QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

DISCLAIMER: If the following information makes the game seem complicated it is really not. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I'll be glad to answer them.

Q: Example of how this works? 

Player 2 wins the match up in this example, because their team has the higher total sales.

Q: How do the player rankings work?

A: Players are ranked first on their win-loss record and then by their total score (the total sales of their games for all the weeks in the league) to break ties.

Q: When can I pick my bonus game?

A: As soon as you sign up.

Q: What are the restrictions for picking the bonus game?

It cannot be one of the games listed in the 3^rd that are eligible to be chosen during the draft. It can't be a game someone else has already chosen as their bonus game. Also if a new big game (say a DQ or Monster Hunter) is announced at TGS or one of the other upcoming conferences and releases this year, then I reserve the right to add it to the draft eligible games instead of it being a bonus game (I don't want someone to have too big of an advantage with their bonus game choice). *Update, Bonus game cannot be in a forced hardware bundle, that includes Kinect Adventures, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Sports.

Q: What's the schedule for this game?

Sign ups last through September 15^th. The draft process will begin the 15^th and go through September 30^th or until it is completed. The regular season starts with the sales data for the week ending October 1^st until the sales data for the week ending December 3^rd. Playoffs are for the three weeks between December 10^th and December 24^th.

Q: How does scoring work?

Like in the example above the combined sales of all the games on your team make up your score for the week. Only games in the worldwide top 40 or one of the regional top 40 charts will count for the week. For example, if a game did not place in the worldwide top 40, but did show up in the EMEAA and Americas charts the game would be credited with sales for those two regions but not Japan. If a game does not show up in any of the top 40 charts then the game gets your team 0 sales for the week*.

There is less data available this year, and it is too time consuming to manually keep up with the sales of the games each week, so this will be the less than ideal solution used for this game.

*Update, I have decided that I will be manually tracking weekly sales for round 4 games. Very few of those games will place in the top 40 so to keep that round relevant they will be counted even if they don't make the top 40.

*Updated #2 - Starting with week 2, I will be tracking the sales of all round 2 games as well. That means the 1st paragraph of this question now only applies to rounds 1,3, and bonus games.

Q: What's different than last year?

A: This year you pick 5 games (4 in the draft and 1 bonus free choice game) instead of seven like last year. Since there are less numbers available to us on VGChartz this year, the game has to be in the Worldwide top 40 for it to count towards your total for the week (last year it was top 200). This year you can change your team during the competition by choosing a team from the “free agent pool” and replacing one of you current games with it.

Q: What games are going to be eligible in the draft?

See the list in the 3^rd post in this thread.

Q: How many people can play?

I'm looking for 22 players to fill up two leagues of 11.

Q: How does the draft work?

In the 3^rd post in this thread there are four tiers of games listed out. Once sign ups are finished players will be randomly ordered for each round of the draft. You will pick one game in each of the 4 rounds of the draft. If you were randomly selected to be the first to pick in the tier 2 level you would be able to pick any game in that bracket. The person randomly selected to go second for the tier 2 level would then be able to pick any game from the tier 2 bracket except for the game the first person chose. This will be explained in greater detail as we get closer, but it worked out well last year.

Q: How does trading players from the free agents work?

Any game not selected during the draft will become a “free agent”. If during the fantasy game you want to switch out games, you could select a game from the free agent list from the corresponding tier of your games. Example, if you choose Rage (360) during the draft as your third tier game and nobody chose Dance Central 2 (360) during the draft you could switch out Rage for Dance Central 2, but you would not be able to switch Rage for Gran Turismo 5 (a 4^th tier game) or Madden 12 360 (a 2^nd tier game). Rage (360) would then be available for another player to take for their team.

Q. How does having two leagues work?

A:  p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }During the regular season the two leagues will be completely separate, and you will only be playing against other people in the same league. At the end of the regular season the top two players from each league will advance to the playoffs, and the winner of that will be the winner of the overall game.

Players in each league will be picking from the same list of games in the draft, but it will be two separate drafts (with the information in different posts). So if a player in the blue league picks Modern Warfare 3 (PS3) in the first round that means no other player in the blue league can pick MW 3 (PS3), but that pick has no impact on the draft for the players in the green league. It is less confusing then it sounds, and I think the two separate draft posts should make it easy to follow.

Q. How time consuming is this game for me?

Not very really. All you are really doing is picking one bonus game when you sign up. Then between September 15th-30^th you need to check this thread fairly regularly so you know when it is your turn to pick games in the draft. Then during the rest of the season it is optional if you want to update your team using the free agents list. I will be the one doing all the updating of the scoring and ranking, etc. all you need to do is follow along with the results if you want. I'll be sending out remdinders to people if they are taking awhile with a draft pick, so you do not have to worry about forgetting.

Q. Will you be updating results when there are adjustments to the sales numbers?

No. That is just to much work to keep up with. Results will be based on the initially posted numbers.

List of Free Agent Changes Made

Round 4 games hardly have a chance of being in the worldwide top40 and you say the sales won't count if they're outside of the top40?

Also when and how often can you change a game from the free agent pool?

And how do the play-offs work?

Yeah, it is a little tougher this year not having all of the sorting options and the top 200 available. I knew that was going to be a problem which is why there are only 4 rounds in the draft instead of 6 this year, but it still might be an issue for the last games. I'll probably change the WW top 40  requirement to at least being in the top 40 for one region. But then the game would only get credited for the sales that I can see, so if a game was in the top 40 in Japan but not Americas it would only have its Japan sales counted. It is not ideal but I think that will help somewhat.

I'll choose Dark Souls for X360, unless it's there and I didn't see it.

I updated my first post with my bonus game.

Just letting you know that The Witcher 2 on the 360 has been delayed to 2012 so you might want to change it :p

I'm in this year again, and my Bonus game is: Final Fantasy XIII-2 [PS3]

I initially wanted to take FFXIII-2 but I figured it's coming out in December so it would really only help for one or two weeks. But you're pretty much guaranteed to win the week it comes out. Not sure about second week considering the usual drop in Japan. It's still a good choice but I opted for a game that comes out sooner so that more weeks benefit from it.

I though about that, but I figured that if I can get what I want for my tier 1 and 2 games, then I wont really need help at the start. I'm still looking at other possible options and will update it if I want to change it, unless I cant, can I? o.o

@non-gravity
I'll add this in to the first post too but I'll answer here.

Free agents - You can switch two games per week with the free agents. Your team for the week has to be posted on Saturday the week before numbers come in. It seems that numbers for America are coming in on Mondays now, so your team for the week needs to be posted on Saturday. If no changes are posted your team will be made up of the games you got during the draft. I'll post more details as we get closer.

Playoffs - This is still up in the air a bit, and will largely depend on how many people sign up to play. I'll post more details later.

@skeezer, yes you can change your bonus game anytime you want up until the first week of the game (the sales data for the week ending Oct 1st).