Looking at this week's Chart-Track numbers one game in particular stood out to me, Just Dance.  Looking at the individual formats (units) chart below it would seem that when game sales are broken down by individual platforms Just Dance is doing better than Assassin's Creed II (not taking combined multplatform sales into account since this discussion is only about sales broken down by platform).

1		1	WII SPORTS RESORT	WII	NINTENDO
2		2	WII FIT PLUS	WII	NINTENDO
13		3	JUST DANCE	WII	UBISOFT
3		4	NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII	WII	NINTENDO
4		5	CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2	XB360	ACTIVISION
5		6	MARIO & SONIC AT OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES	WII	SEGA
9		7	MARIO KART WII	WII	NINTENDO
8		8	ASSASSIN'S CREED II	XB360	UBISOFT
10		9	FORZA MOTORSPORT 3	XB360	MICROSOFT
7		10	CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2	PS3	ACTIVISION
11		11	ASSASSIN'S CREED II	PS3	UBISOFT

Now compare that to the individual formats (value) chart:

1		1	CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2	XB360	ACTIVISION
2		2	NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII	WII	NINTENDO
4		3	ASSASSIN'S CREED II	XB360	UBISOFT
3		4	CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2	PS3	ACTIVISION
6		5	WII SPORTS RESORT	WII	NINTENDO
9		6	FORZA MOTORSPORT 3	XB360	MICROSOFT
7		7	WII FIT PLUS	WII	NINTENDO
5		8	MARIO & SONIC AT OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES	WII	SEGA
8		9	ASSASSIN'S CREED II	PS3	UBISOFT
11		10	MARIO KART WII	WII	NINTENDO
15		11	JUST DANCE	WII	UBISOFT

By that measure both versions of Assassin's Creed II are doing better saleswise than Just Dance.  I don't want this thread to get into any kind of discussion about game development or advertising budgets since that's not the point of this thread and is just going off topic.  The point is which measure is a better measure of sales success?  Movie box office sales for example are based on revenue (so cheaper afternoon matinee ticket don't carry the same weight as nighttime showings).

What's your opinion, do you think simply looking at sales by units is a flawed way of comparing the sales success of games?

Obviously a gaming company is more interested about revenue (and even they care only about the revenue gained from selling games to retailers, not the revenue shops get from selling to consumers. And they don't need a tracking site to determine that, because the money is sitting in plies at their feet)

But if you compare revenue, then you're charts are more biased towards expensive games such as Guitar hero, Wii Fit, as well as modern games (Unless you take into account inflation somehow, but that sounds much too complicated) It is also not really valid for VGChartz, because fluctuating exchange rates mean that two Japanese made games that sold the same quantity at the same price would have brought in different revenue.

Sales rather than revenue is simpler to calculate, easier to read, and more useful to everyone

It can depend. A game that's released at a budget price is different to a game being stock cleared at one. The best measure of sales success is always profit, and no chart exists that really tells us that.

What does "value" represent?


I think they're both good. Ideally this is a site about marketing and sales for the video game industry. It's important to understand both the profits as well as the number of sales.

This is more important now because some HD games are moving to different profit models. I.E. Dragon Age is moving towards a DLC / Expansion model. In this case the unit sales of the original game could be argued to be more important because the units sales becomes the market for the DLC.

In other cases, the value is more important, like front loaded games.

Also, it would be interesting to see long term value sales. Since a lot of times games are boosted from bundling and sales. Just because a game has good legs doesn't mean that the company earns the same amount of money.

Many games get discounted quickly therefore you can't make any assumptions on MSRP. LBP got discounted heavily to value pricing even though it wasn't technically a value title.

in vg chartz we look at sales not who company is becoming more wealthy and you can 't know revenue only companies know it is better knowning how many people own a game

Not true. It is perfectly reasonable to discuss the business of video gaming, including revenue and profit. However this specific measure of 'value' is not a reliable indicator of revenue or profit.

Revenue is important, although not as important as profit. When it comes to sales charts though, all I'm interested in his unit sales. If you want to figure out some way to track profits per game (I have no idea how since many games use shared resources and production costs usually aren't public info), them I'll at least look at your chart.

I prefer VGC's way of tracking, because it tells what people likes and gets. That's what interests me.

And as FreeTalkLive said, revenue is not the same as profit. In movies it's easier to tell, because costs are usually of public knowledge, but for games it's usually not.