http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-game-guy/the-game-guy/2008/05/grand-theft-auto-sales-numbers-might-be-skewed/

"But as (The author) looks over his own inventory, he notices that he now has six copies of GTA IV — three for Xbox 360 and three for PlayStation 3 — all sent from various representatives of Rockstar to get him to review the game and promote it."

"Now, really, (the author)'s nobody special; he would be the first to admit that if not for all the e-mail and phone calls constantly reminding him (And he wishes his mother would stop doing that). So it’s unlikely he’s the only one so blessed with so much spare GTA IV. Other reviewers/promoters/executives likely received at least one copy as well, perhaps even dozens.""Multiply that times all the newspapers, blogs, TV and radio shows and special events engorged by Take-Two’s generosity, and Game Guy begins to wonder just how many of the 6 million copies said to have changed hands the first week really were “sales.”

He wonders because a few industry insiders have told him in the past that some companies count those giveaways toward final sales figures. “They’re an investment in the company’s future,” one said in confidence. “The attention those giveaways and promotions give us are worth millions in sales.”

So there you have it.. I imagine to be at between 50,000 to 150,000 copies of GTA that where probably reported sold but where in fact NEVER SOLD!!

I'm just glad ioi doesn't count those numbers!!

/This thread was created for fun/boredom from work, any comments, rants or complaints about the above topic will be ignored.. thank you!

Even if it's true, and this guy got six copies (which is probably not common), then they'd have to send to 10,000 reviewers to get the kind of numbers you're talking about.

All pure speculation, of course, so it doesn't even make sense to talk about it.

Surely most of the people you know with GTA 4 won it, or reviewed it, and that's how they got their copy.  Right?

worldwide in all those countries reviewing games it is possible that 10000 reviewers received copies of the game.

You do realize review copies are typically packaged differently then the actual game right? or else they say reviewer copy on the disk in the official packaging.

I'm pretty positive that's accurate but the same goes for all big games. Granted some publishers will send out much more than others. MS and Sony themselves can at times to overgenerous.

When you get an elite X360 along with your game copy....that's pushing things too far.

and what does that have to do with sales numbers??

What does 150k count in the whole 6 million ... not much :P

I thought R* got people into their offices for the reviews initially, before the final copies were sent out on the Friday to more reviewers, but still not enough to be significant

It's always fun to spot the unknown blogs trying to post controversial stories to get hits.

 I'm guessing review versions wouldn't contribute anything towards sales figures.