I originally came to VGChartz for the exclusive numbers and the features, like The Week That Was, and other things of that nature.


I also think that credibility is an important aspect that needs to be be worked on, along with focus. Having the"Latest Headlines" and "Most Popular Stories" isn't necessary. It should be either one or the other.

The interests in the charts has gone down considerably as well. For example, when the hardware numbers are posted, it takes 15 minutes or more for a person to make a thread saying "Japan Up" or "Others Up!" We don't even notice they are there, but not too long ago, threads would be made instantly concerning those numbers.

I also think a fair-sized countdown to when the numbers will be posted (all at once) would be much better as well, or at least a date.

I'll finish things up in a separate post so this doesn't take up the whole page, but ADJUSTMENTS should definitely be discussed or notified immediately. I guess it is out of your control when tracking errors occur, but adjustments do detract from the trust given to the site. It was very discouraging to see The Conduit for example, go from 94k first week to 64k.

I'm mainly here for the trophy league.
The sales and news etc are just extras :)

I think what Vgchartz needs to do in a way is to better leverage both the community and the sales / database.

I think there are two key areas for possible growth and development which can be tweaked into the existing framework easily.

1. I believe that the social networking aspects of the site are great, I think the profile pages etc could be tweaked to make it into a more social networking aspect. I think you could take a few pages out of the Myspace/Facebook playbooks and really develop that side of things. We already have the game databases, we just need to somehow increase the personalisation of the profiles and make them less how they are and more like personal gaming blogs maybe? Or something similar. Im not exactly sure how to progress but IMO its something which could be looked at.

2. Valve recently had an idea about having community funded game development. Vgchartz could take up that torch and run with it, especially considering the type of userbase Vgchartz attracts who are interested in sales numbers and many people are interested in investment. I would be personally interested in this type of operation, all we need is a pilot developer with a good project to see if we can get the whole thing up off the ground. Its something which IMO fits into the mold of what Vgchartz is and expands it still further and the insights into the business of game development from this would be invaluable.

Montana has hit a lot of the basic points, but I disagree slightly on some of the specifics. A lot of the expansion that has been going on are all good things. As Talonman said, you eventually get tired of seeing the same old sales charts week after week. I stopped even going to the threads on them lately cause all you see is a back and forth between fanboys over how Game X flopped HARD!!!1!11!1!! and the console clearly sucks.

The problem is the pace of the expansion. You are adding features at an incredible rate which is really admirable. The down side is none of these features get fully fleshed out. VGIM is a great idea, but it is essentially dead in the water. The fact that it pulls you away from the rest of the site, and has a few bugs really hurt it. I know exactly how much work goes into fixing it so please don't think I am trying to downplay the effort involved already. It works extremely well, and is amazingly well done all things considered. The fact that it was thrown in during a time of a thousand upgrades though has left it with some serious flaws. The problem is now that things keep getting added to the site there is no time to focus on ironing out the bugs in the old system. There is, seemingly, always a new fire to put out and old features are left to languish.

The site layout is also very confused as a result. There is a mish-mash of a dozen or so different features on the front page all vying for attention. It is easy to lose what you want in the mix of it all until you know what you are looking for. I barely even noticed when videos were added. It just seemed like another layer of clutter to ignore. A portal set-up might fit better for that if integrated right. You could probably shove reviews, videos, cheats, and a few other things directly related to gaming into the corner. Give it the focus those deserve in their own section, or re-organize the lay-out in the front page to more organically relay this info. I really think fewer but better bits for info on the front page would help. You could probably divide the front page into three different and distinct groupings with little effort and make it easier for people to find what they want.

The other big thing to do, in my mind, is be more transparent with the numbers. There are occasionally large discrepancies between our numbers, and what is likely really been sold. This is due to the ridiculous complexity involved in tracking literally thousands of individual retail items every month. Offering a more upfront on the numbers, and the likely-hood of adjustments to it would help. Yes, everyone on the forums is well aware of how the data comes in, but new people are often confused by it. How many shipped vs sold debates have their been on the forums? At least 48 separate threads based on the mental mathemagic I did. That would only account for the threads arising from hardware shipments as well. Be more upfront about not being as accurate as NPD for software, and admit to making adjustments as needed so that the long term data is as accurate as possible and it will help the credibility. Also pushing the data releases out on a set-date, even if it means waiting longer on fast weeks, would help tremendously. Always on Friday or what have you for Region X. Obviously the best way to do this would be delay it until the latest day you normally have the data. It will mean whining from forum members, but they will get over it and new people will just think its always been this way.

The forums themselves are another matter. The mods have gotten extremely soft as of late. Not all mods follow the same guidelines for banning either. I am not talking about what they ban for either. There is a progressive ban system in place that is ignored by certain mods. People hide behind the phrase "imo" to put out something extremely inflammatory and likely to do nothing but disrupt the thread. The rules are loosely enforced by most, and honestly rarely explained all that well. Signature rules are entirely ignored, but thankfully I (and consequently the mod staff) no longer have to suffer through the many problems on that front. Not to mention the fact that many people have been getting unbanned recently for no apparent reason.

For what its worth that is my brief opinion on the matter. I can go more in-depth on any given point, but I dunno if anyone would care that much. Plus I don't want it to seem like I am bashing the hard-work put into the site. My criticism is often constructive to a point, but also very harsh. I love the site, and think you guys are doing excellent work for the most part. I'd be content with everything the way it is (obviously) plus or minus a few bug fixes.

I come here for the information (sales info) and i think it's not that you have to much information on the homepage, but rather that the so called "professional" web design really isn't that professional. It's not an insult as the design elements aren't bad however part of real web design comes down to the organization of the content based on viewing habits of your users and if you look at any of the other really big gaming sites they don't have less content on their home pages, it's just better positioned. The use of better colors would help ease that strain as well and designing it to work in different screen ratios, because nobody wants to have to scroll left and right to view content and as a admin you don't want that either because many times those left/right areas will be used for ads and less eyes on ads = less money.

however, before you can really organize the homepage that way you have to really decide what content your focus is going to go to, things here in terms of growth seem to have gone a little haywire lately, regaining that focus and putting it forth in a more organized user friendly design would really be the best option, and if that means splitting in to two sites, that may be the only option.

A mix of weekly sales, forums, etc

Can't really choose one, but I went for sales

talk about games.
i am critic, i like to have goods discussion about good and bad things about games.

a few problems, i still get this random dragon on my page and im unable to click anything because everything duplicates.

Also i created 1 PS3 slim thread then about 10 mins later there were about 10 duplicates. Ok maybe not exactly the same but more or less. For example, there was 1 for amazon lowering the price then another for a price cut from another site, this coupled with all the Gran Turismo release date rumour threads and Slim PS3 rumours coming in every couple of mins is quite annoying.

Just for the numbers. For the rest their is not much that I prefer this site above others.

I stopped caring about software and hardware long time ago..
I come here to share my experiences and discuss about world.
And I always find what I'm looking for here.
Users also bring best news around the world.