| ioi said: The first few items are already being worked on. Some of the other stuff we can do (combining multi-plat etc) but that won't be ready for a while: Will be ready in the next couple of weeks:
Tools we can add:
Essentially, you want to see the line comparison tools for hardware and software (by date and launch aligned) - we have those ready it is just a case of doing a final debug and pushing them live. |
Thanks Brett, that sounds great.
A few comments on some of your questions:
| Pie charts, column charts, on demand. - what do you mean by this? |
It would be a list of pre-made chartz by the community and the staff team that make visual representations of various values in the industry. They would be pre-determined and would appear in a list of I guess "Frequently Used Items" or "Vgchartz Staff Generated Chartz". An example would be a pie chart of the marketshare of home consoles, by region and then split up by year. It would looks something like (in brackets the links):
Pie chart of gen7 home console marketshare: [Totals] by year: [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008] [2009] [2010] [2011] [2012]
Home Console Software marketshare by publisher: like above.
Sony Software distribution by platform: like above.
Line Graph of Revenue by Manufacturer.
To make any suggestions, go to thread "On Demand Charts Suggestion thread".
I ran out of imagination, but I hope that conveys the right idea. :)
-And/OR- (and I'm just throwing out ideas)
It could be a kind of pick and choose thing where you choose numbers to analyze and have an intelligent system graph them for you. For example, it would ask you what kind of graph you want first (Pie chart, column chart, line chart), what type of entity you want to analyse (publisher, game, platform), then it would ask you what kind of date or time analysis you want to do (aligned launch, yearly, weekly). Basically a system to make any and every type of graph you can think of using VGChartz data without having to use excel.
:) I know that would be for your R&D and it's a big one. Not for now that's for sure.
| Sorting functions on the front page totals - which totals? |
Sorry for being unclear, on the front page, the tables entitled "Weekly Software (or Hardware) Charts", sortable by region. ie. Not the graphs but the numeric tables.
| Multiplat groupings checkbox in SW totals. See here for an example -> http://goo.gl/1SBd0 - interesting - this goes into the category of "nice to have but how much would it actually be used". Sometimes the effort required to build these tools exceeds the amount of use they'll actually get. This is a very niche one imo. |
True. You'd probably need a marker in the database that links entries as multiplat and says which entry in a series it is (eg "LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy"), kinda like a tag but for indicating multiplat. Then the HTML is probably just repeating the divs but one table per tag. It would be great, but as you're saying people would only use it if they knew about it, and having a little checkbox in the SW totals would be a bit obscure. What about having some of us teach the others who are interested what is where? Or a starter guide of sorts? (again just more ideas for you)
| Ability to compare 1st party games by plat in SW totals -> http://goo.gl/nYpgX (ignore the text, just look at the tables) - again possible but is it that hard to just read it off a chart? |
Yup, similar to above. Actually this one is even harder because some games might seem first party though they might not be, like Mass Effect 1 for the 360. You'd need markers in the database for each game saying whether it's a 1st party IP, just an exclusive but not first party, or neither. This one isn't as easy to read off the chart I think, but even if it was, the more options we have the better it is. Not only having them exist, but making people aware of them would be important if that route was taken, because an unused tool is no benefit at all.
| The option to remove bundled games if desired. The ability to look at bundle counts and sku counts separately if possible. - we don't flag what is bundled (and some games are partly bundled, partly stand-alone) so this isn't really doable? |
Yeah. I'm sure what's coming up will be great anyways. In the long run though you might want to add some of these flags the sooner the better, that way one day when you would need them, they'd be there and ready for you.
But the question for this one is, in your counts, before adding them to the database, do the numbers say what is bundled and what isn't (by sku), or is it just "Game title sold so much"? If that's the case then not only do we not have the infrastructure for it, but like you said it wouldn't even be possible I think.
| R&D into digital sales figures. - We have partnerships in place for this so expect to see more in the future. |
Can't wait.
For the other ideas I provided, clearly without asking them here, I'd just ask that you would file them in an R&D area so that you can build on what you have and make it even better. That's my hope for this site. The initial tools are great and I can't wait to have them back, but with all the posting I've been doing and some things I've been seeing people do on other forums with numbers we don't have here or graphs we don't have here, it would be great to have those on demand here and have people use vgchartz' tools in their posts. (and promote the site while doing so, with watermarks I'm guessing)
For the R&D ideas, I'll see if I can post more prototypes of what I mean so as to give you a better idea, because I have lots of ideas but they may not be clear. And I'll try to find the links of where I've seen those other numbers posted.
