"Sales" data for 2600 games on VGChartz

[mdoerty]

VGChartz, the website which provides free data on video game sales and has a mixed reputation, released a feature on the best-selling Atari 2600 games.

 

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250871/the-best-selling-atari-2600-games-of-all-time/

 

It is interesting for several reasons. It has a lower system sales base (27+M) than virtually every other source.

 

It also has some sales figures which do not make sense -- like 820,000 for Custers' Revenge, 630,000 for X-Man, and 470,000 for Karate (the Froggo/Ultravision title).

By way of comparison, it lists 460,000 for Circus Atari. I don't know about you, but I have not found 2x as many Custers as I have Circus Ataris.

 

There is also a "complete" sales list: http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/31/atari-2600/

 

Personally, I think VGChartz does OK on modern historical data which can be verified with corporate reports. I think the weekly numbers need to be taken with a large grain of salt but they are the only data available for free and are probably better on hardware than software (and better on bigger sellers than niche titles). But these Atari 2600 numbers just seem out of what to me.(Many in the Top 10 are in a different order than IGN's from 2008 http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/08/26/top-10-best-selling-atari-2600-games or data on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Atari_2600

 

Mike from Morgantown

[atari181]

Wel the fact that it says Air Raid made by Men a Vision sold 770,000. I would say there are some figures that are incorrect.

[Tempy]

VGChartz makes numbers up. They take whatever small tidbit of real data they googled, and put it through some made up formula. They're completely unreliable.

[fiddlepaddle]

Never heard of them until this post. I don't know anything about absolute numbers produced, but I've seen tens of thousands of Atari cartridges in the wild. In looking through that list, I can tell you that the listed relative rarity of Atari cartridges seems almost completely random, except that the most common games are mostly at the top. I have zero confidence in the integrity of that data. Plus, they put friction in their website that slows access.

 

I suggest you throw that link away and erase it from your brain.

Edited April 6, 2013 by fiddlepaddle

[+Psionic]

Gauntlet by Answer Software only sold 500,000 copies? I would've thought for sure it was a million-seller.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Gauntlet by Answer Software only sold 500,000 copies? I would've thought for sure it was a million-seller.

 

Pallets and pallets of it hiding in a cave in French Guyana, I tell ya! *tinfoil hat*