The VGChartz Network

A History of the VGChartz Network

VGChartz began in June 2005 when Brett Walton created an area on www.everythingandnothing.org.uk (a site he had created at the time) called Videogame Sales Charts which collected publicly available video game sales data (only for Japan initially) in one place for users to view. This part of the site gained rapid popularity (mainly due to exposure on the NeoGAF forums and other video game websites) and in July 2006 Brett turned the collection of information into its own site - VGCharts or www.vgcharts.org. Later in 2006, Brett started to expand the VGCharts experience beyond just industry sales charts with the addition of a User Community, Forums and the VGChartz Prediction League.

In March 2007, Brett bought the www.vgchartz.com domain and rebranded the site as VGChartz. The reason for the "VGChartz" name was two-fold - firstly the www.vgcharts.com domain had already been taken and Brett was keen to use a dot com domain and secondly Brett wanted to create a unique brand that hadn't been used anywhere else. Thus VGChartz was born. With this re-launch came the move from collecting publicly available data to carrying out original research on the videogame market, and VGChartz began to produce ground-breaking weekly charts based on estimates from retail partners and passive consumer surveys. At this time, the VGChartz News section was added along with the Next Gen Wars comparison charts on the homepage which capitalised on the interest surrounding the recent Xbox 360 / Wii / PS3 launches.

Throughout 2007 and 2008, VGChartz saw enormous growth and was featured in a number of industry articles such as "Data on the Web: VGChartz vs. NPD" in June 2008 where the use of VGChartz data by investors wishing to follow the videogame industry and comparisons to other available services were explored by a Wall Street analyst Robert Passarella. This article and others triggered a large amount of backlash towards VGChartz - especially from competitor organisations like NPD and rival websites who associate heavily with them. During 2008 and 2009, VGChartz saw two major redesigns and the addition of new content such as Reviews and a full Game Database. By the end of 2009, the VGChartz team was made up of more than 40 people.

In 2010, the VGChartz Network was formed by splitting the site into five distinct sections – charts, news, reviews, videos and community. Each site now runs under a separate sub-domain and has a unique brand:

• VGChartz
• gamrFeed
• gamrReview
• gamrTV
• gamrConnect

In the five years since creation, VGChartz has evolved from a simple stats database to one of the top gaming destinations worldwide. Covering every major area of gaming, the VGChartz Network brings in nearly three quarters of a million readers per month and is recognised by gamers, developers, publishers, investors and analysts all over the world. The appointment of Chris M. Arnone as Editor-in-Chief for the VGChartz Network further expands the focus on original news, features, reviews and previews and in 2011 VGChartz plans to expand into original video content, paid analytical services via VGChartz Pro and a complete gaming social network experience with the re-launch of gamrConnect.

References to VGChartz Data

A number of publishers, news websites, academic institutions and analysts have used VGChartz data over the last five years, here are some of the most notable:

• O'Reilly Radar: Data on the Web: VGChartz vs. NPD - O'Reilly Radar
• Square-Enix: Results Briefing Session - The First-Half of the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2010
• BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT: Halo success will be 'difficult to replicate'
• BBC: Xbox 360 gets UK price cut
• New York Times: New Wii Games Find a Big (but Stingy) Audience
• Inc.com: Gamers Experiment with Pay Whatever Model
• Fortune: Nintendo philosophy dominates U.S. video game charts
• New York Post: SALES OF 'MADDEN' HIT 1.8M
• Forbes: The Future Of Videogames
• Reuters: Reuters cover Wii Fit launch in the US - VG Chartz, Pachter, Oprah!
• ABC News 10: Starcraft II proves PC gaming is not dead
• Metacritic: Midyear Report: The Best Games of 2010 So Far
• Train2Game: Halo: Reach 'has positioned Microsoft strongly for holiday 2010'
• Electronic Arts: ’You’ll never beat Nintendo.’
• From experiment gameplay to the wonderful world of Goo, and how physics is your friend
• Hollywood Gamers: Digital Convergence in the Film and Video Game
• A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players
• The Rise of Games and High Performance Computing for Modeling and Simulation
• Contemporary Business 2010 Update
• Essentials of Global Marketing
• Innovation and Marketing in the Video Game Industry
• The video game explosion: a history from PONG to Playstation and beyond
• LittleBigCultures: An Evaluation of LittleBigPlanet Player/Creators
• What makes a good game?: using reviews to inform design
• Online Video Game Networks: A Web 2.0 Centered Examination
• Firm's Innovation Expectation, Potential and Actions: Impressions on the Japanese Videogame Console Market
• Consumer Perceptions & Video Game Sales: A Meeting of the Minds
• Predicting consumer behavior with Web search
• CS Training: Introducing Mobile Educational Games in the Learning Flow
• Entering the Economic Models of Game Console Manufacturers
• COMP3013 CONFERENCE COMPUTING – STEAM: A TECHNICAL REPORT
• Is There Country-of-Origin Bias in the Video Game Market?
• Nonlinear and chaotic patterns in Japanese video game console sales and consequences for management control
• INNOVATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICT)
• RIDING THE JOYSTICK SYSTEM TO HEALTH AND FITNESS
• Three Essays on Network Economics
• Game Console Controller Interface for People with Disability
• Digital Distribution of Games: the Player’s Perspective

About VGChartz

Founded in 2005 by Brett Walton, VGChartz (Video Game Charts) is a business intelligence and research firm and publisher of the VGChartz Network of gaming websites. As an industry research firm, VGChartz publishes over 7,000 unique estimates per week relating to worldwide game hardware and software sales and hosts an ever-expanding game database with over 40,000 titles listed and 1.5 million unique data points. The VGChartz Network is made up of the VGChartz, gamrFeed, gamrReview, gamrTV and gamrConnect brands and provide consumers with a range of content from news and features to reviews to social networking and community features.

And much more cool things!