Proposal: Crowdfunded non-profit sales tracker for the U.S.

[Bofferbrauer2]

Shadow1980 said:
Well, I dropped this idea over at Era, and it seems that the general consensus so far is that there is no point. Apparently, the only ones who will ever have the privilege of obtaining any sales data is the NPD. They have a legal monopoly on it, and they and the game industry and retailers simply don't want this information going public. And some even insinuated that it was for the better, that sales data ought to be verboted to the unwashed masses.

If there really is no point, if the NPD really does have a permanent lock on U.S. sales data, I guess I might as well just drop my interest in cataloguing, discussing, and analyzing sales data. I guess it's my lot in life to have everything that interests me taken away from me.

With what justification do they think that data should be hidden from the people? Do they really prefer being lied upon/spinned around like a spintop?

It's quite possible that NPD has a permanent lock on that data... but who the heck are those idiots that do such pointless exclusivity deals in the first place?

And no, Shadow, the data we have might not be perfect and increasingly hard to get, but that certainly doesn't mean we should stop trying.