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Commitment

Every substantive claimhas an identifiable origin.

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Methodology

This page describes how Ludodata sources, calculates and cites. It exists so that anyone can retrace the path of a claim published here and arrive at the same result.

The golden rule

Every substantive claim published on Ludodata has an identifiable origin. Each article lists its sources at the end. This is not merely an editorial promise: the system that builds this site refuses to publish an article with no declared source.

Nature and precedence of sources

Every cited source answers two separate questions: what it is, and how much weight it carries when it disagrees with another. The answer to the second depends on the kind of claim at stake, so it cannot be reduced to a single list.

Nature

Every source belongs to one of these categories:

Three rules govern classification:

Precedence

Where sources disagree, which one prevails depends on what is being claimed.

On what a rule says — what a law requires, what a standard asks for — the text of the legislation or standard itself prevails. Academic literature, books and the press interpret the rule but do not replace it. Legislation and standards do not compete with each other: the law compels, the standard defines how.

On external, verifiable facts — figures, dates, credits, what happened — the source closest to the fact prevails, in this order:

  1. Official
  2. Academic
  3. Technical
  4. Book and press, on the same level; where they disagree, the one that declares its own sources prevails
  5. Statement

On intent and decision-making — why a studio chose a given path, what a designer meant to do — the statement of the person who decided is the source closest to the claim, and therefore the best one, not the worst. It is presented as that person's account, and where documents from the time contradict it, the disagreement is recorded.

On interpretation — the state of a question, a theoretical debate — there is no precedence: where there is no consensus, competing positions are presented side by side.

Anonymous or unverifiable information is not published as fact. Where cited, it is identified as such.

Financial analysis

Articles in the Industry section start from documents published by the companies themselves: annual reports, financial statements, investor presentations and regulatory filings.

Every article in that section states:

Differing fiscal years

Game companies close their fiscal years in different months. Comparisons across companies with differing year-ends carry an explicit note about the gap, and are not presented as equivalent when they are not.

Company dashboard ratios

Each company dashboard stores the lines of the financial statements, with the page of the document each figure came from, and calculates the ratios from them:

Net income and equity are those attributable to owners of the parent. Revenue change is a percentage over the previous fiscal year; margin, debt ratio and ROE change in percentage points; current ratio, as a number. Figures stay in the original currency, unconverted, and the full data can be downloaded as CSV from each dashboard.

Each fiscal year comes from the report published for that year, and the page cited is the one in that document where the figure actually appears. Later reports carry the same year as a comparative, but do not replace the original figure. When a company restates a fiscal year already published, the dashboard keeps the original figure, and the analyst reading records what changed and the reason the company gave.

Currency conversion

Figures are presented first in their original currency. Where converted, the rate and date are stated. Converted historical series carry a note on the effect of exchange rate movement over the period.

Sustainability

Articles in the Sustainability section separate three layers: what the company claims, what the report demonstrates, and what the disclosure standard requires. The reference frameworks are GRI, SASB and IFRS S1 and S2, plus the CSRD where applicable.

Where a report has been externally assured, we state who assured it and at what level. Where it has not, we state that too.

Game analysis

The Games section documents how a game was made and by whom. It does not assign scores and does not judge whether a game is good.

Information on engine, technology and team comes from official credits, developer documentation, technical presentations and named interviews. Claims of technical firsts require a source that supports them. Where sources disagree on credits, the disagreement is recorded.

Knowledge

Articles in the Knowledge section draw on academic literature, books and legislation, with citations following Brazilian ABNT standards. Where the literature has no consensus, competing positions are presented rather than one being treated as settled.

Fact, analysis and opinion

Ludodata separates verifiable data, interpretation of that data, and the author's position. This separation is reflected in the structure of articles, and interpretation is never presented as if it were the data.

Third-party images and material

Game images, cover art, artwork and logos belong to their rights holders. Ludodata uses them in the context of analysis and criticism, with credit, preferring press materials released by the companies themselves. Videos are always embedded from official channels, never hosted here.

References always point to the original, at the address of whoever published it. Ludodata does not host copies of third-party articles, books or reports, except when the material is in the public domain or under a licence that allows it, or when the original has gone offline and a copy is needed for verification — cases in which the origin and the licence are stated.

Errors

Errors are corrected visibly and with a date, never deleted quietly. TheCorrections page describes the procedure.

What we don't know

Where data is unavailable, where a comparison does not hold, or where the evidence is insufficient, the article says so explicitly. Declaring the limits of what was found is part of the method.

Revisions to this page

This methodology will be revised as the site evolves. Substantive changes will be recorded here with their date.