Smashboards makes up only ~1.5% of sales.

[LancerStaff]

FORUM STATISTICS

Discussions:230,301
Messages:14,420,594
Members:129,980

Total Units (Brawl)

North America: 6.19m 51.4%
+ Europe: 2.35m 19.5%
+ Japan: 2.56m 21.3%
+ Rest of the World: 0.94m 7.8%
= Global 12.04m

NA 6.19m + EU 2.35m = 8.54m, and let's assume they all speak primarily English.
~8.60m / ~#130,000 members = ~66.
(#Assuming they're all Brawl owners who bought new)

1/66 = 0.01515 * 100 = 1.515

So just over 1.5 %.
Feel free to correct me/unfudge the numbers.

This came up in an argument and I added an extra thought or two. Thoughts?

 

[Katy Parry]

Factor in:

Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on this website
Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on ANY smash website

Numerous variables you cannot count. You cannot base your argument when you don't have all the facts.

 

[LancerStaff]

Factor in:

Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on this website
Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on ANY smash website

Numerous variables you cannot count. You cannot base your argument when you don't have all the facts.

Are there really that many large competitive SSB sites based in the US and EU? And again, not everybody here owns Brawl in any fashion.

 

[Katy Parry]

Are there really that many large competitive SSB sites based in the US and EU? And again, not everybody here owns Brawl in any fashion.

Doesn't matter. Not every competitor smasher is a member of this or any other website.

 

[LancerStaff]

Hmm... I'll change the title. (I can, right?) Figured it out. Happy now?

 

[Renji64]

They still need that for wiiU at the current moment even tho those numbers don't make sense.

 

[LancerStaff]

They still need that for wiiU at the current moment even tho those numbers don't make sense.

Eh, I'd argue that Nintendo's making money off of every Wii U + one game.
And I said 'Feel free to correct me'.

 

[Halfhead]

Eh, I'd argue that Nintendo's making money off of every Wii U + one game.
And I said 'Feel free to correct me'.

Technically, they are making a profit off very Wii U alone, but for every Wii U they sell, they make more and the profits don't outweigh the production costs.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

OP, you missed the thousands of guests we have daily.

 

[Substitution]

OP, you missed the thousands of guests we have daily.

Sure, but they scare me, at lot.
...Those eyes, staring, never blinking even for one moment...

 

[LancerStaff]

OP, you missed the thousands of guests we have daily.

I initially typed this up to find out how much the competitive community makes up of sales, but as ethanrodgers223 pointed out, it's more of a representation of Smashboards. Although, I think that there isn't a significant amount of English speaking hardcores not on Smashboards for it to really matter.

 

[Superyoshiom]

And this matters why?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

@OP - I don't understand, we get more guests than members, if you don't count them, it isn't an accurate representation at all.

 

[LancerStaff]

@OP - I don't understand, we get more guests than members, if you don't count them, it isn't an accurate representation at all.

Er, guests can't post, right? And like I said, I was trying to find the % hardcores make up of sales. If you think these numbers are messed up, find me some better ones.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I really don't think discussing this is worth my time if you're going to handwave important facts like that.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Are these numbers perfect? No, of course not, and no one would expect them to be, nor did the OP claim they were. Are they more concrete than anything we've had in the past? Hell yes they are.

Sure, there are flaws here. The first one is actually one that is baked into the numbers that the OP already gave: people will want to use these numbers to prove some sort of relationship between Nintendo and competitive players, but these numbers include people who are registered to SWF, but do not play competitive Smash. These include Pool Room and Light House members, who just wanted a place to discuss whatever they like, and members of the Debate Hall, who may or may not be active Smashers.

As already noted, these numbers do not include people who play competitive Smash, but are not registered to SWF. According to the current thread title, that is already noted: these are numbers relating the SWF community to Nintendo, not all competitive players. Without some sort of corporate or government sponsored survey or census, that would be impossible to know.

These numbers also include depreciated accounts belonging to people who MAY have possibly played Smash competitively at some time in the past, but no longer play (and thus have grossly inactive accounts), or perhaps never played. This will affect the accuracy of the numbers.

Again, however, these numbers ARE useful. The real problem with the OP / thread is not the numbers themselves, or the way in which they were obtained. The problem is that there is no margin of error for using the numbers in competitive discussions. I'm no statistician, I'm a philosopher, but if there is honestly a margin of error over +/- 5%, I'd be shocked. So, best case here, we're talking about MAYBE 6.5% of all Brawl sales being for competitive players of any kind, on or off the boards. That's non-trivial, to be sure, but it's HARDLY significant, especially in the grand scheme.

 

[LancerStaff]

Are these numbers perfect? No, of course not, and no one would expect them to be, nor did the OP claim they were. Are they more concrete than anything we've had in the past? Hell yes they are.

Sure, there are flaws here. The first one is actually one that is baked into the numbers that the OP already gave: people will want to use these numbers to prove some sort of relationship between Nintendo and competitive players, but these numbers include people who are registered to SWF, but do not play competitive Smash. These include Pool Room and Light House members, who just wanted a place to discuss whatever they like, and members of the Debate Hall, who may or may not be active Smashers.

As already noted, these numbers do not include people who play competitive Smash, but are not registered to SWF. According to the current thread title, that is already noted: these are numbers relating the SWF community to Nintendo, not all competitive players. Without some sort of corporate or government sponsored survey or census, that would be impossible to know.

These numbers also include depreciated accounts belonging to people who MAY have possibly played Smash competitively at some time in the past, but no longer play (and thus have grossly inactive accounts), or perhaps never played. This will affect the accuracy of the numbers.

Again, however, these numbers ARE useful. The real problem with the OP / thread is not the numbers themselves, or the way in which they were obtained. The problem is that there is no margin of error for using the numbers in competitive discussions. I'm no statistician, I'm a philosopher, but if there is honestly a margin of error over +/- 5%, I'd be shocked. So, best case here, we're talking about MAYBE 6.5% of all Brawl sales being for competitive players of any kind, on or off the boards. That's non-trivial, to be sure, but it's HARDLY significant, especially in the grand scheme.

Thanks. I sometimes have a hard time explaining myself. If you disagree with my numbers, provide some more accurate ones. I'll glady update the OP with them.

 

[DaDavid]

Yes those numbers are roughly correct, in fact, I'm sure their pretty damn accurate.

No I don't see the point you're trying to make. Has anybody ever tried to argue that the hardcore fan-base made up a larger number of sales than the casual? Almost by definition of hardcore this simply isn't possible. But uh... good job on the numbers?

 

[Jack Kieser]

Yes those numbers are roughly correct, in fact, I'm sure their pretty damn accurate.

No I don't see the point you're trying to make. Has anybody ever tried to argue that the hardcore fan-base made up a larger number of sales than the casual? Almost by definition of hardcore this simply isn't possible. But uh... good job on the numbers?

I don't think he's making a point as much as saying to everyone "Hey, when you throw out BS numbers for how influential you think we should or should not be in relation to Nintendo's focus on what we want? Yeah, those numbers are wrong. Here's the right ones. Do with them what you will, but at least from now on we can all use the same correct numbers."

What you're saying is like claiming scientists who do meta-analyses have some sort of agenda when they do their work. No... no. Usually, they're just counting stuff. They aren't trying to say anything, they're just trying to collect numbers.

 

[DaDavid]

What you're saying is like claiming scientists who do meta-analyses have some sort of agenda when they do their work. No... no. Usually, they're just counting stuff. They aren't trying to say anything, they're just trying to collect numbers.

No, what I'm saying is that what' he's saying is fairly common knowledge. Not the specifics of the numbers, but save for a few (I really don't want to say the word idiots) dum-dums, nobody actually thinks that Smash is primarily bought by the hardcore/competitive crowd. The people who claim that we/they/whoever should have more of a say in terms of how the game is developed aren't doing so because they think they have numbers on their side, but because they think their opinion is in some way worth more than the casual one.

If you want an analogy of any kind, what I'm saying is more like "why is this guy counting how many thorns that thorn-bush has? We all know it has a ton of thorns and it'd be stupid to jump all in it. Oh, okay there's a couple of people jumping in the bush 'cause they think they won't bleed? Wow, that's pretty bad, but them knowing how many thorns it has probably isn't gonna stop them if they were dumb enough to do it in the first place..."

 

[Jack Kieser]

No, what I'm saying is that what' he's saying is fairly common knowledge. Not the specifics of the numbers, but save for a few (I really don't want to say the word idiots) dum-dums, nobody actually thinks that Smash is primarily bought by the hardcore/competitive crowd. The people who claim that we/they/whoever should have more of a say in terms of how the game is developed aren't doing so because they think they have numbers on their side, but because they think their opinion is in some way worth more than the casual one.

If you want an analogy of any kind, what I'm saying is more like "why is this guy counting how many thorns that thorn-bush has? We all know it has a ton of thorns and it'd be stupid to jump all in it. Oh, okay there's a couple of people jumping in the bush 'cause they think they won't bleed? Wow, that's pretty bad, but them knowing how many thorns it has probably isn't gonna stop them if they were dumb enough to do it in the first place..."

Because there are idiots on both sides. There are people who say the number is so small that we're a drop in the bucket in terms of revenue (which, I mean, 1.5% is not great, but it's still non-trivial). There are also people who say we drive all the sales forever, and we make up to 15-20% of total sales. It's not that most people don't guess somewhere around 1.5-5%. It's that whenever we discuss this, for WHATEVER reason, we should be accurate, and we weren't before. Period.

You may not care. Maybe you think it's pointless, and you don't care about whether you're accurate or educated or whatever. Ok, fine. I certainly do care, and I want to be educated. I would much rather use a correct (as close as we can get) number in my meaningless discussions than an incorrect one. So, best case scenario, I cancel you out, and there's still a reason to post this. If you don't care so much, why are you posting?

 

[LancerStaff]

Somebody argued that Nintendo couldn't afford to ditch the hardcore crowd. Naturally, I said the hardcore crowd was about 1% of players. He wanted an actual statistic, and I gave him this.

Let's just say that argument is over.

 

[DaDavid]

The idea that someone has to know these numbers to make educated assertions about the influence of the hardcore is what I'm specifically taking exception to though.

The people who are likely to argue the above, that Nintendo can't afford to lose the hardcore, aren't likely to change their minds just because you show them how relatively small they are.

Likewise someone doesn't need to know the numbers behind the claim "we are the minority" to be completely correct and educated in saying so.

The numbers are nice to have, all I'm saying is the add nothing to the weight of the only argument in which they're even relevant because most people know what the numbers end up saying anyway just from looking around and being aware, and those who don't are loo thick to be truly convinced that the numbers invalidate their argument anyway.

 

[Muster]

Somebody argued that Nintendo couldn't afford to ditch the hardcore crowd. Naturally, I said the hardcore crowd was about 1% of players. He wanted an actual statistic, and I gave him this.

Let's just say that argument is over.

Not really, you said Sakurai didn't care about the one percent, as it apparently conflicts with his idea of an ideal smash. You still have yet to prove that part of your argument with him.

He never said anything about Sakurai not being able to afford to ditch the competitive community, either. (and you're the one who complains about messages being taken out of context. cmon, man.)

 

[DakotaBonez]

Factor in:

Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on this website
Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on ANY smash website

Numerous variables you cannot count. You cannot base your argument when you don't have all the facts.

But the title of the thread states that he is only accounting for smashboards...did he change the thread title?
Man I was hoping that we were at least 5%

 

[JediLink]

For what it's worth, the Wii U has a very low install base so the percentage of hardcore fans buying Smash 4 will be much greater than what it was with Brawl.

 

[DakotaBonez]

For what it's worth, the Wii U has a very low install base so the percentage of hardcore fans buying Smash 4 will be much greater than what it was with Brawl.

Actually, thats a good point.
But, how many casuals are gonna get the more affordable 3DS version?
I expect everyone on these boards will buy the wii u version but we will totally be outpurchased by people who buy a 3DS/2DS and smash.
Actually, I plan on buying a 2DS and smash on release.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I wonder how many people here are waiting for Smash 4 to buy a WiiU. I bought mine at the start and yes it did sit there gathering dust for quite a while. I use it regularly now that some more games hove come out for it.

 

[LancerStaff]

Not really, you said Sakurai didn't care about the one percent, as it apparently conflicts with his idea of an ideal smash. You still have yet to prove that part of your argument with him.

He never said anything about Sakurai not being able to afford to ditch the competitive community, either. (and you're the one who complains about messages being taken out of context. cmon, man.)

I was trying to be non-specific as to not open that can of worms again...

 

[Muster]

I was trying to be non-specific as to not open that can of worms again...

I'm not bringing back the argument, i'm pointing out that you're wrong about what the argument was and how you basically just put words in the other person's mouth.

 

[LancerStaff]

I'm not bringing back the argument, i'm pointing out that you're wrong about what the argument was and how you basically just put words in the other person's mouth.

The guy wanted an actual statistic, and he got it. And the argument is definitely over.

Let's just drop this, okay?

 

[IsmaR]

OP, you missed the thousands of guests we have daily.

Not to mention the dozen copies TO's and avid fans rent/buy (moreso from the dual layered disc issues with older Wii's than because "it's so good I bought it twice").

 

[The Real Gamer]

Somebody argued that Nintendo couldn't afford to ditch the hardcore crowd. Naturally, I said the hardcore crowd was about 1% of players. He wanted an actual statistic, and I gave him this.

Let's just say that argument is over.

I don't necessarily agree with the notion that Sakurai could do just fine without "the 1%" (though realistically I'm sure the number is much higher than that).

Us hardcore fans are the ones that give the game the more exposure than anyone else thanks to the likes of Youtube, Twitch, word of mouth, etc. We're also the ones who will most likely pay for DLC if the need arises. In addition to the above the vast majority of us are willing to pay for WiiU's/extra merchandise (Classic controller pro's) just for this game, which gives us even more weight/importance when it comes to sales.

Of course we're vastly outnumbered, this has been well known for years. However, to somehow make it seem as if this makes us irrelevant in the eyes of the developers is false and a major stretch.

 

[mimgrim]

Somebody argued that Nintendo couldn't afford to ditch the hardcore crowd. Naturally, I said the hardcore crowd was about 1% of players. He wanted an actual statistic, and I gave him this.

Let's just say that argument is over.

It's not entirely accurate. Smash Boards is most comprised of American players, oh sure there are others from different countries here as well. Smash Boards isn't an accurate estimation of the entire competitive community. Japan most likely has their own site. There are probably other countries who also have their own site. So this 1.5% Smash Boards make up isn't accurate for the whole competitive community and the competitive community is probably closer to being around 5% or 6%.

But the title of the thread states that he is only accounting for smashboards...did he change the thread title?
Man I was hoping that we were at least 5%

Yes he did. He originally had "Competitive" instead of "Smashboards".

 

[smashmachine]

The guy wanted an actual statistic, and he got it. And the argument is definitely over.

Let's just drop this, okay?

no

 

[LancerStaff]

I get the picture guys. You don't have to keep pointing out the same flaws in my numbers...

 

[SKM_NeoN]

Smash 4 will almost certainly

Somebody argued that Nintendo couldn't afford to ditch the hardcore crowd. Naturally, I said the hardcore crowd was about 1% of players. He wanted an actual statistic, and I gave him this.

Let's just say that argument is over.

The idea that every hardcore Smash Bros. player is a member of this site is ridiculous (most certainly the majority of hardcore players don't visit this site at all.) This side of the argument has been argued enough already so I won't extrapolate further.

However, in response to your initial train of thought, I would like to argue that the competitive scene is responsible for a much larger margin of Smash's success than just their own bought copies alone. The key word here is advertising. This community creates a substantial amount of interest in the Smash franchise, evident by the growing number of people viewing and participating in the increasing number of events. With so much generated awareness, there will be many instances in which someone will buy the game for themselves, recommend it to their friends, and so on and so forth. It's impossible to tell just how much the competitive scene attributes to SSB's success, but it's much larger than just 1.5%.

 

[LancerStaff]

Smash 4 will almost certainly


The idea that every hardcore Smash Bros. player is a member of this site is ridiculous (most certainly the majority of hardcore players don't visit this site at all.) This side of the argument has been argued enough already so I won't extrapolate further.

However, in response to your initial train of thought, I would like to argue that the competitive scene is responsible for a much larger margin of Smash's success than just their own bought copies alone. The key word here is advertising. This community creates a substantial amount of interest in the Smash franchise, evident by the growing number of people viewing and participating in the increasing number of events. With so much generated awareness, there will be many instances in which someone will buy the game for themselves, recommend it to their friends, and so on and so forth. It's impossible to tell just how much the competitive scene attributes to SSB's success, but it's much larger than just 1.5%.

But it works both ways. How many other competitive sites are there? How many competitive players wouldn't have Smashboards or similar accounts? How many people here even own Brawl? (Isn't it like a 50/50 split between Melee and Brawl here?)

 

[Souless_shadow]

Wow that's it!? We're smaller than I thought. I thought for sure that we were at least 45%

 

[SmashChu]

Factor in:

Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on this website
Smash fans/competitive players who aren't on ANY smash website

Numerous variables you cannot count. You cannot base your argument when you don't have all the facts.

First is few and faw between
Second probably doesn't exist.

If anything, 1.5% is too high. Remember that there are people on here who aren't involved in competitive Smash at all.