Hello everyone,
My name is Ben, and I'm one of the analysts that works with the methodology of FADE and the reports that we're working to produce. It seems there have been a few mis-posts by people who work with us, and maybe there's some misunderstanding.
First off, I want to thank everyone for the fantastic conversation about digital download sales. It's obviously something that there's a lot of interest in, but very few people have ever attempted to build out due to multiple reasons. I am of the train of thought of 'If it was economically viable to produce the charts, they'd already exist'. But for one reason or another, sadly, no one has done it.
I started working on XBLA charts almost 2 years ago as a hobby to get away from my current job that was totally unrelated to my field. When I started, I was very surprised that few if anyone had attempted to establish a way to aggregate XBLA sales, outside of Major Nelson (who has actuals). Unfortunately, there are reasons behind this: No distributor is going to come out and openly share numbers because it most likely goes against their contracts with publishers and developers, creating a headache for data aggregation.
Over time, I honed my numbers, got better at them, and continued to publish the charts at VGC. Not because I work or am affiliated with them in any major way, but because it was just there, and I wasn't a frequent poster on GAF.
Likewise, I found other people that had an interest and ability to produce data for other marks, such as WiiWare/VC, and still others like Brett that could contribute website development, which is something I cannot do. Interestingly enough, I've seen other GAFers attempt to aggregate their data using similar methods as what we do. But unfortunately, that market is not as easy to aggregate as XBLA is.
For the argument about what Brett/ioi does with the project:
He has lent his help to develop the website at *******.com. That is the only way he is involved in the project. At all. I work with the XBLA, Android and iPhone data, another person does WiiWare/VC, and a 3rd person helps produce the reports to remove possible bias through our peer review process.
I cannot understate the complexity of how hard this info is to come by, which is why I believe no one has done it. There's no golden goose when it comes to DD data. Rlan has done a fantastic job on posting XBLA data for GameSetWatch/Gamasutra, but at the same time, his lists are only top-10, and producing data for all 240+ titles may be difficult to do. On my end, I developed a methodology using gamercards in a similar way that joaomgc has done here at NeoGAF. In fact, I would like to say his methodology was the reason I even started XBLA aggregation.
I understand our iPhone data has come under scrutiny, and I take all the blame for this. The iPhone is a very difficult market to aggregate because it's much, much larger than any other DD channel at the moment. In August, we tracked over 15,602 titles for the iPhone in which we'll release a report Monday concerning. Because of this, building estimates for a market of such volume is a nightmare. What works for 1 game will not work for another game, and so on. We feel that, going forward, our iPhone work will continue to improve thanks to developer feedback, and continuing work on the market. We've been working with iPhone data for 2-3 months now, and I know that it was 4-5 months before XBLA data began to take a shape that I could publish weekly data and have it match Major Nelson's top-10 list, except with numbers.
Unfortunately, because of the size of the market and the resources required to improve and expand coverage we've decided the best way to make our data better is to charge for it.
Again, I apologize for this Brett/ioi debacle. He doesn't speak for our company. I do. We'll work with these issues, to promote a better understanding of the DD market.