Category: Beautiful Data (Page 2 of 3)

A Rare Flurry of Linkworthy Blogtivity

April 12, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Lots of good reading on the web today. Be sure you check some of these out.

First off, Scott talks about the Armory, and his surprise that the villagers haven’t gone to Irvine with pitchforks.

Blizzard should enforce 100% opt-in for the Armory because:

– Tactical transparency in PvP is important
– The ability to research other players in game is important
– The ability to research message board posters is important
– It’s just a game, who cares, Blizzard is cool and we like them
– stfu noob lrn2ply

Blizzard should offer an opt-out for the Armory because:

– Some people don’t want to have their player’s data open to ridicule or data mining

At first glance, it seems fairly conclusive. And given Blizzard’s stated stance on in-game privacy (they’ve been quoted as saying that an /anon command goes against what they see as the social nature of MMOs) it’s doubtful that this decision would be reversed.

Here’s VGCharts

January 3, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Whose winning this generation’s console wars? According to VGCharts, a site I just found, the answer is the XBox 360. Unless you count the DS, in which case the DS is winning handily. Take a looksee.

Also of interest is their top games of 2006 in North America. While these numbers do not include December yet (which should vastly inflate them, as Christmas is prime time for the games industry), a quick glance at the numbers shows the industry as being in quite a slump. In 2004, 13 games sold more than a million copies, with 4 besting the 2 million mark. In 2006, by comparison, 8 games bested the million mark, with only Madden crossing into two. Consider: GTA San Andreas was, according to this list, the 10th best selling game of the year. It shipped in 2004.

Hopefully we’ll see a rebound this year, as all three new consoles hit their stride.

WoW Launches Metrics Site

November 30, 2006 / Damion Schubert

WoW is now posting up-to-date information on most lethal monsters, most auctioned items, Here, take a look.

Interesting note: right at the top of the list of Most Dangerous Creatures, along with stalwarts like Onyxia and Drek’Thar, we find…. Defias Pillager, scourge of the noob. Which sums up why I as a designer love data mining so much – it helps you actually identify the lumps in the carpet that need whackin’.

Original comments thread is here.

Gribblenation’s NFL Maps.

November 27, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Ever wanted to know which parts of the country gets which football games? Then check out this extremely cool data visualization.

It does bring up interesting questions, though: for example, why is LA watching New Orleans and Atlanta instead of San Francisco? (Week 12) Why is most of Tennessee subjected to Buffalo vs. Jacksonville? (Week 12) Is Brett Favre’s hometown in Mississippi the only place in the South forced to watch Green Bay vs. Minnesota? (Week 10)

More Cool Graphs from PARC

September 11, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I love the PlayOn guys. Even though I find myself frequently questioning their methodology, they always ask interesting questions which makes me think about the games I’m building. Here’s a really simple one, based on levelling time in WoW. Take a look.

The shape of the graph is really interesting, with a slight dip at level 39, followed by a huge spike at 40. This, most likely, is caused by mounts. People grind through 39 as fast as they can to get the mount, then afterwards enjoy an emotional release. Perhaps they are relaxing after slavishly grinding, perhaps they’re focusing on earning cash to buy the mount, or possibly they’re just joyously exploring the world with their new speed buff. At any rate, it shows how powerful strong ‘threshold’ rewards can be in motivating players.

Also of interest: a lot of battlegrounds players will choose not to level up once they hit the highest level in a battleground level band (i.e. staying at level 29 so they can rule the 20-29 battleground). As such, you’d expect to see some spikes at the -9s. This doesn’t appear to be evident at all, although I note that their samples are on PvE servers. It would be interesting to see the same graph on a PvP servers, where players might be more likely to min-max for the battleground experience.

A Return to Baseball

July 10, 2006 / Damion Schubert

A week and a half ago, I came home from work to my fiancee watching a baseball game. “I’ve decided to like baseball,” she said.

Before this, her interest in any sport at all was none. If not negative. Any sports fan who has ever dated a non-sports fan knows that this is kind of like finding plutonium in the backyard – extremely exciting, but absolutely necessary to handle with complete care. Continue reading

6-6-06

June 6, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I was a toddler when The Omen came out and changed my life forever. I wouldn’t actually see the film for another decade.

According to The Baby Name Wizard, a whole bunch of people chose to name their kids Damion/Damien/Damian in the 1970s. Interestingly, Damian-with-an-a was more popular than the movie-sanctioned and obviously more evil looking Damien-with-an-e. My parent’s choice, Damion-with-an-o, has always come in last place. Continue reading

GoogleTrends – Google’s Shiny New Toy

May 10, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Google’s Trend Tracker is the coolest thing ever (kudos to the fiancee for pointing it out). Compare, for example, this graph seeing how the smaller MMOs compete for attention.

Even more interesting is looking at the World of Warcraft vs EQ2 graph. Shortly before launch, the two weren’t that far apart in terms of attention and buzz, but the gap widened once they went live. Sure, there are undoubtedly other reasons for it, but one wonders if there is some sort of tipping point in between the two lines on the graph, which resulted in one game hitting critical mass and the other not doing so. Continue reading

Tracking Jack Muthafuckin’ Bauer

January 24, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Somebody has finally found a cool and interesting use of Google Maps besides “Look, There’s My House!” Behold Jacktracker, a googlemaps addendum which shows Jack’s movement through LA during this season of 24.

Note: not only is Jack Bauer so badass he can kill 12 people before lunch armed with a set of tweezers, he is apparently capable of travelling the congested highways around LA at roughly 180 Miles Per Hour.

Football Outsiders

December 4, 2005 / Damion Schubert

I don’t read them as often as I should, but I always get a kick out of Football Outsiders, a website of amatuer statisticians, who attempt to desperately use nerd math to find new angles on the game that occupies so many of my Sundays.

In particular, I found this article and it’s companion piece on Fox Sport’s website very interesting. It talks about, statistically, what turns out to be a better indicator of football success – a team which systematically dismantles lesser opponents, or a team which manages to squeeze out close victories against the good ones. Human nature is to give more credit to the opponent that squeezes out a gutty victory in the waning seconds. However, the stats don’t bear that out. Continue reading