In the music industry 1,500 steams equates to one sale. Most streams come from subscritptions services like Spotify, Apple music, Tidal, pandora etc. This was put in place because streaming sales started to become more relavant while physical sales became irrelavt.

Something similar is beginning to happen to the gaming industry because were seeing more subscription services and these services are gaining million of active subscribers. the 1500 to one ratio in music probably wouldn't work for gaming since gaming is more niche in comparison to the music industry.

No. A lot more goes into making a game than a song. Teams of hundreds work on a game. Steam sales undercut devs as is. So paying your $10 monthly they see a fraction of that per sub. It doesn't add up. It's a nice little side bonus to actual retail sales.

No. It should be a separate measure. Mixing the two dilutes the value of a quantified sales figure.

Say game sold X and has Y subscriptions. No need to combine them.

No, lying is bad. Sales are sales, nothing else. If companies also want to release subscription/stream numbers or total player numbers (the latter many already do) then that's what they should do. But they shouldn't pretend something is a sale when it isn't.

Oh, and is the gaming industry really more niche than the music industry? I mean in terms of $ value alone I'd be very surprised indeed if the gaming industry wasn't a fair bit larger than the music industry.

I mean niche in audience and reach. Estimates have it that there are 2 billion gamers and I'm sure that almost every human listens to music.

Well aside from the fact that the word niche really shouldn't ever be applied to anything with an audience in the billions, I still don't think you can really argue that the gaming industry that much smaller than the music industry. I mean, do the biggest games not compete with the biggest songs/artists in terms of audience numbers? GTAV has sold what, 120m + now? Does that not compete (or even better) the best selling songs/albums of all time? Do the views that game or something like Fortnite get on the likes of Twitch/Youtube not compete with the number of streams that the most popular songs get? (I have no idea on that one since I have no interest in streaming whatsoever, but you do so maybe you know).

Plus you really shouldn't assume that every, or nearly every, person listens to music. I personally never listened to any music (willingly/intentionally at least) prior to the age of 20.

But millions of subscribers can help cover the cost of games. I don't think its crazy to assume it does have a few million subscribers.

3rd parties use subscription services for extra revenue.

Sales aren't really a fare estimate because music has been more accessible without having to purchase the song (radio, concerts etc).

I never called gaming niche. In context I said its niche in comparison to music because there are way more music listeners than there are gamers (quick google search says 90% of the population listen to music).

I don't think anybody is entertaining that subscription players should be pushed as sales.

Announcing the number of players is generally the route they go.

Sure, why not. The industry can measure sales however it wants. I'm not going to get all anal about it.