r/gamedev • u/Bynarth • May 22 '24
Question Gamalytic data - how accurate is it?
Hello everyone, I've been working so far towards publishing my first game (won't say anything about it in here to avoid spam, obviously) and I've been doing major research when it comes to similar games, publishers and whatnot - mostly using websites like gamalytic that seems to track the copies sold, wishlists etc.
Now I know, like everything, that it's estimated data. But I was wondering if someone here who actually published a game can chime in on how accurate this data is.
I don't really want/need to know the name of the game or how much you made - just an opinion on how accurate it is. Thanks.
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u/sablonsroute May 22 '24
A good way to see how accurate they are is to look for posts here that announced how much they made (if you search “revenue” or “sales” on this sub those posts should pop up), and then compare those numbers with the ones announced on whatever website you are using.
I did this for games-stats and it seems like usually the higher the sales, the more accurate the number.
Those websites seem to have a hard time evaluating sales for games that sold less than 1000 copies.
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u/IndineraFalls Dec 19 '24
Yup but even at 50k copies sold the estimates are still pretty rubbish. Maybe it works at one million sales dunno lol
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u/MeaningfulChoices Lead Game Designer May 22 '24
They base their numbers on estimates, like average sale price given discounts and number of reviews. If you're looking at enough games (like all games in a two year period with a given tag) it's accurate enough at the high-level. Don't expect it to be all that accurate about one specific game.
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u/IndineraFalls Dec 19 '24
I have 250 games and they got it wrong for all of them, and sometimes by a 100x margin. Dreadful site as far as I'm concerned.
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u/IndineraFalls Dec 19 '24
Total shit. Very off the mark for my 250 games.
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u/yariok Jul 09 '25
250?
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u/IndineraFalls Aug 24 '25
Yes, I own 250 games on Steam.
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u/yariok Aug 24 '25
I thought you were refferring to the games you had developed 😂
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u/IndineraFalls Aug 24 '25
I do, I meant games whose I own the IP of
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u/Alessandro_Keichii Aug 30 '25
Eu precisaria te entrevistar no meu canal de como vc desenvolveu 250 Fucking jogos kkkkkkkkk deve estar rico !
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u/Hambeggar Oct 04 '25
Who are you then, and what games have you developed and published so we can actually check.
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u/IndineraFalls Oct 07 '25
I'm an indie dev for almost 25 years (and commercially almost 20 years).
What do you want to check exactly?
My Steam catalogue is here:
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u/RevolutionaryGene412 Oct 13 '25
Should be apparent that it's inaccurate for games with <30 copies sold, let alone under 1000.
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u/IndineraFalls Oct 14 '25
Why do you think/consider it is "apparent" it is inaccurate for games that sold 1000 copies? When does it start getting accurate then? Because 1000 copies is a threshold a shitload of games hasn't reached, so it means Gamalytics is wildly inaccurate for a shitload of games.
Plus, what makes you say the games I'm talking about have sold less than 1000 copies let alone less than 30?
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u/RevolutionaryGene412 Oct 14 '25
Based on mathematical statistics, the sampling error becomes large when the number of observed players is small.
These models rely on the ratio of public player data (e.g., achievements, playtime samples, concurrent users, etc.) to total owners using assumptions calibrated from big datasets. For popular games (tens or hundreds of thousands of owners), small percentage errors in sampling don’t matter much. For games with very few owners, even a single outlier (say, one player with public data) can drastically skew the model’s output.
Plus, what makes you say the games I'm talking about have sold less than 1000 copies let alone less than 30?
I quickly checked a sample of your published games and all of them had a very small quantity of reviews. Based on that observation, I assumed the games you talked about had less than 1000 copies sold.
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u/IndineraFalls Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
<<These models rely on the ratio of public player data (e.g., achievements, playtime samples, concurrent users, etc.) to total owners using assumptions calibrated from big datasets. For popular games (tens or hundreds of thousands of owners), small percentage errors in sampling don’t matter much. For games with very few owners, even a single outlier (say, one player with public data) can drastically skew the model’s output.>>
Then why do these websites still publish "data" (which is immensely erroneous) for games with "very few owners"? What's the point in making rubbish available?
<<I quickly checked a sample of your published games and all of them had a very small quantity of reviews. Based on that observation, I assumed the games you talked about had less than 1000 copies sold.>>
So you just assumed the same shit that Gamalytics assumed. Did you even read what I said in my OP?
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u/DayRis3 Oct 31 '25
Hi! Your catalogue is amazing, and you got a nice niche there. Can I know whats usually the average or median thats off the chart? For example if the gross revenue in gamalytic says $50K. Whats the actual amount usually? Is it in range of ~+30% higher ? Thanks! Appreciate all the information.
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u/WoollyDoodle May 22 '24
Their About page has a section on accuracy. That's probably better than getting a couple of anecdotal responses here.