Number of customers / players

[SodanKerjuu]

I believe it's to minimize jealousy and rivalry between developers.

They came out of nowhere and blew the competition out of the water

What competition? *insert trollface*

[Billick]

It really puzzles me why Valve doesn't want to release sales figures. You'd think it would be useful for promotion to say "X game sold Y million copies!" I think it would also be good publicity for PC games in general.

[seebs]

I'd think that a company that uses multiple such networks could in theory be allowed to release total sales numbers. But then each place could guess at the sales of the others a bit... yeah.

[Loktofeit]

That does sound odd. Even though steam don't release the figures themselves I can't imagine why they would object to the devs doing it. But what do I know.
Maybe cause they don't want to get a discussion of royalties etc.

One reason is that if a developer gives out their numbers, they are effectively giving out someone else's to a certain degree. For example, if a game is the second best seller and it sold 20,000 units one day, people will then calculate/infer/twist/distort/assume/etc that #1 sold over 20k and #3 sold less than 20k for whatever time period best suits their sensationalistic site article or their agenda-driven troll post. This has the potential to negatively impact other developers in a variety of ways, primarily in the perception of the success or popularity of their product.

[donut]

thought it was OK to reveal sales #s on games, as long as they dont say what the exact # is for a particular store avenue. like, they could say "our game sold # copies total", but not say "our game sold # on Steam and # on GoG".

have seen other devs state the sales of their games. even go as far to say "our game sold more on Steam then GoG, for a total of # sales".

its a bit too early to announce sales #s, anyway. the game hasnt even been out a month yet.

[Loktofeit]

thought it was OK to reveal sales #s on games, as long as they dont say what the exact # is for a particular store avenue. like, they could say "our game sold # copies total", but not say "our game sold # on Steam and # on GoG".

have seen other devs state the sales of their games. even go as far to say "our game sold more on Steam then GoG, for a total of # sales".

its a bit too early to announce sales #s, anyway. the game hasnt even been out a month yet.

It's common to do when your numbers are untouchable (ex: COD, Skyrim, WOW, Sims, Pokemon).

[eharper256]

I'd say this was a pretty damn good indication of the awesome number of players and Grimrock's success:

Considering the competition is Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, the latest Tales Game and Final Fantasy, all one can say is 'CRIKEY!' in your best Steve Irwin voice.

[Keefy]

Which website is that top 10 from?

[eharper256]

Which website is that top 10 from?

Sorry, thought it would be easily recognised: its GameFAQs. The rankings are not sales, but rather, the number of people looking up that game, talking on forums about it, and/or looking for FAQ's and help on that game.