I remember reading about VGcharts "lack of professionalism" back b4 I registered.. But that was a myth.

weezy said: I remember reading about VGcharts "lack of professionalism" back b4 I registered.. But that was a myth.

 Well, why won't ioi sticky his direct market coverage atop the boards. All the analyst houses release their direct market data % so people can work up a level of trust on the predictions.

Bitmap Frogs said: weezy said: I remember reading about VGcharts "lack of professionalism" back b4 I registered.. But that was a myth. Well, why won't ioi sticky his direct market coverage atop the boards. All the analyst houses release their direct market data % so people can work up a level of trust on the predictions.

 

I don't know what that % is any more than you do (it has been mentioned before though), but I have to wonder where that % would have to be before you would be able to trust these estimates?

Bitmap Frogs said: Don't be silly, they aren't afraid of NPD taking action against the boards (at least on this vgchartz issue). It's just that it's convenient for them to be in friendly terms with NPD, and banning vgchartz discussion surely makes NPD happy. Personally, while I don't trust the euro hardware numbers and the all-around software numbers here, the american hw estimations are getting nicely close to NPD and that makes them reliable enough to have a rational argument based on them. I'm sure  NPD doesn't feel threatened by vgchartz but they sure see the potential in this site - as time grows if ioi does a good job it'll start to get good with software too. Then it might start being a cause of worry for them. Sure the guys who invest in videogames will keep using NPD, but what about the journalistic accounts? that's money lost there.

Considering VGC numbers for many GFK areas [and Chart-Track in UK] are really close to GFK/C-T ... with a few exceptions like France, I have reason to believe ioi is more accurate on hardware in "others" than in "America"... especially because GFK are considered much more accurate than NPD [90% coverage versus 60%] In fact ioi said he had more coverage in America than Europe, so either: NPD shouldn't be trusted so much. iois formula/calculations are not quite as good for America or America is a difficult market. It could be the latter going by iois comments about NPD December... perhaps ioi hasn't had enough experience with what happens in the US at Christmas. which means the next few months should be much more accurate than odd December.

Because while the hardware numbers have been reasonably close to NPD and other groups internationally the software numbers frequently have large differences. Also numbers from previous weeks do get recalculated, which means unlike NPD numbers aren't set in stone which really frustrates people. Not that I'm complaining by any means, vgchartz is typically within the ballpark and best of all it's free.

Cause there is two types of people represented here.

Lunatics and fanatics

and then there are some that are both

Sqrl said: Bitmap Frogs said: weezy said: I remember reading about VGcharts "lack of professionalism" back b4 I registered.. But that was a myth. Well, why won't ioi sticky his direct market coverage atop the boards. All the analyst houses release their direct market data % so people can work up a level of trust on the predictions.   I don't know what that % is any more than you do (it has been mentioned before though), but I have to wonder where that % would have to be before you would be able to trust these estimates?

See, that's a problem. You can't tell me "hey, I won't say how much % of the market I have straight data from - just trust me" because I can't stablish a level of trust on your estimations. If you want me to take decisions based on your data (this the business cares about)/ assume it's accurate for me to use it reliably as an argument (this neogaf cares about) you must let me know your direct market coverage so I can evaluate risks. 

Often I read on these boards people saying NPD is trusted just because they are a corporatez lulz and they wear suits lulz lulz. But the truth is, people trust NPD because when you ask them "why should I trust you" they say: "well, of the 100% I'm trying to estimate, 65% I have straight data from and can't be wrong since the retailers hand me their results directly. About the remaining 35%, it's largely comprised of a single entity, WalMart, who while they aren't giving me data now they used to for the past 30 years so I have a pretty good idea of what they are doing."

When you ask the same question to ioi, he says "hey I'm doing this for the good of the community, what can go wrong when your intentions are good". If you press him about it, he'll say his predictions are consistently close to the professional market tracking houses. Lately he's changed his tune and is trying to stablish his own rep mostly talking about how he gets data from both TRU and WalMart while NPD doesn't. Of course we don't know if its just data from a few stores or nationwide numbers. It's precisely because he isn't open about this kind of stuff why people in some places don't accept his numbers.

Anyways he keeps retrofitting numbers to match what the professional market trackers reveal openly, so it's safe to assume whatever coverage he has isn't ready for primetime yet.

Bitmap Frogs said: Don't be silly, they aren't afraid of NPD taking action against the boards (at least on this vgchartz issue). It's just that it's convenient for them to be in friendly terms with NPD, and banning vgchartz discussion surely makes NPD happy. Personally, while I don't trust the euro hardware numbers and the all-around software numbers here, the american hw estimations are getting nicely close to NPD and that makes them reliable enough to have a rational argument based on them. I'm sure  NPD doesn't feel threatened by vgchartz but they sure see the potential in this site - as time grows if ioi does a good job it'll start to get good with software too. Then it might start being a cause of worry for them. Sure the guys who invest in videogames will keep using NPD, but what about the journalistic accounts? that's money lost there.

That's not true about gaf's relationship w/NPD. NPD threatened GAF about the unrestricted release of numbers and Sales age was getting out of hand anyway, so the mods didn't want to test an argument we had no solid defense for: releasing numbers everybody else pays large sums of money for, freely.  It had nothing to do with vgchartz. 

 Most gaffer's complaints about IOI was the lack of transparency.  In other words, I could start another site named vgchartezz, use some numbers and if I don't back it up, would meet the same fate.  GAF has a healthy understanding of credibility and the internet and was naturally doubtful.  IOI got banned because he progressed from refusing to address these concerns stubbornly to outright pimping his site by posting links to it, even after many posters began to reject his numbers.  IE GW Bush bringing up weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, w/o proof, even now and stubbornly refusing to address any criticism. 

 IMO, 2 seperate topics that just happened in the same general vicinity.

Hilarious elgefe02. LOL