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Forums - Sales - So Vgchartz Pro has arrived...

Zlejedi on 07 February 2011
Baalzamon said:

While I no longer use it for mainly sales data, I'll wager at least 75% of the users of this website came here because of that.  For over a year, I didn't even have a profile here and came solely to see sales data and read sales articles along with an occasional game article.

Now I've changed to where I enjoy having the sales data available for reference but use forums a lot more.  So long as you continue giving me more sales data than other websites, I'm fine, though :P

Yeah to put it bluntly the only reasons why this site is worth joining are sales and discussing them. 

Reviews are quite nice too but i don't think they are enough to make people into forum users.



PROUD MEMBER OF THE PSP RPG FAN CLUB

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darthdevidem01 on 07 February 2011
NiKKoM said:
Galaki said:

As long as I am not charged with posting off topic, I am cool with the change.

Isn't that the only forum you would pay money to still post in? I would..

Same here, I can't miss any Beuli2 threads!



All hail the KING, Andrespetmonkey

leatherhat on 07 February 2011

Charging for stuff that used to be free- Just like the Video game industry! 



ǝןdɯıs ʇı dǝǝʞ oʇ ǝʞıן ı ʍouʞ noʎ 

Ask me about being an elitist jerk

Time for hype

Jaffar Sholva on 07 February 2011
Carl2291 said:
ioi said:

Most of this has been discussed previously but a few general points:

  • VGChartz is a business not a charity. Monthly costs for the business are now in the tens of thousands of dollars so we need to monetise the site effectively. Ads work well for news / reviews / forums but we have been making a huge loss for years now on the data activity.
  • Of those who view data - 95% are doing so casually (top 10 games, check a few game totals), 4% like to view the data in more depth and examine trends and 1% are using it for financial gain. The 1%, although a small number in absolute terms, is still significant and are obviously willing to pay a lot for a professional service to aid their business activity.
  • The 4% of "in-depth" users (you guys) haven't really lost much if you look at the big picture. Many of you are speaking as though we've gone and removed all data from the site. The key with VGChartz Pro is that all data on the site is still free, we just charge for easier access to it (seems like a subtle difference but it is significant). You can still see the topline sellers each week, you can still see the weekly sales for any game in any region on its game page and we will be releasing regular analysis articles which delve deeper into the data and show trends that are not immediately accessible. The move to limit filtering by publisher and platform on weekly charts is to make the data more secure. With the old setup, it would be pretty easy to crawl the site and quickly pull in most of the weekly data - with the new system we protect that data and make it only fully accessible to paid subscribers.
  • VGChartz Pro is just about the data - it has nothing to do with forum access or any other area of the site. On a side note, gamrConnect 2.0 is nearly ready now and we are planning to launch by the end of the month. All major issues with the current site will be fixed along with a ton of new features. Development costs and time for gamrConnect 2 are larger than for the rest of the network combined so it represents a major body of work  and will finish up this round of major developments.

You have to look at it from the other side - VGChartz has for a long time provided far more data than any other source for free and we continue to do that today. It is hard to find a top ten with numbers nevermind a weekly top 40 with full data on game pages for each title. I'd love to be able to make the site totally free for everyone and fully accessible but then I'd also like to be able to walk into a shop, pick up a nice new HD TV and walk out without having to pay for it. People shouldn't expect to get something for nothing - even on the internet.

Question -

Will there be a smaller subscription fee for users like me who want to view the Top 200 and Platform/Publisher selections again... Along with maybe some sales comparison tools?

You could make some good money from that, and it would make some forum users (Like me) happier with what's happening.


Same question. I have an online magazine / blog and I started to do a market analysis every week with the vgchartz numbers. In the German-speaking region that's something unique so far, so I would really love to do it furthermore. But there is no possibility for me to suscribe to vgchartz pro. I'm not an investor nor a publisher or marketer...



12.08.2010, prediction:

GT5 will sell ~10 million life time (after 20 weeks around 6 million, rest with legs).

DitchPlaya on 07 February 2011

Imagine the Area 51 in VGC Pro. =P



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Jaffar Sholva on 07 February 2011
ioi said:
Jaffar Sholva said:


Same question. I have an online magazine / blog and I started to do a market analysis every week with the vgchartz numbers. In the German-speaking region that's something unique so far, so I would really love to do it furthermore. But there is no possibility for me to suscribe to vgchartz pro. I'm not an investor nor a publisher or marketer...


There is still more than enough data readily available for things like that? How far have you been going beyond the top sellers, breakdown per platform, hardware and some key title performance? You can still get all of that now.


I concentrate on niche titles. So for example: How do I get the numbers of the actual week of Atelier Rorona? Wait! I got it... I have to compare the actual numbers with the numbers on the last point of the graph on gamrreview, right? It would be much easier to sort the data according to publishers - NIS America on PS3 for the actual week (I would also love if I can sort it according to developers). What if a game releases and it will not manage to get in the top 40? It would be far more complex to recognise these titles and get the data.

But anyways, I slowly understand the mechanics of vgchartz. It's just more complex than before now.



12.08.2010, prediction:

GT5 will sell ~10 million life time (after 20 weeks around 6 million, rest with legs).

Baalzamon on 07 February 2011
Finnbar said:

This sucks... the whole reason I found this site and continue to come back is because of its sales. This is a site that used to pride itself on offering free video game sales to the masses, now its going to turn around and do the exact same thing it fought against all these years.... 

On a side note is it really ethical to charge people for sales data that was ammassed (even if only partailly) from sites that charge you to see sales data they collected? 

Is it ethical to buy bananas from a wholesaler and then sell them yourselves for a profit?



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

landguy1 on 07 February 2011

I was wondering when the Pro version would happen.   Every website that i frequent that provides numbers on any topic seems to do the same thing.  Once they reach a certain level/status as a provider of data and it turns into real jobs for people, they have to increase their revenues to continue.  Oh well, for most users, the basic info will be enough, but having access to look up details will be missed by some.



ethomaz on 07 February 2011

I have one idea.

I should continue looking for weekly chartz until GT5 out of TOP 40... after that I should only attend the forum.

For now I'm hoping GT5 maintain it fantastic sales.



Rainbird on 07 February 2011
ioi said:
  • Of those who view data - 95% are doing so casually (top 10 games, check a few game totals), 4% like to view the data in more depth and examine trends and 1% are using it for financial gain. The 1%, although a small number in absolute terms, is still significant and are obviously willing to pay a lot for a professional service to aid their business activity.

With those numbers, I can easily understand the decision behind the change, but I think that removing the ease of getting the data (certain parts of it at least) is the wrong way to go. I know you have to par it back, or otherwise you don't get the desired results, but having access to more data (even in a convoluted way) would be nice.

Like if I wish to filter the top 40 by platform, I get a top 30 for the platform, where the first five games have full data (like in the normal top 40), and the rest are just a list of games (randomized maybe even?) with no data available. This way you can still check if certain games are within some sales range quite quickly, but without scouring the database for new releases or old games that may or may not be of interest.

I don't if that would be the right way to do it, my point is merely that I think the data has been dialled back a tad too much. But other than that, I have full understanding of the need to earn money, and can't really disagree with what has been done.