MikeRox said:
As more data is obtained, those estimates are then amended accordingly, hence the occasional revisions up and down. The slower burners will generally slip through the radar, as the main information sources are things like NPD for the West. However they only give figures for select things in software. Especially anything outside the top 20 there is very little to go off other than how it's done at some of the retailers I understand VGC work with? But yeah, VGC is "estimates" it baffles me why some people take the figures so literally as fact. Tracking the sales of a single title across multiple territories would be a huge undertaking, even IF figures were published in every territory and every publisher/developer announced every single landmark sales data event. However we only tend to hear about the winners, because if a game underperforms, companies generally want to keep that quieter because otherwise it might spook shareholders etc. They also don't always want the competition knowing exactly how they are performing (could encourage more clones trying to grab their sales). |
Except VGC don't actually have any POS tracking at all.
Some of their "estimated sales" is more than 75% off the actual sales number. Somestimes it's 20% or even 10%. But basically ioi just makes up numbers for games he doesn't have actual data for. Thankfully he knows a bit or two about sales patterns so he's not entirely off on how certain games do sell.
I also agree that it's weird how people take this site so seriously when it's all just estimates based on no actual data, literally made up (unless there is a public sales total from manufacturer/company)
