Sunday, April 4, 2021

No More SuperData Monthly Charts

Information about the business side of video games in general, and MMORPGs in particular, has grown more and more scarce over the years.  Everybody likes to put out a press release and announce at earnings calls when business is up and subscriber numbers are booming.  But when they’re down all of that becomes “not interesting” and companies reach for bullshit metrics or data without sufficient context to cover their tracks.

In the middle of that SuperData Research gave us something of a peek into digital revenues with their monthly charts and annual reports.

The monthly ranking lacked numbers, but at least gave us some sort of relative feel for how a certain small set of higher earning titles were doing.  We argued about how accurate their rankings actually were, but even flawed data collected consistently can demonstrate trends over time.

We will have to do without even that monthly tidbit of data going forward, as it appears that Nielsen, which has been cutting staff since last summer, decided to shut down their SuperData group that they had acquired back in 2018.  A crowded field and under performing revenues are reported to be why Nielsen decided to shut down the unit.  There has been no official press release from Nielsen up to this point, though they have been notifying their customers, which is apparently how word got out, and confirmed the closure with a statement.

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