Attention Game Shoppers

When a new game candidate was considered for launch into mass market retail, two basic question were always asked of sales and marketing, "How many units will each of the top five accounts order?" And, will all accounts order X00,000 units annually where  X=3, 4 or 5?  Fair questions. Without strong sales forecasts, the numbers just wouldn't support attempts to launch a new SKU onto shelves at Walmart, Target, TRU, and K-Mart (today, the fifth account no longer exists). After all, those retail shelves are the display cases for mass-market consumer eyeballs to view games in the land of "doorbuster sales".
Very often good playing games failed to reach forecasts needed to be judged as having "hit" potential and were returned to inventors. Fortunately, now inventors with new and interesting games are getting the attention of consumer eyeballs not at retail but rather on digital internet displays. One example of such a display is a collection of games selected by Matthew Baldwin as worthwhile for gamers' playtime in themorningnews.com. It is safe to say, none of these games can be found on the shelves of the mass retailers. Potential consumers of any of these games will quite likely order from amazon.com, funagain.com, boardgamegeek.com, or other such e-commerce sites and not deal with a cashier in check out lanes at the mall. So, what does X = for the marketer in the ethernet arena?