More analysts come forward, disagree with the notion that Call of Duty is 'review-proof'
"I know Doug, like him a lot, but he's wrong. Reviews matter at the margin, and certainly can help or hurt sales by 10 percent. In Call of Duty's case, 10 percent is 2 million units. I'm not sure that a 76 average Metacritic score is enough to hurt sales by that much, but it doesn't help." - Michael Pachter
"Strong franchises like Call of Duty: Ghosts tend to benefit from a halo effect (no pun intended), but no game is 'review proof.' A franchise's increasingly stronger past performance does not guarantee that sales records will continue to be broken. Reviews are important and affect sales performance -- titles with higher review scores typically sell more units. Positive pre-release coverage enhances pre-sale transactions as well as sales at and around launch. Research backs up all of these assumptions. Gamers and publishers are very aware of review scores and metacritic scores are used as indications of quality and potential popularity." - independent analyst Billy Pidgeon
More commentary here
"Strong franchises like Call of Duty: Ghosts tend to benefit from a halo effect (no pun intended), but no game is 'review proof.' A franchise's increasingly stronger past performance does not guarantee that sales records will continue to be broken. Reviews are important and affect sales performance -- titles with higher review scores typically sell more units. Positive pre-release coverage enhances pre-sale transactions as well as sales at and around launch. Research backs up all of these assumptions. Gamers and publishers are very aware of review scores and metacritic scores are used as indications of quality and potential popularity." - independent analyst Billy Pidgeon
More commentary here
