The latest issue of the Susquehanna Financial Group’s Video Game Journal again visits the correlation, or lake thereof, between a game’s review scores and game sales. Gamasutra reports on the expanded study, which looked at a sampling of 1200 Playstation 2 titles to determine if there was a statistical correlation between review scores and the titles ultimate NPD sales.  The ultimate result indicates that there is an even lower incidence of correlation than previously reported, with “only 15.8% of the movement in game unit sales” explained by game ratings, according to the report. To some degree, this makes sense. There would seem to be many other factors that impact how well a game sells, some of which is going to be dependent on marketing, publisher support, and whether the game is a part of a franchise, a licensed title, or original IP. It also seems unlikely that the video game industry would be different than other media formats. Film, book, album, or television show financial success doesn’t seem to track with critical reception, so why should video games? If critics in any field could be hitmakers, the entertainment landscape would be much different than it is now.