From what I can tell, it actually looks pretty fair to me.

Yes you can get money on something with only 50% accuracy, but only if you are better than the majority.. If the prediction is hard (ie most people failed at it), then you are rewarded for getting in the general ballpark, wheras if it is easy you have to still be better than most people to gain money.

It all seems perfectly fair to me.

But this messes everything up. I'm just going to come out and say it. Lots of the users on this site are Wii owners. As we can tell with this weeks DMC4 numbers on PS3, lots are PS3 haters. The average was 120 with some betting as low as ninety thousand, when DMC3 debuted to close to 200k (what I bet). So the average had it low, but in fact it turned out that the average was quite wrong. The problem with that is that some people won't bet with their brain, they'll bet with their heart. And if that happens, the averages of games will be screwed up, and people won't make much money off of it (in contrast to the whole fifty percent thing). Now you're not thinking about how much you think the game will sell, it turns into how much you think the users on this site think that this game will sell, in order to maximize your profiit.

This is a good compromise, though I still like the fixed better.  :/

Anyway, I'm not bitching, just trying to convince you.  :)

Also, to piggyback on what I was saying. Some people don't vote for games, so as not to lose money. Now people have to put in a realistic vote for every game, or else the whole averages thing is screwed up again.

Also to piggyback more, at least the first four rounds, you need to keep it the same as it is in the faq page, but once the Feb 22 Jap predictions are archived, change it to this as I've already hedged my bets in the other rounds.

It still shouldn't be that hard to win a little money in most rounds if you bet reasonably. There are always people that bet simply bad or forget to bet on all titles. One guy in Japan bet that Wii will sell 20 mln units (I guess he was thinking about WW LTD sales) and left all other boxes empty. That kind of bets decreseas average accuracy and help others to earn more money.

That situation benefits you though... the average is further from the truth therefore you get more $ for being close. eventually those that keep failing and betting with their hearts will run out of cash and not be able to bet... meaning they would have to get better at it.

The people betting with their heart most likely will post much about their favourite game and/or console. So they may make enough vg$ on the forums to fix their losses on the predictions league.

I think both systems are fair in a way. I see why ioi would want to do it this way, it makes it a bit more competitive, and eliminates those easy bets that would make people rich quick anyway.

On an unrelated note, are we getting any numbers tonight?

*sigh*

ioi didn't even respond to my idea of changing it, but after these first four weeks of betting with the fifty percent thing in mind, then change it to this other idea... oh well.

@DMeisterJ: If someone bets with heart not brain than it's ok that he loses. And if average is screwed the better for those that bet right becouse than they will get more money.
If someone doesn't vote, than it's that person decision to lose money on that bet. The others that vote will only benefit becouse of it.