As we’ve said in the past, we strongly believe that analysts should simply stop spreading rumors (and gaming sites should stop paying attention to them). You see, most of the times those analysts are speculating without any hard evidence, something that… well… pretty much everyone can do. So why in the world would someone take an analyst’s word over something, when most of them have failed to deliver? Ironic, isn’t it? What’s even more ironic is that this article is based on those analysts (and some of you could say “Hey dude, why do you bother if you believe that they don’t deserve our attention?“). Well the answer is simple; because we love the truth and because time is the greatest judge of all. Oh, and to prove our claim that analysts are not needed in the gaming industry.

GTA V is a hot topic and everyone wants to speculate on it. These pasts months, most of our well-known analysts have predicted a 2013 release window. Damn they are good, ain’t they? But what happened to their earlier predictions that were made back in 2010 and 2011? The ones that made a lot of gamers anticipate Rockstar’s title in November 2012 (actually some of our friends wondered why the game got delayed as ‘they’ said that it would come in November)? The ones claiming that GTA V would be the ‘biggest 2012 release, surpassing the next Call of Duty game’?

So, let’s go back in time, shall we? In June 1st, 2012, Jesse Divnich (VP Insights & Analysis at EEDAR) told X360 magazine that GTA V was definitely coming in 2012:

“Rockstar is methodical with its release planning and I am confident that Rockstar will not launch Grand Theft Auto V until they believe it can receive critical acclaim (90+ review score). It is definitely coming in 2012”

Jesse then revised his prediction, claiming that GTA V would miss its 2012 release window and could slip to 2013. Something that most of you could predict as there was a road-map for Take Two’s game releases during its conference call.

Michael Pachter was also wrong on his predictions. In April, Pachter claimed that GTA V would release on October 23rd, 2012. What’s also funny here is that Pachter thought that Rockstar would unveil Grand Theft Auto V’s details a day before E3 2012. Well, we all know what happened, right? And that’s how you start inaccurate rumors about things you don’t have solid clues about.

But let’s go further back in time, because the fun stuff begins in 2011 and 2010. In December 2011, EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich claimed that GTA V (and not the next Call of Duty game) would generate the most sales next year. As Divnich claimed:

“It goes without saying that GTA V will be one of the year’s biggest releases, but I will take it one step farther and say GTA V will be 2012’s biggest release.”

Two strikes for Divnich.

Back in November 2011, Michael Pachter has made another faulty prediction about Rockstar’s sandbox title, suggesting a Summer 2012 release:

“We believe Rockstar Games is modeling a 4 to 6 month marketing window for their upcoming GTA V release, suggesting a Summer ’12 launch period.”

Pachter also claimed that Rockstar would want to steal everyone’s attention, and would do so with a launch in front of E3. Seriously Pachter? You should know that Rockstar does not need such things as it’s guaranteed that GTA V will steal everyone’s attention when it comes out, even if it gets released alongside the next Call of Duty and Battlefield games. It’s THAT big.

Two strikes and for Pachter. But hold on to your buts because here comes the third strike for Divnich. Back in May 2011, Divnich predicted that GTA V would come out this November:

“Personally, I’d go with November 2012. The market has been so over-saturated with FPS that there is and will be considerable demand for sandbox action based titles for the next 3 years.”

Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research had also predicted that GTA V would come out in 2012, though that analyst was kind enough to add that Rockstar’s title would get a Q3 or Q4 2012 release at the earliest.

Returning to Pachter, in February 2011 the analyst said that a release sometime prior to January 2012 made a lot of sense, because that’s when the contracts for several key individuals at Rockstar expired.

And the list goes on and on. Apart from GTA V’s release, those ‘so accurate’ analysts have also predicted some figures for the game’s sales. Hilarious. Now some of you may say that their latest predictions are spot on. Well how about this; what if we made up a big story (say Uncharted 3 coming to PC in 2014) and claimed we had real evidence to back it up. What if we were – at first – the only ones suggesting such a thing? And let’s say that in January 2014 we claimed that Sony decided to put the project on hold indefinitely (suggesting that there wasn’t any ETA for it). Should we then say to ourselves that two wrongs make a right? We think not.

All in all, the aforementioned analysts have been proved wrong a number of times, and that’s why we don’t need gaming analysts as everyone can come up with such predictions. In fact, if we were predicting such things, we would be blamed for spreading rumors and making up stories. Fans would call us useless for posting such things, claiming to be doing it for just a mere amount of pageviews. Even if there was a follow-up with a more accurate prediction, a lot of gamers would bash us for trying to correct our baseless predictions. But why don’t they say the same thing about those analysts? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

So yes, it’s time those analysts start thinking really carefully what they have to say before spreading rumors or ‘predictions’ about triple-A games. Because most of them are no better than small, indie, fake blogs that are trying to boost their pageviews with any means necessary. And that says a lot!