Who listens to analysts?

My part: 
Finally, someone saying it like it is.  Analysts annoy me,with their stating the bleeding obvious or pulling a guess out of their arse.  They are only relevant to the stock market and if I was buying shares in games company, I would trust my own judgement thank you very much. 
 
So how do you guys see analysts and what this guy has to say? 
  
 
Story - not my part:

Posted October 16, 2009 by Joel Edgeworth in Featured, Features.

We all know about analysts; if you spend time cruising video game websites it is impossible to avoid them. Whenever there is big gaming news or rumours, they are there. Whenever there is a whisper or a leak, they are there. Analysts are always at the scene, and we lap up their words. But why? Why should we listen and believe what they tell us?

Lets look at some of their many past goofs; They predicted that Mass effect 1 and 2 were coming to the PS3, they predicted that the iPhones gaming service would never take off, they predicted Sony would release a non Blu-ray PS3, they claimed the PS3 would be in first position and the Wii would fall to third by 2010, they claimed the next Zelda would release in 2009, they said we would see the DS2 in 2008 and they predicted a PS3 price drop of $100 in April 2009.

Those are all pretty hefty claims, none of which have come to fruition. So why exactly do we give them credibility? And let’s not forget that the Gamecube would dominate the sixth generation due to its low price point. These are the instances where analysts have gone against the flow, something which doesn’t work.

This proverbial ‘flow’ is actually where analysts predict something that it is impossible to get wrong. For example, sales of the PS3 Slim will cause shortages of the PS3 Slim, the massively hyped, cross-platform GTA IV will outsell the Xbox 360 exclusive Halo 3, Wii and DS will sell millions in December and a shortage of Wii Fit’s will mean it sells less copies. This is simply common sense; we don’t need analysts telling us what we already know.

A lot of ‘analysts’ are now taking a new tactic of predicting something so far ahead that, if it actually happens, they look like psychics; and if it doesn’t, then it was so long ago nobody remembers them even saying it. For example,  the PS3 will overtake 360 sales in 2015. Nobody will ever remember them saying that, so if it doesn’t happen then oh well, we all move on. But if it does happen, they can say they saw it coming 6 years ago and look like geniuses.

Analysts don’t have much credibility. None of them predicted the raging succes of the Wii, or Wii Fit, or any of the surprises we saw this generation. When they try to predict something we don’t expect, they get it wrong. When they try to predict something we could work out in using our own common sense, it’s a waste of time. Should we listen to these analysts? No, we shouldn’t. There are no valid reasons at all why we should. Just ignore them and they might go away.

Fanboys care the most I'd say.  Gamers shouldn't really care, but maybe you can gain some real insight into the industry by listening to these people even when they're wrong, if you're interested in the industry itself.
 
Just like CEOs and marketers, I feel a lot of random people on forums could do a better job than analysts at their own job, especially with the extra data they get.

When they speak, I always take it with a grain of salt. When they are wrong, I like seeing that salt go into their wound. I think we only see the peripheral of their jobs, the entertainment version if you will. I like them. They give me food for fodder.

Who listens to them? Sadly, investors, business managers, the works. Everyone they talk to that isn't a gamer and therefor needs their advice basically. Too bad they also aren't gamers (for the most part, or not passionate ones) and don't really understand the industry they're analysing as they restrict themselves to just the data and don't seem to really understand the context of that data which is just as important in such an industry. A bullet points list in the back of the box isn't how you judge a game as even the worst of all will have a list sounding similar to the best, and in a similar manner just seeing what moves are done "on paper" in the industry doesn't give a good indication of what is really happening.

" Who listens to them? Sadly, investors, business managers, the works. Everyone they talk to that isn't a gamer and therefor needs their advice basically. Too bad they also aren't gamers (for the most part, or not passionate ones) and don't really understand the industry they're analysing as they restrict themselves to just the data and don't seem to really understand the context of that data which is just as important in such an industry. A bullet points list in the back of the box isn't how you judge a game as even the worst of all will have a list sounding similar to the best, and in a similar manner just seeing what moves are done "on paper" in the industry doesn't give a good indication of what is really happening. "

Investors who don't understand games look to analysts to tell them wtf is going on with them, if they would just read some game sites they might know enough to make some halfway decent predictions on their own without paying out thousands to hacks.

Investors mainly, people with deep pockets looking to make money on what they see as a strange part of society but hey it makes money to they want a part of that too. 
 
They do serve a purpose, it's good to have a non company tied predictor out there because sometimes we just cannot trust gaming websites 100% of the time (except giant bomb of course).  I don't mind the idea of someone calling or predicting for a change in the video game culture or businesses. 
  
This is probably one of the only industries that not only has sudo celebrities out of analysts but also within the buying market, we listen so closely to then, agree or disagree and its plastered on the internet. You really don't see that in another other industry, the takers of Viagra don't listen to analysts about how Viagra will be doing next year.

 Michael Pachter is my god

"  Michael Pachter is my god "

"  You really don't see that in another other industry, the takers of Viagra don't listen to analysts about how Viagra will be doing next year. "

" @Iceland said:

"  Michael Pachter is my god "

Then you sir, have a crappy religion  ^-^ 
 

I'd be interested to see how much Michael Pachter actually get's right. Because so far, besides the blatantly obvious statements he's made, he's usually wrong.

" @oldschool said: 

" @Iceland said: 

"  Michael Pachter is my god "

Then you sir, have a crappy religion  ^-^ 
 

 <img src="http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/facepalm.gif"/>   Humor is wasted on the ignorant "

I expect this topic to reach 100 posts by January 2012.

" I expect this topic to reach 100 posts by January 2012. "

I'm an official bikini inspector, does that make me a sort of analyst?

" I'm an official bikini inspector, does that make me a sort of analyst? "

" @DanielJW said:

" I'm an official bikini inspector, does that make me a sort of analyst? "

No, just slightly creepy  ^-^ "

" @oldschool said:

" @DanielJW said:

" I'm an official bikini inspector, does that make me a sort of analyst? "

No, just slightly creepy  ^-^ "

What if I told you the number of one-piece swim suits was going to increase by 14% over the next two quarters? "  

Pachter is a talking-head whose presence on game sites baffles me.  At this point, he is a pontificating celebrity and like most celebrities, contributes nothing of value to the conversation at any time.  The only reason I can come up with to explain his persistent appearances in gaming media is lazy video game journalism.  It's a lot easier to report that Pachter said the PS3 motion controller will cost $100 and Natal will retail at $50 than to come up with something original or something that provides real insight into the gaming industry.  I guess you could say that some of the things he says spurs conversation among game enthusiasts, but I think it's only the level of your average pub-debate, i.e. Who's hotter: Ginger or Mary Ann?  There's no real depth to the discourse since most of it is based around opinion and hypotheticals.  I can understand his usefulness to the stock market since most brokers wouldn't be able to tell Mario from Monkey Island, but why the game press seems to fawn over his every statement is disappointing. 

too boring and im not interested

if anyone knows of any good analysts do post them up here...

This has got to be one of the strangest things you've posted in these forums to this date, oldschool.
 
You tell us that analysts were 'incorrect' in predicting a new DS by 2008 (they were off by 1 year), a $100 price drop on the PS3 in April (they were off by 4 months), and a new Zelda in 2009 (Spirit Tracks will be out in '10, so again, off by 1 year), and then go on to assert that any time an analyst gets it RIGHT, it's only because they were "going with the flow", well that's a fucking ridiculous thesis to state! "Every time you're wrong you're an idiot and every time you're right you might as well have not said anything at all!" What the fuck?!

While it is true that video game purchasers probably needn't concern themselves with the soothsaying of analysts, that is not to say that market analysts are worthless human beings with nothing but bad predictions to offer people. I mean, if that were the case, firms that hedge against the market would not need to exist (though admittedly, many of the hedging instruments in financial markets exist only because the markets are manipulated by governments in particular ways. e.g. currency-value disparity only occurs when currencies are issued by governments, or their notional value is dictated by governments), and they would have been wrong about the 2008 financial crisis, which many of them weren't.

I'm assuming this thread is because someone said bad things about the Wii, correct?

" This has got to be one of the strangest things you've posted in these forums to this date, oldschool.  You tell us that analysts were 'incorrect' in predicting a new DS by 2008 (they were off by 1 year), a $100 price drop on the PS3 in April (they were off by 4 months), and a new Zelda in 2009 (Spirit Tracks will be out in '10, so again, off by 1 year), and then go on to assert that any time an analyst gets it RIGHT, it's only because they were "going with the flow", well that's a fucking ridiculous thesis to state!"

Because it's irrelevant? I'm sure oldschool merely speaks for people who get attention by the media, hyping their predictions despite being often wrong for their most hyped ones. Ie, Pachter. He doesn't concern himself with people he never hears about or full reports because, well, they don't flaunt their stuff for us to see, they keep it professional, they do their job, and don't become media whores.

Btw given the links I think this is a copy paste of an article on another website, not oldschool's pure opinion on the matter. So, fail Handsome.

Am I the only one who likes  Pachter on the gametrailers segments he is on?  I think he has interesting things to say and I love predictions, so its fun to see if they come to pass.  Also he is a self-admitted mainstream gamer, and so gives some good perspective on that.  Most of the other guests are hardcore gamers.

Nope, it shouldn't. It concerns analysts who are media whores.

I think that calls for a new thread, if you really want to know. I think most people have a certain view of media whores & I don't feel like arguing what is or isn't one. If it offends you, then consider I said "analysts who have attention by the media" then. It's not the media we judge, it's what we see of the analysts we judge, hence the thread. The media didn't make up the hyped false predictions. Just the hype, which some welcomed.

Well, again, that's one way of looking at it, as I said before. Feel free to look at it that way but merely repeating won't make others agree.

As for what they offer, being paid doesn't mean they're doing well. I said what I think about that in my first response about who listens to them. And no, obviously we don't judge every single analyst out there despite the title. Only those we have seen, ie those with media attention.

" I'm assuming this thread is because someone said bad things about the Wii, correct? "

" @oldschool: I think they do. What the media shows us of the analytics industry is the tip of the iceberg. "

" @HandsomeDead said:

" I'm assuming this thread is because someone said bad things about the Wii, correct? "

Welcome back HD.  I still like your old stuff better than your new stuff.  Now you are just trying too hard.  It's just sad."

I like sports analysts... not video game ones.

" Finally, someone saying it like it is.  Analysts annoy me,with their stating the bleeding obvious or pulling a guess out of their arse.  They are only relevant to the stock market and if I was buying shares in games company, I would trust my own judgement thank you very much. 
 listen to these analysts? No, we shouldn’t. There are no valid reasons at all why we should. Just ignore them and they might go away. "

No, I don't think the PS3 AND 360 will be around in 2015.
 
And I agree. I do not listen to analysts. What they say about video games or what companies will do never has any relevance to, well, what us gamers know.

" @oldschool said:

" @HandsomeDead said:

" I'm assuming this thread is because someone said bad things about the Wii, correct? "

Welcome back HD.  I still like your old stuff better than your new stuff.  Now you are just trying too hard.  It's just sad."

No you don't. You've been telling me you liked my 'old stuff' for a long time now. Also, considering Claude's recent boohooing thread about people not liking the Wii, I'm just making an educated guess. Am I right or wrong though? "

" Hilarious.  I'm not sure why you would point this at just games.  Nobody can predict an accurate future about anything!  That's why people such as Futurists don't specify one future when trying to make predictions. What they do is create multiple outcomes. One outcome is the expected future, ie, what happens in 5-20 years if everything stays the same.  Then they have alternative futures: change a few of the variables & what happens to the future then?  Lastly, there is the desired future. Ie, what can we do to CHANGE the outcome so that it falls more inline with what everyone in that set of the future would prefer.   Usually with futurists, they have a larger scale area to work on their futuring...the one I learned about is STEEP...Sociological/cultural, Technological, Economical, Environmental, & Political.  Whenever you want to make some kind of large prediction, you have to look at all those categories to see what it effects.
 
Well, dropping down to mere video games or any specific subset, it would be incredibly difficult to just make some arbitrary, single-future prediction.  As you have said, somebody can go back & point out where somebody made the correct prediction, but nobody listened or nobody cared, maybe the analyst who said it also didn't believe his own words?  Or they never got it right.  
 
Face it, anyone can make a prediction about anything & be proved right or wrong in the past tense.  I think what you would want to do is listen to multiple analysts for a viewpoint, but not as something "that is written & shall come to pass" down the road.

 
 
@oldschool said:

" Finally, someone saying it like it is.  Analysts annoy me,with their stating the bleeding obvious or pulling a guess out of their arse.  They are only relevant to the stock market and if I was buying shares in games company, I would trust my own judgement thank you very much. 
 listen to these analysts? No, we shouldn’t. There are no valid reasons at all why we should. Just ignore them and they might go away. "

" @oldschool: I don't like the word whore because it belies a level of disrespect for a person doing something from which they profit, and I don't want to be a hypocrite so I won't call anyone a whore. Based on that, I wouldn't call an analyst who shows up on the internet or on television a "whore" for the media, because all they're doing is promoting themselves and the company they work for. "

" @oldschool: I absorb the word "whore" as a backhanded insult to the profit motive.  Anyways, prostitutes don't really "love" the attention they get from their customers, they usually do it because they have limited options imposed on them for making ends meet or for paying bad debts, or for continuing drug habits; so to equate Michael Pachter with a "whore" in the way you have is both unfair to Mr. Pachter and to prostitutes.I mean, by your logic, I would be an "e-mail whore" for using the medium of e-mails for sending out resumes in an attempt to find employment, and if I got a sense of satisfaction from this process (which I don't. I just want to work, and this is the method that has been imposed on me for finding work.)And since I don't actually get satisfaction from this process, but do it any way (because I need to find work), it would be more accurate to refer to me as a whore and not Mr. Pachter. But again, I would object to that characterization, because it would be vilifying a person for taking non-coercive action in order to sustain their lives. "

" @oldschool: I'd rather take the opposite tack and say that no one is a whore. There is no reason to coin a derogatory term for the act of production to sustain one's life, all it does is cause unnecessary strife.  And no, I didn't mean for that to rhyme. "