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[ToxicAdam]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

 

[Eric WK]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

Absolutely. And to say that the lack of NPD figures each month is going to prevent system wars or blatant fanboyism is also being ignorant.

 

[MickeyKnox]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find nowhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

GAF is a more crowded place with NPD.

 

[Lucky]

Well this sucks. How am I supposed to know if I bought the right systems or games if I don't know what sold the most?

 

[1-D_FTW]

Just in case people missed my edit, yes I'm aware they were lol and not smilies.

Now you can really understand my annoyance with those. I dislike the emoticons enough to not care enough to be exact with the lingo, so you can really understand why they annoyed me.

All of this supports the notion that the world would be better off without sales numbers. But that's a pipe dream. This will just muddy everything.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

good, i am glad no more annoying NPD posts. lets talk more about games, instead of my consoles dick is bigger than yours.

Yes, I'm extremely sure Sales-Age was the cause of that type of talk.

The other thing that really bugs me about this, as others have mentioned, is that now if oio wants to take his dog and pony show to the next level, he's got an opportunity like never before. His numbers are going to be cited more than ever, and without NPD numbers to correct them monthly, they're going to be farther from reality than ever, too. His data are going to be more widespread and more incorrect than ever. Urgh.

 

[White Man]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

Moore, Pachter, Iwata, and Stringer have little to do with sales numbers, at least in the capacity they generally come up. As spokesmen, they were often the deliverers of sales numbers, but I saw no problem with that.

Also, before anyone puts words in my mouth before I go to sleep, I am not calling for a ban on sales numbers, I am just glad that they won't be around as much as they are now. And I would never, ever ban anyone for talking about sales numbers; I would ban people for pulling numbers out of their ass or from questionable sources repeatedly, with fair warning. Nobody can argue with any of that.

 

[gofreak]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

I agree, and I don't mind sales-age, but I think some people, myself included, also like it when GAF leans more on discussion of the purely creative side of games - evaluation, discussion of future directions etc. etc. I think the balance has been too biased towards sales-age at times. Often when a topic is introduced in a neutral fashion it would end up being interpreted and discussed predominantly through the lens of sales-age which is annoying, IMO.

 

[acuul]

I don't understand this hate for numbers... if you don't like them you can go in other threads, no one forces you to stay in npd/jfk/Mc discussions

 

[Graphics Horse]

Haha

Seeing people trying to untangle meaningful data from the Sony press release will be interesting.

 

[Borys]

Hey White Man, "last post, I promise"

 

[borghe]

good, i am glad no more annoying NPD posts. lets talk more about games, instead of my consoles dick is bigger than yours.

while these were certainly the loudest NPD posts, they were hardly the most common or most useful.

 

[[Nintex]]

Yes, I'm extremely sure Sales-Age was the cause of that type of talk.

The other thing that really bugs me about this, as others have mentioned, is that now if oio wants to take his dog and pony show to the next level, he's got an opportunity like never before. His numbers are going to be cited more than ever, and without NPD numbers to correct them monthly, they're going to be farther from reality than ever, too. His data are going to be more widespread and more incorrect than ever. Urgh.

We should've stopped him when we had the chance

 

[Opus Angelorum]

I think the real loss is that despite all the rubbish that NPD threads attract, there is actually some intelligent debate to be found.

 

[White Man]

Hey White Man, "last post, I promise"

Sorry, I am pulling something of an amirox here. . .but at least my posts have decent content!

Also, Super Mario Galaxy blows!

 

[P90]

while I realize this is from a few pages back, I didn't see where anyone had adequately responded to it.

Occam's Razor would dictate that NPD has made this decision to keep data away from non paying customer because they are, in fact, non-paying customers. Coming up with conspiracy theories about Sony paying them off is the sort of thing that would fall into the opposite end of the spectrum.

Occam's razor:

All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one

.

Occam is/was wrong most of the time. Obviously, Occam never had to drive an old beater with a radiator problem in metro work traffic during construction! I can think of many other examples, like the extinction of the dinosuars, what clothes to wear in the morning, etc., but that would be out of line with the thread.

Back on topic. I'm disappointed to say the least. I don't contribute much to sales threads, but they are usually the best reads in NeoGAF.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

We should've stopped him when we had the chance

We need to get to work on that time machine. I'll get the plutonium, you get the DeLorean in working condition.

I'm not sure which of us has the more difficult job ahead of him.

 

[h3ro]

Ended today... the system warz have... sad face...

 

[Chû Totoro]

So now people will start to choose a console depending on games instead of because others are buying it. That's crazy !

 

[kay]

what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

bannedsitelolz.com

I like talking about sales, I post in the threads sometimes, but dependance on sales is what fuels a lot of peoples agendas around here that they really shouldn't have. Those people carry the info into threads were it doesn't belong and the system wars just get worse.

 

[P90]

Ended today... the system warz have... sad face...

For NA numbers only.

 

[Kazenone]

Having the actual NPD numbers as a reference is always a good thing, but fanbois always bring them into system wars, it just get ridiculous. Anyone surely must be able to see this. It will be for the greater good in the end.

 

[PkunkFury]

Lack of imformation is always bad. Just look at what happened when we dropped from all NPD numbers to just the top 10.

We used to discuss sales of every game. We had access to all of the imformation, and we compare titles no matter where they were ranked. As soon as we were cut to top 10, the GAF collective decided that any game which was absent from the top 10 must've bombed. Forget the fact that numbers 10 and 15 on the NPD charts rarely amounted to much of a difference in sales quantity, the fact that a particular title didn't show up in one of those magical 10 slots meant it wasn't worth mentioning... Cue tons of posts about how consoles A,B,&C, which rarely break the top 10, aren't selling any software (despite having a much smaller userbase than the competition). Cue posts about how game X bombed horridly, despite the fact that it actually sold quite well for a game in its genre (though we will never know since we won't see its numbers). It's lack of imformation, not access to the imformation, that causes this shit.

Now we will get only the top 5 software... this is even worse. Now Companies need to get into the top 5 in order to be worthy of discussion. Our window into the actual business side of things will be resrticted to the largest of the mega-titles. And Wii Play will always be one of them :\ Any console that fails to hit the top 5 will be mocked, who cares that it may have had 6 titles sitting just under those slots...

PR and viral marketing are all about creating a perception. The only way to fight such perception is with factual data. As White Man pointed out, we can't do much about viral marketing, because it simply becomes a witch hunt on forums like these. But that doesn't change the fact that it exists, not only on GAF but all over the net. Factual imformation is the best defense we have against any PR stunts. If you think this is good news, just read the OP over again and be a little more critical this time. Especially this part:

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will of course be free to release their own sales info—and presumably leak that of their competitors, if it'll make them look good

We are now in a position where we will be spoon-fed this info as each corporation deams appropriate. We will swallow this along with all of the twisting and bending that comes with it. Restricted imformation is bad news for everybody except those who are allowed to provide it at there discretion. It would not surprise me if at least one of the major hardware companies was pushing for this move alongside NPD

sorry this is all over the place, I am no good at rants. but as a fan of this industry and someone who wants to see it taken seriously, i can only see this as a major step backwards

 

[McBradders]

Absolutely. And to say that the lack of NPD figures each month is going to prevent system wars or blatant fanboyism is also being ignorant.

The fact is, figures give people ammunition and at least concrete facts on which to debate... now it's all going to be opinion and thusly even more terrifying :lol

 

[Frillen]

So are we going to use VG.Chartz numbers now?

Spoiler

j/k

Anyway, this is terrible news to wake up to

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I actually find it pretty amusing that gamers, who generally get pissed about video games being falsely attributed with causality in the correlation with violent behaviour, seem to have few if any qualms about falsely attributing actual hard data with causality in its correlation to System Wars idiocy.

 

[ciccione]

WHY?

 

[Acosta]

The explosion of GAF is directly tied to Sales Age. People didn't come here to talk about the latest PS2 game .. or their favorite FF character ... they came to talk about sales and the future of the video game business. That's what drew everyone to GAF from whatever small video game forum they crawled out of.

There's a reason why names like Moore, Pachter, Iwata and Stringer are household names to many Gaffers. These are people that don't create games .. these are people that effect(ed) the business side of games. That's what drives GAF, that's the aspect you can't find anywhere else.

So, to say that GAF is a better place without NPD numbers is being ignorant.

I have been around many years, (beginning of PS2 domination). And I don´t think NeoGAF is a better place for the sales discussion.

Totally agree with gofreak, the problem is not sales discussion, the probles come for the unbalance in the discussion.

 

[Conrad Link]

Well that about wraps it up for NeoGAF.

Had a good run.

 

[P90]

Lack of imformation is always bad. Just look at what happened when we dropped from all NPD numbers to just the top 10.

snip

We are now in a position where we will be spoon-fed this info as each corporation deams appropriate. we will swallow this along with all of the twisting and bending that comes with it. Restricted imformation is bad news for everybody except those who are allowed to provide it at there discretion. It would not surprise me if at least one of the major jardware companies was pushing for this move alongside NPD

Great post, for the most part, but I think you underestimate the brain power here. The majority of posters here can read between the lines when companies post spun numbers.

 

[PkunkFury]

Great post, for the most part, but I think you underestimate the brain power here. The majority of posters here can see between the lines when companies post spun numbers.

But with less imformation to back them up, the sane posters will be arguing against a brick wall worth of posters that want to beleive the PR, as well as the posters who are paid to propegate it. That's why this is a loss for the critical thinkers on this board, and why I dont' see it aleviating the fanboyism over sales in the slightest. I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but from where I'm sitting, this gives more power to marketing and blind fanboysim, and things will get worse from here on out

Just look at the cut down to top 10 software. How many people who defended titles that didn't make the top 10 were taken seriously after the cut?? Even when slots 11-20 would leak people would ignore them where it fit their agenda. lack of imformation is a fanboys wet dream and its just plane bad for those of us who want an ubiased account of this industry

 

[Psychotext]

Great post, for the most part, but I think you underestimate the brain power here. The majority of posters here can read between the lines when companies post spun numbers.

That's not the issue though really. It's the number of posters that will use the pure sales PR force in whatever way suits their agenda. Without an unbiased source of numbers from someone like NPD this will be harder to combat and crack down on.

A good example of this was the "count the pixels" fiasco from the Nintendo PR.

 

[P90]

But with less imformation to back them up, the sane posters will be arguing against a brick wall worth of posters that want to beleive the PR, as well as the poseters who are paid to propegate it. That's why this is a loss for the critical thinkers on this board, and why I dont' see it aleviating the fanboyism over sales in the slightest. I'll be happy to be rpoven wrong, but from where I'm sitting, this gives more power to marketing and blind fanboysim, and things will get worse from here on out

Good points I didn't consider. The lack of hard data may make the mods jobs harder as well.

At least the MC/Famitsu threads will have hard data.

 

[Frillen]

Does this news include Canadian NPD as well?

 

[PkunkFury]

At least the MC/Famitsu threads will have hard data.

This is true, but as anyone who has been following slaes in all regions will tell you, japan's numbers are an entirely different animal. They bare no resemblence to the performance of titles in NA. All this means is people whose agenda is supported by Japan's numbers (Wii Fit fans rejoice!!) will have numbers to play off while everyone else will grasp at invisible Western number straws. In the mean time, people who are actually curious how well microsoft and various HD titles are doing will be completely out of luck

 

[RBH]

Wait a minute, wasn't Odysseus supposed to be unbanned once the next NPD numbers were released. :lol

 

[Neo C.]

Without the NPD-numbers, we are going to talk about preorder numbers of some gameshops obviously. Hopefully Anihawk makes a report every week or so.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Why do I see the retarded return of Drinky Crow and like minded fanboy arguments again?

 

[P90]

That's not the issue though really. It's the number of posters that will use the pure sales PR force in whatever way suits their agenda. Without an unbiased source of numbers from someone like NPD this will be harder to combat and crack down on.

A good example of this was the "count the pixels" fiasco from the Nintendo PR.

Fanboy spinning has always been an issue/virtue here. Issue for truthfulness. Virtue for entertainment. A simple "Have a link from a reputable source that backs up your claim?" is the antidote for viral-like marketers.

The "count the pixels" thread was hilarious!

 

[koam]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Hopefully, media create and all other charting companies will follow suit. Sales-age has killed GAF.

Also, we if can somehow be deprieved of review scores, that would be great too.

 

[Chû Totoro]

If there is no solid source sales numbers won't be a valid argument for long (and it's not like it was already a manner to define a good game or system... but some like to think so )
But for sure mods will have hard work for the few weeks to come.

 

[Walshicus]

Wait a minute, wasn't Odysseus supposed to be unbanned once the next NPD numbers were released. :lol

Conspiracy?

 

[PkunkFury]

Why do I see the retarded return of Drinky Crow and like minded fanboy arguments again?

because without facts to base actual disucssion off of, there's no way to stop them

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

Hey. Just look look at European sales threads without Hardware data. I think everything will turn out juuuust fine.

*blows up in bizarre safecracking accident*

 

[jmdajr]

WHAT BULLSHIT

 

[P90]

This is true, but as anyone who has been following slaes in all regions will tell you, japan's numbers are an entirely different animal. They bare no resemblence to the performance of titles in NA. All this means is people whose agenda is supported by Japan's numbers (Wii Fit fans rejoice!!) will have numbers to play off while everyone else will grasp at invisible Western number straws. In the mean time, people who are actually curious how well microsoft and various HD titles are doing will be completely out of luck

I know. I was just pointing out where we can get some "objective" numbers.

 

[TheKurgan]

Booooo - now we will have to decipher all the BS press releases to get any real hardware numbers.

 

[vantastic]

I have noticed a certain correlation between the posters (not all of them) saying this is a good thing and their avatars... :lol

I have noticed a certain correlation between the posters (not all of them) saying this is not a good thing and their avatars... :lol

 

[Captain Smoker]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Hopefully, media create and all other charting companies will follow suit. Sales-age has killed GAF.

Also, we if can somehow be deprieved of review scores, that would be great too.

*No informations, wohooo*


....

 

[P90]

because without facts to base actual disucssion off of, there's no way to stop them

Not trying to sound rude, but that is what I use the "ignore" option for. maybe we can have a longer "ignore" list?