"Top 10/20 Sellers" Charts

manveruppd

manveruppd

manveruppd

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Any HMV/Virgin or games retailer you walk into will have a shelf or two where the top 10/20/whatever sellers are. E-tailers like the rainforest site or the Jersey people will also have a top sellers chart, usually at the side of the screen.

The thing is, I've seen some weird stuff on there. A week ago I saw Guild Wars Factions ranked No. 7 in some shop, well over a year since it was released, for instance! :confused: So it got me wondering: do those charts really represent what the top-selling games are? Or are spots on those shelves purchased using publishers' marketting dollars to give their game more prominence so the average punter who's never heard of it is more likely to assume that because it's (purpotedly) popular, it must also be good, and therefore buy it?

Is there any way to know the difference between legitimate charts and "concocted" ones?
 
Many old games are still sold by the bucket load, they are almost certainly true best sellers.

I do know what you mean, it wouldn't be too hard to use it as a marketing tool.
 
Every top 10 chart I've seen for the past 2 years has had Sims 2 in it somewhere. It just seems to be that the age of a game isn't as much of a factor of its popularity in the world of pc gaming.
 
Just ignore those charts, they are their own custom charts and probably fake. They are not based on ratings, rather sales. They are a load of ****. Little Britan the game was higher ranked than Final Fantasy 12 ffs!
 
Most Shops do have their own chart system which i believe is payed for, when i worked for one of the high street game stores we got the chart through a week in advance and certain games were at number one before release, Also you would find EA games always popping up in the chart when they didn't belong there because they have money to throw around

If you are interested in the actual uk chart based on sales take a look at ELSPA
 
Energize said:
Just ignore those charts, they are their own custom charts and probably fake. They are not based on ratings, rather sales. They are a load of ****. Little Britan the game was higher ranked than Final Fantasy 12 ffs!
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calm down, it could happen, it's cheap and kids probably buy it, plus the new ffXII is pretty *****
 
As i recall the Little Britain game did actually make it to number one in the all format charts when it was released, although that was some time ago now. So it definitely has sold well in the past.
 
manveruppd said:
The thing is, I've seen some weird stuff on there. A week ago I saw Guild Wars Factions ranked No. 7 in some shop, well over a year since it was released, for instance! :confused:
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Factions (and the other GW chapters) will be high up atm as they are currently on cheap at a certain online retailer, as such they'll be shifting more copies and so they'll be bumped up into their top 10 sellers list.

Also GW:EN is out at the end of August, so people are getting one of the previous chapters ready for access into that.


Most stores charts are based on their own sales figures.
 
Dunno about most shops, but where I used to work, the charts were all down to current sales that previous week. Unfortunately there were always a few in the chart that were out of stock, so I would just pick a few random games to stick in the vacant spots like Pippa Funells Riding Challenge (or whatever it was called).
The online store charts should all be down to sales rather than advertising money, as you can usually see the previous sales figures, and if a company wants to pay for advertising, they can just pay for a banner or something.
 
I used to get PCZONE magazine years ago and that had a chart in it each month, Sims and the add ons always took up 3 or 4 places in the chart
 
Take them with a pinch of salt. Having worked for a gaming retailer for many years, sometimes positions were bought. But it would still be sensible - you would not get a flop in the top 10. Otherwise what El watcher says about fillng chart gaps is correct.
 
that ELSPA chart is weird. Think they've got the arrows mixed up!!
Interesting that only 3 out of the top ten have been in the chart for less than 10 weeks.
 
Shamikebab said:
I used to work in a rental store and i got to make up the top 10 rental charts each week :D
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Same here. It would just be what we had a backlog of and wanted to shift. Or who paid the most money.

ELSPA reckons C&C3 was top seller this week for PC. Hmm. :o
 
I recall how various radio stations used to declare their charts were made up from "record sales and airplay". In other words "we'll play you what we think you want to hear, with weighting given to how much of a bung the record company has given us"
 
In the shop i worked in we were told what position to put each game in, but if one of them sold out or something we shuffle them around and even put in some old game to keep the space filled
 
To be honest, now that 'everyone' has the internet I don't think charts are of such importance. Essentially people can do their research online before rather than just aimlessly wandering into a high street store, checking out the top10 and buying the one with the most interesting box.
 
Yeah that's what I basically suspected. I started thinking this when I saw GW Factions on the top sellers charts, which goes against all logic since most GW players I know including myself are advising returning lapsed players to ignore Factions and go straight to Nightfall! :p

NCSoft has started heavily promoting this game to build up hype for GW2. Very delayed if you ask me, especially compared to the kind of coverage it got in other territories. Finding Factions in so many stores' top sellers shelves explains this.l
 
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