The ELSPA download chart explained

The PC Zone

One of the things I learned as a younger man was that for every experiment, for this is actually what we are doing, one needs to ensure that four key bases are covered - apparatus, method, results and then you need to draw a conclusion.

We need the right apparatus, ie the tools or resources to do the job. That is why we started with our members, all of which are content creators and owners. We also needed to work with the right people who had expertise in collecting, collating and manipulating the raw sales data. That should be a company who is not a content creator or owner, but who is independent, with a proven track record and above all has provenance.

That's why we decided to extend our deal with Gfk Chart-Track and work with them on this project, something which has been negotiated and covered by formal contract recently. That means that ELSPA, and therefore its members, will own this chart - which is a fundamental win for content owners and makers.

Indeed, it's funny how history has a habit of repeating itself. It was back in October 1995 that Gallup informed the games industry via ELSPA that they no longer wanted to produce the games charts and left the industry without a chart producing partner. Staff from Gallup teamed up with ELSPA to set up Chart-Track in March 1996, a case of 'get on and do it ourselves,' and the rest is history. We know that in Gfk Chart-Track we have the right partner to work on this challenging experiment. After that we need to engage with more content makers and owners outside of the ELSPA membership, but that bit comes later.

Ways and Means

Next up is method. This is one of the key challenges as the digital download world is quite different from the traditional boxed goods world. Currently, within the PC games market, there are two charts - Budget and Full Price. Full Price is defined as any product sold for £15 or above within UK retail and Budget is everything below this price point.

The sale is measured through the retail tills against the barcode and Chart-Track estimates to cover about 85 per cent of the market in terms of retail outlets. The chart is compiled from sales of boxed goods both online and high street starting on Sunday morning and running through to Saturday night. ELSPA took the decision last year to invest in ensuring that these charts are published on Mondays now - so traditional boxed product sales charts are well defined and exist without too much debate.

Not quite the same over in the digital space, as there are many more things to consider, such as the variation and freedom of price points - namely that there are no defined price points and infinite pricing flexibility. Unlike within traditional retail, pricing changes are immediate and can go up or down depending on the owner's strategy.

Indeed the landscape is incredibly layered. There are licensing models based on rental through to ownership and content models that include full games, downloadable add-on packs, and in-game item sales. Payment methods vary, from old school style single purchase, through to micro-transactions and full subscription models.

Then there are different packaging models ranging from single games to genre, brand and publisher/developer bundles. With all this in mind, we needed to start small and work hard to get bigger and more comprehensive... but start we must.

For the chart to have any meaning, it must feature items for which a comparison is valid. For that reason we decided to restrict the chart initially to full-price sales of solus SKUs. If bundles are to be included in sales data provided then they should be included as a different SKU. At a later stage we hope to be able to introduce a budget price chart, although this may require a price banding structure to be defined.

The main digital download chart will include short-term discount sales of titles otherwise sold at full price - for example that may include an online digital retailer's 'Weekend Sale' and in general will include all unit sales where products are not distributed free of charge to the end consumer. So our result, if you will, will be a weekly full-price PC downloads for sale to consumers based in the UK.