Currently the site is quite focused on two markets, the US and the Japanese. For sure, the US market is huge, but for instance, the european market is underrepresented (on this site) compared to the much smaller Japanese market. The home page got this Others-section for sure, but it's definititely not giving a good picture of the European market as it contains other markets that are quite different from the european.

Almost all the mods are from the US, some from UK, and a few from other countries including Japan, but none from continental europe (if I got it right). This also is reflected on the front page Editorials and News sections. Every week we get great information about the upcoming japanese and american market, preview figures, but none from europe. Some active members try to correct this in the forum section (for which I am very thankful), but those would deserve an "editorial status" like the US and Japanese equivalency.

The games database does contain solid sales figures about almost all games realeased in the US and Japan, but the same is not true for the european market. For instance, Rainbow Six: Vegas (PS3) (http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=6843) is tracked by the US and Japanese market but no sales from europe. Why?

The european market, is over 1/3 of the ww market, would be better and more accurately served if we would get more mods from the continental Europe (not UK, because there are already mods from the UK and the UK market and mods are IMO more like the "US little brother"). The Europeans are also active VGChart members, so it cannot be justificated with the lack of interest.

Also, I would suggest that the front page should be divided into four "main markets" (at least):
- the US,
- the European,
- the Asian (inc Japanese),
- Australasia (inc Australia & NZ) and Others
This would, in my opinion, more accurately reflect on the cultural differences of the markets.

I have made some posts about this topic before but it doesn't seem to spark that much interest. Still, I really would like some discussion about this. Is it just me or are there other opinions on this matter?

Australasia would be too small. People would then say "include it in Europe".

I disagree, the European market is hard to track (which is why there is little news on it) and mods should be promoted based on ability, not nationality.

As for making a Australasian section and removing the Japan section - its stupid. All the other Asian countries are tiny markets and the Australasian market is also tiny. The only reason they are all thrown in with Europe as 'Others' is because even combined Asia+Australasia+South America don't make a large enough market to be worthy of their own section.

Likely due to the fact that it's far more difficult to obtain European numbers. I don't think the site owner is picking which regions to cover based on his/her own personal interests.

The 3 regions in frontpage, Japan, Americas and Others, goes by how easy it's to track the regions. There's sales data available for Japan from 3 different trackers, there's NPD for USA, but what it comes to others, there's mostly random data from time to time, which consists from charts without sales numbers, so it's harder to use it as reference. Maybe after few years, when ioi have managed to improve the sampling, we have different kind of frontpage (although there are country specific data under the "others").

 My suggestion is based upon "the others" (not european part) to be included in the Australasia.

 Lets be honest (and from an Aussie its hard to say) we would be lost in the numbers. The three big "areas" are the US, Japan and Europe. The rest of the world would be maybe 3-5% of total Numbers(just a guess)The numbers would be meaningless and therefore everyone in Australasia would complain of missing out.

Also the reason we are in Others is because we all use the same tv standard, pal. The Us and Japan both use ntsc as a standard. I know it would still be easy to change it to Europe/Auatralasia but that is the reason we are together in the first place.

Yes, it's true that the pal-standard does have an inpact but it's an technical standard, whereas, the games are more of a cultural thing of the market.

Also, that doesn't change the fact that it's currently very difficult to see what really happens in Europe. As an european I am interested mainly in the european market. So including numbers from Australia/NZ and the quite large "Others/Others"-part (, which has not been speciefied anywhere what it contains), really makes it hard to get a good look on the european numbers. And my main point is, that it should be easier to see what happens in Europe (alone!), as it is an important and large market. Now, it's really difficult!

US releases the most press releases... maybe so, but that's mostly due to the culture of americans being statistic freaks.

European sales can be obtained at the companies European divisions. It has nothing to do with not tracking the numbers here in Europe. It's knowing where to knock on the door.

As far as market wise goes Europe has always been a big market saying so that it was only since the PS1 era is just plain stupid. If you really think that the market wasn't big before that time then you seriously need to get your head checked.
It's like the same stigma as that internet was all american until the turn of the century. You wouldn't believe how many americans I talked to thought it was that way or that they chatted long distance.

Thanks, ioi, for answering. I was a bit provocative, on purpose, because I wanted some response, as my previous posts did not get feedback. So don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate what you are doing. I do think it's great! It's just that I think it can be even better.

And as you wrote, there are historical reasons, as well as gaming market dynamics. Some of them, as you pointed out, are certaily true now and even in the future. But I personally think some parts are changing, and the european perspective has somehow been caught in the history of doing things. Many companies are already reporting europe as an separate market segment, and I believe that trend is going forward.

So I am very glad that you answered, because it shows, I got my message to you. I believe that when the time is right and when changes are made (to this great site), you hopefully will think about this perspective a bit more, and perhaps can improve this "european side of the site".

As for the part of being an european corresponant, I would like to be, but unfortunately I have no contacts to the market players or organizations, so I would not be of much help.