To be fair, Mr. Carless isn't trying to argue VGC to the masses of the mainstream...He's talking to developers and publishers.
The fact that VGC can be so blatantly wrong at times is not a very good thing. It might not do good for your companies stock if the Wall Street Journal quoted VGC for a major game flopping, selling 300,000 units first week as a big-name title, have a stockholder reaction, all of the while your actual numbers were much higher, and better.
The market that VGC is in isn't to be taken lightly. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. There's a reason that NPD charges what they do - they have to hire actual, real industry analysts that cost money.
VGC is a great site, but they/we need to invest more money, and resources into increasing the actual base for numbers that are obtained. Gathering 2-3% of American retail stores is NOT enough to build a worthwhile model. It's been proven every month that VGC usually has quite a few software titles off by 20%+, and it has not got better.
It can get better, but again, it' not going to come from who works at VGC, it will come via a bigger sample size. Even with my XBLA charts, my sample size is around 20% of the XBLA market, and I can still be wrong (and far too often for what I'd prefer).
I agree his wording isn't the greatest, but again...If your a shareholder of a major gaming company that has stock...And wander onto the site to see that your big new game has inappropriately flopped, it can cause investor panic, or issues. Simon is an industry professional. Regardless of your opinions, the fact is, VGC is looked down on because it's inaccurate, and always has been. This isn't Brett's fault per-se. He is doing the best he can with quality models of extrapolation, but when your sample size is so small (and very focused to a certain type of retail store), then it's not easy to get a good model of prediction,and accuracy.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
