Having compiled a multi-format game sales chart database comprising over 10,000 entries I couldn't help noticing a few anomalies. For instance, games appearing in the top-selling lists that were never actually finished or published for the designated system. Judging by the reader's letter and editor's response below as printed in Zero magazine in the '90s, the reason could be that the data is entirely fabricated based on educated guesswork.
Zero's Virgins
Investigative journo paragraph: in your October 1990 issue (in the shops September 1990) Zero reviewed Wonderland, quoting a release date of October 1990. In the December issue, in the shops in November, what game had rocketed into the charts at number 2? You guessed it - Wonderland. It's funny though because Wonderland wasn't even available in the Virgin Megastore shop until well into December. It's even more peculiar when you bear in mind that the chart would have had to get to you well in advance of the publication date presumably sometime towards the end of October. It becomes worrying when you remember that Virgin produce both the game and the chart. Nothing like a free bit of plugging, is there? Even if the game isn't in existence at the time.
Consumer's Complaint paragraph: 4-D Boxing was given a release date of November - it's still not in the shops. Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters was due out on the PC last May according to Domark. There's no sign of it ten months later - where is it? Why don't software companies give realistic release dates?
Joseph Coulson, Hither Green, London.
Journalistic cliche paragraph: information correct at the time of going to press. Companies tell us their release plans but these can be changed for a number of reasons (see Brian's letter for anexample).
As you point out, we receive our chart well in advance of publication date. Consequently, if we printed a sales chart it'd be well out of date by the time the mag was on sale. Therefore Virgin Megastore compile a Shipping Chart for us which measures the orders the shop is placing based on past and anticipated sales. Ed.
I spent a while plugging search terms for games known to be unfinished into my database to see if I could uncover any suspicious entries. Putty Squad for the Amiga would have to be the most glaringly dodgy example; in the January 1995 issue of Amiga Power it can be spotted in the CD32 chart at number 3. This was released for the SNES in 1994, yet not for any of the Amiga systems until late 2013 thanks to Galahad's dedicated collaboration with System 3.
Elsewhere, you might like to examine entry number 3 in the Mega Drive chart published by Computer & Video Games in June 1991. First-person shoot 'em up, Monster Hunter - intended to be one of the first Mega Drive games to employ SEGA's Menacer light gun - was originally expected to be available in time for Christmas 1993, however, failed to materialise.
Being listed in a best-selling games chart over two years earlier, possibly long before the design was even conceived, seems implausible so I suspect someone had their wires crossed. But how? Which game were Gallup referring to? English Amiga Board member, LongLifeA1200, suggested Japanese import "Mamono (Demon/Monster) Hunter" when I raised the issue there, reasoning that another import, Gynoug, features at number two.
Shifting down a gear to the Commodore 64, Nigel Mansell's Grand Prix was never released for the trusty beige bread bin, yet somehow it appears in the chart at number 20 in the January 1990 issue of C&VG and again at number 15 the following month. They even offer a review score of 71%, further confounding the disjointed discombobulation.
None of the versions that were released scored 71% so that's
not the explanation. So what is? Gallup guessed the position at which the
game would appear in the charts while C&VG predicted what score they'd
award assuming the game was at some point finished?
Anything's possible given the number of errors evident in charts printed
by C&VG. Missing platform citations (entire charts left unlabelled,
sometimes three in a single issue making process of elimination
impractical), duplicate entries in the same top 10, vague titles that
could refer to multiple different games e.g. just 'Batman' and so on. It's
difficult to determine how many of these problems emanated from Gallup's
data collection and reporting techniques, or alternatively, which C&VG
were responsible for.
What's crystal clear is that the charts aren't to be trusted unequivocally and my entire database should be scrutinized with a large sackful of salt. And yet those not provided by retailers themselves (Virgin, Woolworths, HMV etc.) are the only independent measure we have available with which to judge the commercial success of game releases.
Have you spotted any entries that set alarm bells ringing and deserve to be glared at with squinty-eyed scepticism? Feel free to share them below.