marc said: rocketpig said: Erik Aston said: NPD does market research for a ton of markets, not just videogames. If they got caught fudging on numbers in one area, they would lose customers from other areas where there may be competition. This is really key. There's a lot of money involved here and it extends far beyond the borders of the videogame industry.   Once again this is irrelevant. If the monopoly is in 1 sector or multi, it makes no difference. They can simply fudge the sectors that are monopolized and no one will know the difference since those who are only interested in other sectors will not know the difference since they don’t even get the data for the monopolized sectors to begin with. These free sites are about as much competition to NPD as BEOS is to Windows. Money is also irrelevant. Plenty of folks make money. It doesn’t mean they do good work or that we should trust them just because they have some high position somewhere in a billion dollar company. Again, look at any company that has done something illegal and all the lawsuits being thrown around at everything. <- This is why we have the saying "buyer beware.” It’s not a conspiracy theory. It is just means your should use your head and not just trust because someone has a nice suit on.

Actually plenty of people will know.  For one it's a big company.  Unless they get everyone to go in on it and "hush up" there is a good chance people are going to be looking at the final numbers and notice that datasets are off from what they've processed or from what they've found.  Then you've got the fact that every company who's been caught doing something illegal, has well... been caught.  There is always a trail when you just arbitrairly change numbers.

Besides which.  This isn't Enron or anything.  This isn't advertising, this is marketing research.  You don't see your product as an independent marketing researcher you sell your credibility.  Which means telling the truth even when you know it's going to piss off the people paying you. 

You piss off the people paying you now, you lose a few customers.  You fake numbers, you lose your entire career. 

That's just one of many reasons why they arn't just screwing with their numbers for the heck of it.

 

You're mistaken Chubear. He wasn't banned for doubting VG numbers. There are actually plenty of VG posters who regularily doubt the numbers. That's fine.

He was banned because his entire 11 post history (starting 4 months ago) consists of two threads he started claiming that VG numbers are completely wrong while citing nothing what so ever for proof. No contributions to discussion. No evidence or sources. Just two threads entitled "VG chartz # are full of it?" and "WTF is wrong with this site"

If all a person ever does is drink, It'd be safe to consider them an alcoholic. And if all a person ever does is troll, It's pretty safe to consider them a troll.

Chubear said: Gosh, I hardly ever come on this site however when ever I do I'm blown away by the sheer ignorance and seeming craving for closemindedness from a vast majority of memebers on this site. It's like you guys have just closed off the real world and bask in utter ignorance in this wierd time bubble. If it wasn't erily disturbing it may even be funny. So the TC asked a question of which he gets attacked on and banned. If you know anything about NPD figures you'd know there's a problem publically showing it's data but if you guys trully used NPD you'd see clearly what the TC is talking about and this is also an issue with a hell of a lot of other things too. THis site is just strange. I can't really put my finger on it but it feels like it, with it's members, are in some weird twilight zone and it's always unnerving anytime I come on this site.

 Wait, where did that come from?

Your accusing most of the members here of being ignorant because one mod banned a poster who had twice posted threads stating 'your numbers are wrong' with no proof of that actually being so.

VGChartz is so freaking off it makes me and my friends laugh

I'm just trying to spread the truth! :) This site's #'s are for the most part made up. I know, for a fact this is reality, this is truth, this is just how it is :)

Basically anybody who logs onto any site for the first time and acts like a complete asshat will be banned.

 

Can you please show us an example of our 'ignorance' Chubear? 

While I don't agree with Nintendo's methods, he sounds like an immature school kid - and I wonder what his publisher would think if they knew he was posting on here...

I can't believe how many people are so blinded by VGChartz numbers... it's ridiculous how defensive people get.

This just in, the VGChartz numbers are an estimation, and saying that NPD is corrupt and fudge the numbers is just stupid.

Please realise that you are all looking at a well educated guess, but everyone MUST understand that when it comes to software its not that close... Hardware is a different matter and I believe that the Hardware numbers on VGChartz are pretty good... even if its out by a couple of hundred thousand the graphs oh the front page are good enough to trust as a fair indication of the relative position of the market.


Quit bagging out NPD they are the only official source of information and even if its not right its official so that's what the industry use.... you can talk them down all you want to try and delude yourself in your own brain that VGChartz is better... but there is a reason that the information costs so much and there is a reason why EVERY published pays for NPD data each year....

When did NPD become official? Generally accpeted sure, but I didn't know they were official =P

OriGin said: While I don't agree with Nintendo's methods, he sounds like an immature school kid - and I wonder what his publisher would think if they knew he was posting on here... I can't believe how many people are so blinded by VGChartz numbers... it's ridiculous how defensive people get. This just in, the VGChartz numbers are an estimation, and saying that NPD is corrupt and fudge the numbers is just stupid. Please realise that you are all looking at a well educated guess, but everyone MUST understand that when it comes to software its not that close... Hardware is a different matter and I believe that the Hardware numbers on VGChartz are pretty good... even if its out by a couple of hundred thousand the graphs oh the front page are good enough to trust as a fair indication of the relative position of the market.

 QFT. Interesting how many say here our numbers or we, giving the impression their are involved or could actually do something to change the numbers. That are ioi's number, and there are the best you can get - for free. That is quite an accomplishment and very hard hard work for ioi and we can be thankfull that he does it. But the main software (that sell well) are sometimes off by +- 20 % , mostly +- 40% if you compare them to NPD. They get adjusted every month after NPD data comes in, and thats fine to me. Software that doesn't sell well can be quite more off. I know I will get bashed for this, but just take a look at those two links (Forbes vs. VGC).

I don't complain about that, that is just the way it is at the moment, at thats fine for me. I don't understand why people bashing ioi for the inaccuracy, this site is very open about its accuracy (VGC again NPD comparison in the news), but i also don't understand why parts of this community is loading crap on anybody who wanna talk numbers he find or can provide or even just imagine. This is a sales discussion forum, after all. 

Just_Ben said: OriGin said: While I don't agree with Nintendo's methods, he sounds like an immature school kid - and I wonder what his publisher would think if they knew he was posting on here... I can't believe how many people are so blinded by VGChartz numbers... it's ridiculous how defensive people get. This just in, the VGChartz numbers are an estimation, and saying that NPD is corrupt and fudge the numbers is just stupid. Please realise that you are all looking at a well educated guess, but everyone MUST understand that when it comes to software its not that close... Hardware is a different matter and I believe that the Hardware numbers on VGChartz are pretty good... even if its out by a couple of hundred thousand the graphs oh the front page are good enough to trust as a fair indication of the relative position of the market. QFT. Interesting how many say here our numbers or we, giving the impression their are involved or could actually do something to change the numbers. That are ioi's number, and there are the best you can get - for free. That is quite an accomplishment and very hard hard work for ioi and we can be thankfull that he does it. But the main software (that sell well) are sometimes off by +- 20 % , mostly +- 40% if you compare them to NPD. They get adjusted every month after NPD data comes in, and thats fine to me. Software that doesn't sell well can be quite more off. I know I will get bashed for this, but just take a look at those two links (Forbes vs. VGC). I don't complain about that, that is just the way it is at the moment, at thats fine for me. I don't understand why people bashing ioi for the inaccuracy, this site is very open about its accuracy (VGC again NPD comparison in the news), but i also don't understand why parts of this community is loading crap on anybody who wanna talk numbers he find or can provide or even just imagine. This is a sales discussion forum, after all.

 People say 'our numbers' or 'we' because they are part of this site, sure they have no impact on the numbers on the site whatsoever but they are still part of the site community. I'd be almost certain that Ioi wouldnt be even slightly annoyed by people saying 'our numbers'.  The reason I, and others, are loading crap on Nintendo is because he clearly came onto this site with no intention other than to troll. Personally I hate trolls. There are other people on this site who doubt the numbers entirely (ie. Diomedes) but I wont load crap onto them because of it.

 

Rath said: People say 'our numbers' or 'we' because they are part of this site, sure they have no impact on the numbers on the site whatsoever but they are still part of the site community. I'd be almost certain that Ioi wouldnt be even slightly annoyed by people saying 'our numbers'. The reason I, and others, are loading crap on Nintendo is because he clearly came onto this site with no intention other than to troll. Personally I hate trolls. There are other people on this site who doubt the numbers entirely (ie. Diomedes) but I wont load crap onto them because of it.

 

But give outsider an other impression. And i sayed anybody, not just here. Yes nintendo was trolling, but the best you can do with trolls is ignore them not feed them. And I didn't say everybody loads crap, but some part of the community surly does. I think now about 10 times before I post a news with numbers and to be honest go more and more to communities I can talk about numbers without beeing personal offended, but have a discussion and gain oppinions and perception of others. Some in this community are thinking that there should be no posting of numbers of other sources that VGC at all.

 

"Your numbers are too low!"
"Lower than what?"
"I won't tell you! :D"

Wow, that's constructive.

Sure NPD are "fudging" the numbers. That is part of their "data model", their secret sauce. Collecting the data is only half of their work. The other half is trying to factor in any and all of the circumstances they can think of. This is well documented for polling firms who do opinion polls and it will also happen with the kind of data NPD collect, albeit less pronounced.