MadWorld places relationship between online hype and actual sales in doubt
Analytics firm OTX Research seems to already be making a name for itself after announcing intentions last month to track game sales. Speaking at the LA Games Conference, OTX's Nick Williams explained the surprisingly weak connection between strong online awareness of a game versus actual, hard sales numbers, citing Sega's recently released MadWorld as a striking example.
Noting the game's top position among IGN.com's games with the "highest level of unique interest," MadWorld came in at a paltry number 41 using OTX's "GamePlan" metric, a system that measures "1,000 gamers on a weekly basis, tracking 400 games at any given time." This translates to a bleak eight percent of Wii owners having even heard of the title, much less purchasing it (that's .32 percent according to April's MadWorld sales data compared with the 20 million Wii owners in the US currently). Hmm, we wonder what that data would look like for Grand Theft Auto's recent foray onto Nintendo's massively popular handheld!
It took an awful lot of numbers right there to explain an idea we've all quietly agreed upon for so long now -- hype and marketing in the "hardcore" gaming world doesn't necessarily equal copies moving at retail. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll be over here playing BlazBlue.
