Well, if you mean "hurt" as in decrease the number of visitors, you're wrong. If you mean hurt, as in "hurt the credibility of the site with average readers" you're right, though only a small minority of those casual enough to not already have an opinion of VGChartz, will ever actually read the article.

Hence, my original response to the article.

You were a sheep when you hated VGChartz. You hated it for no good reason. It's like hating Wikipedia. I don't understand how people originally got the idea in their head to hate this site. It's amongst one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It's like Fanboy Sayajin 2, when the console wars don't give you enough fanboyism to stomach, here are some VGChartz haters, because the numbers weren't what they hoped for the PS3 at some point.

-

I would like to see an analysis of NPD, including what percentage of sales data/stores they the estimating (Walmart, Toys-r-us included), how they adjust previous months data when public numbers from company earnings data prove they are wrong (they don't), and which current month numbers are adjusted to make up previous numbers being wrong (not available).

Also, I would like NPD to be free (not gonna happen), open (not likely), more accountable (keep wishing) and more timely (impossible).

I agree, the MGS4 thing was too rushed, and it will probably be a lesson for future game launches.

Nevertheless, this article is very poor. The only thing of value are those cherry-picked examples, which show some problems in VGChartz's methodology, but are by no means enough to warrant some of the conclusions the article makes (and later unmakes).

Yeah, it's like "You adjust data, gotcha! That proves you don't trust your own numbers."

ioi has said from the start that NPD has much more sample data, and teams of people who collect that data. It's like hating ioi for not doing the impossible which he never said he would do in the first place.

Again, for me anyway, this site is about hardware numbers. They are right there big on the front page. Those numbers are always dead accurate. I'm supposed to be upset for NPD because I found those numbers out from ioi instead of them? Am I really even supposed to care how those numbers came into existance? No, only if I'm a vgchartz hater would I care about that. I just care that they are accurate and weekly. They are. Hardware is dead on, and the only place to get consistanly updated WW hardware figures.

Not to mention this site is free. I should write an article entitles "Why VGChartz is the best free thing on the internet."

Lets face it. In reality, a large group of HD console fans felt really burned by VGChartz early on, when they thought that the numbers were wrong, and in some cases they were, yes.

That burn, whenever someone would say "Look at the PS3's numbers" and link VGChartz, stuck with them. VGChartz became the enemy that brought the bad news every week.

Marginalization set in, with said fanboys responding with "lolVGChartz."

Thus, the great VGChartz marginalization and neutralization campaign set in, led by the HDConsole heavy gaf forums.

The truth of the matter is, you'll rarely see Wii fanboys complaining about VGChartz. Not because the site is Wii biased, but because the Wii is doing so well, the truth of the numbers makes Wii fans happy. It also provides an argument for Wii fans in the hardcore heavy Wii-foeboy thread, that argument is sales, and it is strong.

That is one reason why this forum is so great. It's impossibly to marginalize hardware numbers, because we're on the only site that provides them.

The article is fair, balanced and nails the most jarring problems of this site and its methodology. As the gamasutra writer, I'm very happy this site and the service it offers exist but Ioi and the rest of the team should work first on increasing their direct data streams and second they need to be more clear on marking numbers obtained processing direct data differently than numbers merely estimated. Bundling together those two kind of numbers is a big no-no.

So you wrote the article?

so this is X's response huh....*heres the 3k we promised for the trash art.....thanks PND"

*some names were changed to protect identities.....

he does have a point. VGChartz is notoriously weak when it comes to the low selling games. Looking at the top 20 that NPD released last month is enough to show that, Where was God of War II in the VGChartz data?

I don't think the article was claiming that VGC has no retail data, only that it has very little, which makes it difficult to estimate those titles that sell small amounts, which I think we all know. This is obviously something that can only be fixed with more retailer data, and I hope that ioi can improve upon the retail sample VGC tracks.

The only criticism that the author has is that there is not enough transparency in VGC data, and that we can't be sure what's changing and where the data is coming from and how accurate it is. Which is definitely something that could do with some improving.