Undercover Sarcastic Gamer reporters have been following the trail of this story for months and we’re excited to report that we finally have some solid news to report. You may have read in the gaming press about NPD numbers and how they “reportedly” reflect console and game sales across a large number of retailers (although not all of them). We’ve uncovered proof that the numbers are not only manipulated, but are completely FOR SALE!

NPD, or “Nickels, Pennies, Dimes” as we’ve learned they’re referred to by a tight circle of “puppet masters” in the gaming industry have a super secret price list that allows select individual to “order” performance stats. To prove out suspicions, one of our undercover reporters posed as an executive from a large videogame publisher that we’ll secretly refer to as Asstivision (that name’s COMPLETELY made up, so don’t try to figure out who we might be referring to).

Read the rest of the sordid details, after the jump!

We were told by an anonymous liaison met via Craig’s List that for a penny, we could order a “single unit sold” whereas a nickel would get us “ten units sold” and a dime would get us “twenty five units sold”. To test out our theory, we pooled the Sarcastic Gamer embedded reporter fund and ordered $.45 worth of Call of Duty 4 sales. When the numbers came in, it was clear that our “bought” 110 units (four dimes and a nickel) were reflected in the inflated sales numbers.

When approached by one of our non-undercover reporters to comment on this, the NPD representative refused to comment, handed us his car keys with $2, and coyly said “park it somewhere safe”. Such bribes may get them silence from gaming press of less integrity than Sarcastic Gamer, but rest assured readers, we will get to the bottom of this!

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