wired, news-at-a-push-of-the-F5 society (and fanbase), these awards become less and less important. Especially with the direction E3 has taken lately. When a Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft can simply send a press packet to any big reviewer site or a group of them and generate more global interest in a title than any 'industry driven expo', the words of a few judges or journalists matter less than a page full of in-game video, screenshots, hands-on impressions and the like.

Ampillion, Dayman. Fighter of the Nightman.

Man oh man, I hate pseudo-science. People do this crap all the time where they try to show a correlation between two things without nearly enough data.

The only way they'd be able to prove any correlation whatsoever is if they first were able to get rid of any bias, meaning the natural bias of the quality of the game, hype ahead of E3, all kinds of crap. What I mean is, if the study is to have any relevance, you need to be able to show that "The average first place winner gains x amount of sales from the win, where we've already taken into account the marketing, the quality of the game, and every other conceivable bias."

Basically, they'd have to prove that Barbie's Dance-off or some other fictional crap game really would gain a bunch of sales if it won. But that hypothetical study is impossible, really. Not that it really matters when looking at video game sales, but in important health or environment related studies, i really wish people were more educated about this stuff.

mikatron

I ignore these awards.

Darth_Xehanort

@chantastic: I want another Jet Set Radio because my Dreamcast exploded a few years back (seriously, it had a heart attack and died, smoke and everything) and I don't really have under-the-TV space for another console anyway. But JSR was one of the best games I've ever played, and I'd pay good money for a version which ran on a console I currently own in working order.

I'd buy Future, which I'm told runs OK on the 360's backwards-compatibility. But then I'd feel like a filthy traitor. ;-)

Bichatse

"Since these awards began in 1998, the Best Console title has sold an average of 2.42 million units life-time in the U.S., according to NPD"

This seems a little misleading. Best Console award recipients usually belong to megaseller franchises like Mario, Zelda, Halo, MGS, etc. that are all destined to see huge sales anyway, regardless of their showing at E3.

My own personal opinion is that "E3 Awards" are totally meaningless and I have had zero interest whatsoever in any of them, ever.

aphex_twin

Hell no they don't matter

JustOneFix