There’s really so much good commentary on the game business in this one post, it’s not only worth a click but also a bookmark.

“The game business quantifies critical reviews and assigns scores. Metacritic.com, which also aggregates reviews for film, television, books, DVDs and music, is the game industry Q rating. The value of the property you are trying sell, as well as the ability to sell at all, is directly related to the Metacritic score of your last title. The Godfather is the only film with a perfect 100 on Metacritic. Today, GTA IV joins The Godfather in the 100 club (The 100 was for the PlayStation 3 version, the Xbox 360 scored slightly lower at 99). This is significant for a lot of reasons. First, GTA IV will have the critical praise of The Godfather, but it will have the box office of Titanic. While the direct relationship is not as unusual as film, it is still somewhat unusual in our business. In terms of the score, to give you a better idea of what a 100 really means, the highest average score for a publisher in 2007 was Nintendo’s 75.

[From Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily » GTA IV: Is The Game Really That Good?]