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0 pointsnotafraudster7y ago0 comments

You are looking at lifetime sales of games that have been on sale for different periods of time. All of these should be divided by number of years of sales, which gives you:

2017: 49k, 2016: 36k, 2015: 37k, 2014: 39k

2013: 120k, 2012: 89k, 2011: 73k, 2010: 48k

2009: 35k, 2008: 27k, 2007: 75k, 2006: 48k

2005: 43k, 2004: (this really just means Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike): 820k

With the sales normalized by year, and noting that 2004 did not actually allow third party games on sale, there is not an appreciable drop or trend across the entire time range.. I suspect the crazy spike in 2013 can be attributed entirely to Dota2 and 2012, Counterstrike Global Offensive causing mean skew.

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jefftk7y ago

Dividing by the number of years is wrong in the other direction: most games will sell far more copies in year 1 than year 10. Restricting each to first-year sales would be a much more realistic adjustment.

gavanwoolery7y ago

great point! would be interesting to see the average sales drop-off over time. Typically games have sales spikes during the early release and then later during sales, but it tends to drop off over time. "Classic" or "must play" games, however, like Portal, tend to sell pretty well over their entire life.

the_duke7y ago

Isn't mean probably very, very skewed for this?

Median would be much more interesting.

gavanwoolery7y ago

median would definitely be better. As noted, median for 2017 was 2k units sold per game, but I lost the rest of that data. Regardless, average still carries some meaning. :)

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0 pointsnotafraudster7y ago0 comments

You are looking at lifetime sales of games that have been on sale for different periods of time. All of these should be divided by number of years of sales, which gives you:

2017: 49k, 2016: 36k, 2015: 37k, 2014: 39k

2013: 120k, 2012: 89k, 2011: 73k, 2010: 48k

2009: 35k, 2008: 27k, 2007: 75k, 2006: 48k

2005: 43k, 2004: (this really just means Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike): 820k

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jefftk7y ago

gavanwoolery7y ago

the_duke7y ago

Isn't mean probably very, very skewed for this?

Median would be much more interesting.

gavanwoolery7y ago

median would definitely be better. As noted, median for 2017 was 2k units sold per game, but I lost the rest of that data. Regardless, average still carries some meaning. :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse