QFT

I've also seen that people here are generally far more ready to accept it when theyre wrong than on other boards. 

Haha, I got mentioned in a thread before I posted in it! I'm famous!



John Lucas, you're the fucking man. I love what you're doing.



While at Joystiq, I've been defending VGChartz since it was VGCharts, back before I started posting here. I was posting at Joystiq and lurking over here, and I tried creating accounts 4 separate times and my many errors were confusing me and driving me mad. Then I tried a new secret tactic: I put TWO SPACES between "Rubang" and "B" and this new name worked fine! I've been posting ever since, and absolutely loving the community here. The trolls are few and far between, and even kept in check at every turn.


I can't stand Joystiq. They have mods, but they barely even read the comments, let alone moderate them, and when they actually ban somebody it's over the most random stuff. Completely inconsistent. I got banned there a few times in January for defending Nintendo against Vladimir Cole, who was blogging at the time, and just randomly attacking Nintendo in every post, and he INTERNS FOR MICROSOFT. I called him out, and said "Haha, well this guy works for Microsoft anyway," and he banned me, and even followed it up with nasty e-mails! What a dick. He should work for NPD... But I digress... the bloggers post sensationalist bullshit to get more hits, and then all the trolls eat it up and start frothing at the mouth and fighting with NO numbers and NO logic. None of them have any idea what's going on with the industry because none of them come to eye-opening sites like this.



So I'm slowly trying to kick my Joystiq habit and stay at VGC for life. We have better debates and a friendlier community.

And not to mention THE DAMN CHARTS.

John Lucas = The Man.

What insight.

Kotaku is Otaku with a K in front! They have no real geek cred, as they are misspelling a true geek word!

Despite your sometimes astronomic predictions, Mr. Lucas, I'm really starting to like you. Don't let f...tards like this polute forums and bash on the only precise tracking site there is!
I personally put more faith in the numbers here than the companies' own at times... And this is the only forum online I ever post in now, mainly because of people like fightingfilipino.

Please don't kill me, but I DO think that critics have a point. It's true that VGChartz makes its own estimates, based on samples, and they are not too far off. After all, I visit this page every day and enjoy reading and discussing the latest sales numbers.

But where would VGChartz be without the NPD data? VGChartz can only get away with being somewhat inaccurate because they know they'll be able to correct their numbers by the end of the month. That IS unfair. NPD has to invest more money, manpower and time to get the most accurate data they can; VGChartz just have to make it to the next "NPD checkpoint".

I second most of what you said, John Lucas. But VGChartz' business model is problematic.

to a point elrhodeo, remember ioi was looking back at his calculations and changing for NPD the last few months, then when the fiscal reports came out they basically showed NPD up....thus ioi changed to coincide better with them (though he went a bit far with the Wii initially).

I'd like to know who the hell owns vgcharts, because nothing ever happens there, the site must be costing a lot more than whatever money is coming in from the ads.

 Why would anyone kill you first of all? So long as folks are willing to debate civily and not base arguments entirely in rumor there should be no issue.

As for your argument, I think it is partially based on rumor.  VGC most certainly is not 100% accurate as no tracking firm can claim to be.  However it is using its own data and analyzing that data accordingly.  When NPD was coming out it isn't as if ioi was taking their data and inputting it into his database.  He was looking at it and saying "Hmm we are still a bit farther off than we would like to be..." and then he would make adjustments to HIS own data by refining his analysis. 

That process is the EXACT same way that NPD would have refined their data against quarterly reports when they were not only starting out, but they probably still do it to this day so that they can update their analysis with changing trends and factors.  The market doesn't stand still after all. 

In this way from month to month ioi can check where his analysis is wrong and work towards a fairly good result.  as TWRoO stated I am about 80% sure that ioi posted before NPD stated publically that they were pulling their data that he no longer planned to utilize their data since they had been proven fairly innacurate last quarter.  Now I think he plans on using the quarterly data to fine tune his analysis and keep it on target from here on out.

To answer the question of "Where would VGC be without NPD data?", the answer is a lot further away from being accurate.  And to that end VGC does owe a thanks to NPD, but that thanks is in the past now and they are no longer required to continue.

If you want to call it unfair that VGC was refining with NDP data that is probably true to some extent, but NPD made the choice to have their data public for that time period and the folks who do this here at VGC are not asking people to pay for the data they provide so I don't feel that it is really that unfair since VGC doesn't actually compete with NPD for anything but net credability and even then NPD shouldn't be concerned as it will not lose credability if VGC gains credability. 

Ok well I have babbled long enough, hopefully that brings a few folks up to date on what has occured in the past.  I would say to anyone lurking and reading this that instead of assuming things about the site just because someone said it you should ask here and get answers from respected posters.  The next step is to check into the things you are told and not to just take our/my word for it.   

You made some good points, Srql - but also some I disagree with.
1. NPD has more to lose than just credibility. If VGChartz gets bigger and better, NPD's customers might actually choose to use VGChartz instead of NPD. That's what they're afraid of, obviously.
2. I don't think that VGChartz is making any money so far, but still: Ad-financed != uncommercial. NPD and VGChartz are competitors.
3. You say nobody forced NPD to publish their data. That is somewhat unethical, because it's still data that wouldn't exist if they didn't collect it. I don't really like this "free for all" mentality on the net, when somebody had to work hard to create the content in question (I'm a music producer myself, and it's kind of funny to find every single piece of work on the web before it is even released...)

Well, but if VGChartz doesn't use NPD data anymore, then I see no problem.

#1. It was my understanding that NPD offered a much more sophisticated analysis than provided here. If not than their customers were being ripped off for the thousands of dollars they were paying.

#2.  I agree they are competitors. The internet economy is constantly bringing down archaic business models with user generated ad supported content.

 #3. Sales numbers are facts. Once they are out there anyone can use them for anything. They cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. This reminds me of Major League Baseball trying to sue media organizations for posting boxscores. Sorry no dice, new is news NPD is usefull because it provides a larger data set (3 sources-Companies, VGC, NPD) for us to base our analysis. But VGC is not doing anything more illicit than Reuturs and Google News. 

Regarding #2. A better response would have been to try and form a working partnership with ioi to foster this site as homebase for ethusiest and provide a link to their services for professional analysis. The could have helped to grow interest in these kind of numbers and make it truly like the Neilsens or Billboard. Too bad. We see how stubborness against the new economy is working out for the RIAA. And they actually havea leg to stand on.