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[Gordon Freeman]

VG Chartz does a fine job. No one else comes close. I don’t understand why people shit on them so much.

 

[DarkMage619]

VG Chartz does a fine job. No one else comes close. I don’t understand why people shit on them so much.

Not sure if you are serious or not but the biggest complaint about them is that they aren't 100% accurate. Saying they are just estimates isn't enough. I would like to hear a better alternative but no one here seems to be able to point to a far more accurate web site providing the same info. If they could it would put VGChartz out of business.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Not sure if you are serious or not but the biggest complaint about them is that they aren't 100% accurate. Saying they are just estimates isn't enough. I would like to hear a better alternative but no one here seems to be able to point to a far more accurate web site providing the same info. If they could it would put VGChartz out of business.

Exactly.

What people dont realize is unless a market research company has 100% of all sales data (which they never will), all AC Neilson and NPD data are estimates.

For those of you who don't know how sales data is reported this is what they do:

1. Retailer agrees to sell their sales data to market research companies (which ever ones willing to pay up)
2. Market research companies compile their own sets of data and knock on manufacturers doors hoping to sell them sales data from their own products and competing products
3. The more data a company wants from market research companies, the more money they need to pay them
4. Some retailers have a policy to never sell these companies their data. In fact, some retailers dont even tell the manufacturers they work with what kind of sales their products do. Thats how secretive they can be. And sales from really small retailers (including brick and online) arent worth going after.
5. The research company with their big batch of unknown sales from missing data sets, will use a judegment call on RoM (rest of market), where they will compile what they got and then say "well, according to our in house algorithm, the missing brick and online stores should add +25% more sales". Each research company with their own data sets have their own algorithm, so one might come up with +35%

Add it all up and they churn out a number.

 

[Topher]

Exactly.

What people dont realize is unless a market research company has 100% of all sales data (which they never will), all AC Neilson and NPD data are estimates.

Those estimates are made based on real data. Companies rely and trust that data which is obvious considering they are paid a lot of money for the research done by NPD and others. Stark difference between that data and data that is given out freely in order to generate traffic for ad revenue.

When you think about it, the only reason VGChartz even exists is because of the console war.