Opinion polling companies use something called stratified sampling. They question a few thousand people, but they're very carefully chosen to be representative of the overall population in age, gender, wealth etc and the results can then be projected onto the whole population with a relatively small error (typically a few percent). And yet they still get things wrong. But if you just put a poll up on Twitter you might get thousands of reponses, but it would be pretty meaningless because people who answer polls on Twitter aren't representative of the general population. And similarly, people who post on these forums aren't necessarily representative of everybody who buys (or might buy) the game. That's not to say that the feedback they get here isn't useful - DTG have frequently acknowledged that it is - but basing their marketing and development decisions purely on what's said here and nothing else wouldn't be a good idea.
I would still argue that based off of TSW's playerbase the forum would be a good indicator of opinion much better odds than these polling companies. Where these polling companies go wrong is that they don't take into account that people change their minds, how could they? Whereas on the forum comments tend to stick around. Obviously scaling it up would not work at all but given that TSW has a niche playerbase even with Sam making surveys biased the overall opinion of the forum is better than DTG making stuff up for instance.
It isn't representative. There's a pool of (guesstimate) 200 odd people who post semi regularly on here, with about 30 of those being very frequent posters (guesstimate again, I ain't counting). The 30-odd are hardcore train nerds that want their sim to be as accurate as possible (note this isn't meant to be derogatory, I include myself here as a train nerd), with varying levels of constructive input, positive or negative. The rest of the 200 odd are the people who like trains a fair bit and might purchase 50-75% of DLC, and may post opinions or suggestions, again in varying levels of constructivity (new word for you there gang). The rest of the posts are made up from things like new members asking for help, troll accounts, sockpuppets and the like Consider the following: - Last we heard, 2/3 of playerbase is console - Guesstimate, some 70% of console users are kids or young adults - Of those, let's say that 5% (probably generous here) have a passing interest in trains This is your representative market. This is the silent majority people talk about. This is the set of people who see trains, play it for a few hours and shelve it again until the next DLC comes around that they might have a passing interest in (and are only aware of through ads on the console feed), and are the people that make up 2/3 of DTGs TSW revenue Like it or not, 200 odd train nerds on a forum are not the primary market. Their opinions will be listened to, and in some way will shape the direction TSW goes, but in no way shape or form are they representative of the majority playerbase, or (much as they might like to think otherwise), major financial contributors to DTGs finances
Your numbers are very subjective at best. You guess 70% are console players, are you saying console players do not have a PC or even a phone in which to access the forums. While you insulting the forum members calling them 'trolls' you seem to have left out the Fan Boys which can be just as annoying as a Troll. You can't go round quoting statistics and then come out with 'guess estimate, I ain't counting' your statement is rendered meaningless. I don't care if you don't the forums, that is your opinion. Guess what? IMO I think the forum is more or less representative.
Sure, wasn't meant to be antagonistic, but you need to re-read my post. I didn't say or guess 70% are console players. DTG have said themselves that the split is roughly three way equals between PC, Xbox and PS. Xbox plus PS makes two thirds of TSW playerbase, console players. The rest of your post is just rubbish since I was specifically referring to new accounts created to flame here to stir things up, hence trolls and sockpuppets with postcounts of 10 or whatever
One also has to consider the downward trend in reviews on Steam, and (I would venture) the Microsoft and Playstation stores. Not only are those a proxy, they affect sales.
A factor, absolutely, the silent majority will of course use them to some extent to assist their decision to purchase whatever DLC (though PS doesn't have reviews at all, and I think they ditched the star ratings at release of PS5). What percentage of that silent majority use reviews is something that we'll never know though, and some of the "reviews" on Steam are... questionable. But this applies everywhere, see Trustpilot for perfect examples in just about any market sector
