The taste test: Games vs. Movies

Critics and audiences don’t always agree. That’s a given.

But the gap between critical and commercial success in Hollywood is significantly wider than what you will find in the gaming world. Despite the fact that the film industry is more mature and nuanced, audiences often flock to films that make critics lose their lunch while gamers and critics tend to march together.

You don’t have to look much further than the May sales totals to get a good sense of that. Of the top six films at the box office, none had a compiled a critical score of 80 or above, according to figures from RottenTomatoes.com, an aggregator of film reviews. “Iron Man 2,” which topped the month with box office receipts of nearly $223 million, earned an average score of 73 (out of 100) from critics. The number four film -- “Sex and the City 2” -- had an average critical rating of 16, but that didn’t stop it from earning over $31 million.

The two biggest blockbusters in their respective industries each have been received differently when it comes to the critics.

On the games front in May, though, it was something of a renaissance. Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were both among the top 10 -- and both titles are among the best rated in the industry’s history, earning cumulative scores of 95 and 97 respectively, according to GameRankings.com.

It’s easy to point the finger at the seasonality of the industries to explain the discrepancy, but keep in mind that while Hollywood churns out blockbuster fare in the summer, caring little what the critics think, the game industry typically holds its critical darlings for the holiday season as well.

If you broaden the study a bit, the results stay fairly constant. Of the top 10 grossing films of 2009, only two -- “Up” and “Star Trek” -- were among the most critically-acclaimed widespread release films of the year. Oscar-winning war drama “The Hurt Locker” was nowhere to be seen on that list.

Top 10 Grossing Movies of 2009

Furthermore, three of the year’s most successful films -- “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Twilight: New Moon” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” -- earned critical scores under 20, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

For the year’s best selling games, all but one earned scores in the 80s or 90s. And that lone exception -- Wii Play -- has been a perennial top seller, due in part to the fact that it comes packaged with a free Wii remote.

So where’s the breakdown? That's a bit hard to pinpoint exactly.

The video game and film industries get lumped together in all sorts of comparisons; the audiences, demographically at least, have a lot in common. But movies are more wide reaching – and family entertainment, like the godawful “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” draws audiences, regardless of what critics say. (88 minutes of those little rodents singing is actually preferable to two weeks of your kids begging to see it at every opportunity.)

Film critics, also, often gravitate towards more serious fare, favoring deeper works that push intellectual boundaries. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it sometimes forgets that for the vast majority of the filmgoing public, movies offer a couple of hours to escape the real world, whether it’s via a thrilling action tale or a lowbrow comedy.

Game critics, meanwhile, focus on the fun factor. If a game isn’t fun, it’s ripped apart. (Though, it’s worth noting, there is a growing divide between critics who only review games from an enthusiast perspective and the growing casual audience.)

And gamers, it seems, listen to the critics. EEDAR and SMU Guildhall recently released a report on the power of game critics, finding that reviews had a quantifiable influence on the buying habits of consumers.

The study gathered people who had never before played Plants vs. Zombies, showing some of them high review scores, some low review scores and some no reviews whatsoever. Subjects were then asked to play the game for 20 minutes and provide their own review score.

Those people who were shown high review scores gave the game a 20 percent higher score than those exposed to low review scores.

Think Leonard Maltin can pull that off?