Analysts and gamers have been pushing for digital sales data to be included in games sales charts; unfortunately, this might not be feasible in the near future as Valve - the owner of the largest games online store, Steam - refused to publicize such data.
"The idea of a chart is old," Valve director of business development Jason Holtman argued. "It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. What we provide to partners is much more rapid and perfected information."
Holtman then argued that retail charts "have been proven to be telling an inaccurate story. They apparently had shown how the PC format was dying when it was actually thriving."
Of course the reason why retail charts were inaccurate is because they didn't include digital distribution sales, but Holtman believes that this is irrelevant.
"The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing," he insisted. "What's important to know is exactly how your game is doing - why it's climbing and why it's falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That's what we provide."
