ArtofAngels on 21 May 2007
| ioi said: I've never understood the hate myself. The issue seems to center around accuracy. I take the view that all these sales numbers are used by us to give us an idea of how well a particular game or console is selling. If my Wii figures are 30k too low one month and 40k too high another month then does it really make a big difference? The numbers on the front page are not exact, they are best guesses, at the moment as of 8 days ago until we get figures for this week. They are estimates but good ones. Wii has sold around 7 million, 360 is close to 10m and PS3 is around 3.5m. That should be enough for most people to see which is "winning", how sales are split by region and which is selling more quickly. For anybody who wants to get a 100% accurate figure for how many Wii's (for example) have been sold worldwide as of today then it doesn't exist. You could probably get a 95% accurate figure if you were Nintendo, knew how many you had shipped and had good feedback from retailers. If you were an analyst you could probably get 90% accurate by buying NPD / Chart Track / GFK / Media Create figures and adding them up - this is limited by the (very good but not perfect) accuracy of those trackers. If you want an 85% accurate estimate then use the numbers on this site which are the best you will get anywhere without paying for data. We get this accuracy by a number of means, many of which are kept under wraps for good reason and many of which we are improving more and more every week. GAF don't like what I do because it represents doing something different. It is successful and getting a lot of attention. It is more and more accurate and extensive with each week that passes. Even if the figures were only 50% accurate you will still find nowhere else that tries to compile data from all round the world, allows you to track trends and make comparisons. As I have said on a number of occasions, we do not use NPD, Media Create, Famitsu, Chart Track, GFK or any other tracking firms data. We of course reference any public info they release and check back with our own data to get a feel for our accuracy, but the numbers are based off our own research and contacts within the industry and are independent to those tracking services. Some see this as a bad thing and use it as a reason to avoid our figures (your choice). Others see it as a huge and exciting innovation, something that isn't even attempted elsewhere (even on multi-million dollar websites like gamespot and ign) and something with massive potential. It isn't particularly difficult what I do (there are some very elegant algorithms and sophisticated statistical analysis behind a lot of it but not something that anyone with a technical background wouldn't be able to do), it just takes a huge amount of time and dedication to get it all to work. Something that I wish people would support and be more behind on other websites rather than find ways to bash and knock down all the time just because it "scares" them. |
It's obvious really, they feel your threatening their $$$.
And if that's what they feel then they are scared that as time is going by your charts are getting more and more accurate and the more accurate they get the more irrelevant their sites/business's are.
Simply put, they are jealous.
I back this site utterly and completely, and appreciate the efforts put into the charts.
My prediction: This site will get so popular you'll have an official complicated Law suite on your hand that will threaten all our possible posts and reading pleasures, however, since all this data is of your own research they'll never be able to accomplish those greedy desires.
