TheRPGSite

Has anybody else been pondering this data over on EN World?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

I am surprised to see D&D 4E (the live and currently running edition) lagging behind Next, 3.5E, and Pathfinder (all individually).  Wouldn't it have been more plausible for 4E to be the lead edition?  I was also surprised that 13th Age is beating out AD&D and the OSR.  

Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Quote from: Votan;694769Has anybody else been pondering this data over on EN World?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

I am surprised to see D&D 4E (the live and currently running edition) lagging behind Next, 3.5E, and Pathfinder (all individually).  Wouldn't it have been more plausible for 4E to be the lead edition?  I was also surprised that 13th Age is beating out AD&D and the OSR.  

Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Enworld is basically a WotC-era D&D forum and WotC flushed themselves down the toilet with 4th, so PF is really now the main expression of WotC-era D&D. 4e is dead, hence Next.  People still interested in 4e internet discussions are 4vengers.  Pathfinder is live and going strong, and 3.5 is being quasi-supported by WotC.  Next is new, so of course people are going to be talking about it.

For most of the people interested in older versions of D&D, Enworld is not the place to go to discuss those games.  13th Age is new, has all the 4venger support, plus jettisoned a lot of 4e baggage so has others interested.  13th Age will beat OSR conversation on Enworld and awfulpurple.  The blogosphere and G+, not so much.

In light of what Enworld is, the numbers make perfect sense, as they apply only to Enworld.

I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

Quote from: Votan;694769Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Yes, in the sense you are inflating ENWorld's importance as it relates to the RPG hobby. ENWorld is it's own show with its own vibe and its own cliques. Just like RPGnet. Just like here. Just like pretty much anywhere on the internet. The results you are saying are representative of what's a current subject of conversation for ENWorld users. That's hardly surprising. For a breakdown of why that is, see Krueger's post above.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;694778I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

I don't think that represents the zeitgeist of the RPG hobby, even in that case. We're inflating the importance of the internet echo chambers in this instance, as though the registered blogs on this or that blog roll represented all RPG blogs, the pannel of forums was representative of the many, many forums out there, and ultimately, as though the internet was representative of the tastes of people who don't give a shit about all the web chatter and just play games for their own private enjoyment.

Yeah, I've always been deeply suspicious of such "metrics" and "algorithms."  Heck, pretty much ANYthing ANY company comes up with to measure a game's impact on society is BS.  For instance, D&D has been wont to claim millions of players (based exclusively on sales figures reported by TSR and WotC), and I just have never seen it.

The first time I saw such a number was a couple million active players domestically in 1990.  That year I was living in a metro area of 700,000 people.  There were two FLGSs, one a wargaming store in a 15'x15' cubby that had a single rack of RPG material (and was about to fail).  Demographically, our area's share would have been something like 6000 active gamers, and sorry, but that just wasn't so.  In those pre-Internet days, that many gamers would have HAD to patronize the Dragon's Lair, and patronize it hard.  They would have been gaming out of the FLGS or at the local schools, and they weren't doing that six thousand strong.  I'm thinking that it was a lot closer to six hundred gamers than six thousand.

I think it illustrates just how big D&D is (compared to the rest of the hobby), and how much a failure 4e was. It really tarnished the brand.

Quote from: Ravenswing;694792Yeah, I've always been deeply suspicious of such "metrics" and "algorithms."

And rightfully so. Even if the ENworld data was correct the only thing it measured was "talked about", which says nothing about acceptance. All those Next threads could be highly critical and negative.

QuoteThe first time I saw such a number was a couple million active players domestically in 1990.  That year I was living in a metro area of 700,000 people.  There were two FLGSs, one a wargaming store in a 15'x15' cubby that had a single rack of RPG material (and was about to fail).  Demographically, our area's share would have been something like 6000 active gamers, and sorry, but that just wasn't so.  In those pre-Internet days, that many gamers would have HAD to patronize the Dragon's Lair, and patronize it hard.

But you are mistaking casual gamers for die hard gamers. Only a small percentage of the gamer community cares about the community aspect, visits stores or local conventions.
Of a group it's usually just the GM that is interested in new product, but from my time as a shop owner I know that not even every GM works like that. Some are just content with whatever system core book(s) that they've got. (My first AD&D group was like that, completely oblivious to everything that happened outside their basement.)

I've got two colleagues at work who are extremely casual, almost lapsed gamers who are capable of telling all the usual Shadowrun war stories ("on our last run...") but don't even know that there are game stores in our city.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;694778I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

Yup. I still find the methodology questionable at best because it takes into account pretty much only generalist boards and not traffic to dedicated forums, but it does say right there on the page that it's also taking into account a raft of other forums besides ENWorld.

Quote from: Benoist;694779I don't think that represents the zeitgeist of the RPG hobby, even in that case. We're inflating the importance of the internet echo chambers in this instance, as though the registered blogs on this or that blog roll represented all RPG blogs, the pannel of forums was representative of the many, many forums out there, and ultimately, as though the internet was representative of the tastes of people who don't give a shit about all the web chatter and just play games for their own private enjoyment.

I am not saying it does, just that it is not limited to En World.

I cannot bear Enworld, though the sample does include other sites (though largely pro either 3.5/4th Edition D&D). I would like to see the RPG site's own however, though I suspect that D&D Next would also be the front runner here too - after that though I'm not sure. AD&D, Basic, Retro-clones, BRP, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu?

That pie chart is the measure of an echo chamber? Huh.

Going over to where I play, on obsidian portal, there is the data on the number of campaigns: D&D4e - 14,000+, 3.5 - 9,000+, Pathfinder 9,000+; and then nobody else comes close, a couple like Savage Worlds at just over a1000. I don't have a dog in this though, my fav Traveller, is tiny with only 200 some games; it is interesting from a casual viewpoint to look at the statistics.

Quote from: elfandghost;694854I cannot bear Enworld, though the sample does include other sites (though largely pro either 3.5/4th Edition D&D). I would like to see the RPG site's own however, though I suspect that D&D Next would also be the front runner here too - after that though I'm not sure. AD&D, Basic, Retro-clones, BRP, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu?

For most chatter? Here? Fourth edition. No contest.

They are not charting EnWorld.  They are charting thousands of posts through a complex algorithm, that excludes the websites of game companies themselves (but weighted that data before excluding it to test the impact of that exclusion).  It includes G+, 300 blogs, the RPG Blog Alliance of nearly 600 blogs, and Reddit, among many many others.  I suspect it tracks this very site by the way.

It's threads like these that make me really frustrated with this board sometimes.  Just the stupid instinctive nerdrage sometimes here, which overrides even the most basic level of patience in reading something before talking about it.  It's disappointing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;694777In light of what Enworld is, the numbers make perfect sense, as they apply only to Enworld.

It's awesome when people don't read something at all, make bold declarations about it, and then pat themselves on the back for a work of sheer idiocy well done.

Seriously, even the barest of glances at it would have told you what you just said was false.  You couldn't even click the thing you were commenting on.  Were you representative of this board, others could read posts like yours and conclude this board is full of mouth breathing morons.

Quote from: dragoner;694860That pie chart is the measure of an echo chamber? Huh.

Another fucking moron who didn't bother to even look at what he is commenting on.

Seriously, what's wrong with you people that you cannot even bother to read the thing before talking about it?

The only way this would be interesting, would be to find people discussing games that you like. Otherwise, it's kinda dull.

Quote from: Mistwell;694913... you cannot even bother to read the thing before talking about it?

Because miley cyrus twerking discussions have more substance? I'm not sorry I confounded a list from one page on the site to a pie chart on another, this:

hottest games being talked about right now?

Is the measure of an echo chamber; as an actual GM and player, I am more interested in what games are being played. Maybe if you took some time off from being an internet toughguy and looked here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1272-What-Games-People-Are-Talking-About-A-Pie-Chart

You might realize there is more going on.

Quote from: Ladybird;694916The only way this would be interesting, would be to find people discussing games that you like. Otherwise, it's kinda dull.

But don't you see! Popularity contests are totally awesome! Now I can use the bandwagon fallacy to further justify my sense that my choice of games are superior!

Quote from: Mistwell;694912It's awesome when people don't read something at all, make bold declarations about it, and then pat themselves on the back for a work of sheer idiocy well done.

Seriously, even the barest of glances at it would have told you what you just said was false.  You couldn't even click the thing you were commenting on.  Were you representative of this board, others could read posts like yours and conclude this board is full of mouth breathing morons.

Translation: I said something mean about 4e.

Here he comes to save the day!!!

So Enworld puts together an industry-wide web-analytics tool, tracking what exactly, sheer number of word mentions?  By that standard Dungeon World is currently the "hottest game on theRPGsite".

It would have been better sticking to EnWorld, at least then it would have actually been correct and meant something, even if limited.  When someone from Google or any other place worthwhile decides to analyze G+ traffic, let me know.

Quote from: J Arcane;694919But don't you see! Popularity contests are totally awesome! Now I can use the bandwagon fallacy to further justify my sense that my choice of games are superior!

You know, you might be on to something. I could start intentionally playing only the least-discussed games, to build up totally loads of HYPER INDIE CONNOISSEUR cred amongst the other person who plays them, so I could... so I can... well, it'll let me... hmm. I'll get back to you when I work out what the next step between here and profit is.

actually, for top indie cred, you'd have to stop playing a game whenever anyone heard of it. which would make putting together a group, somewhat tricky.

Quote from: dragoner;694918Because miley cyrus twerking discussions have more substance? I'm not sorry I confounded a list from one page on the site to a pie chart on another, this:

hottest games being talked about right now?

Is the measure of an echo chamber; as an actual GM and player, I am more interested in what games are being played. Maybe if you took some time off from being an internet toughguy and looked here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1272-What-Games-People-Are-Talking-About-A-Pie-Chart

You might realize there is more going on.

I know precisely what it's about, as I've been talking to Morrus about it this last week over at CM.  I'm trying to explain it's not an echo chamber.  And echo chamber implies it's exclusionary and focused on just a particular smaller set of interests and voices that feeds back on itself.  But that's not accurate - as the scope of it's measurement is so far beyond a small set as to be laughable.  The scope of its measurement includes basically all of Reddit RPG discussions, 1000+ blogs at this point, every major and most minor boards, etc.. are you really trying to tell me that's all one massive echo chamber? This is likely the largest sampling of RPG fans ever accomplished.  Dismissing it as a meaningless echo chamber just sounds like bitterness to me.

Certainly if you're going to dismiss a sample size that large as an echo chamber, I never want to see one of you fuckers ever defending this board as not an echo chamber again.

Quote from: CRKrueger;694925Translation: I said something mean about 4e.

Here he comes to save the day!!!

Lolwut? Wow, you're out of touch mang.  I've been accused of being a 4e hater lately.  I'm not the 5e fanboi according to most, and a certified oldtimer to others.  Seriously, this topic has nothing at all to do with a particular game, and if anything, I think I'm more negative about 4e than any other edition of D&D at the moment.

QuoteSo Enworld puts together an industry-wide web-analytics tool, tracking what exactly, sheer number of word mentions?  By that standard Dungeon World is currently the "hottest game on theRPGsite".

It is what it says it is.  You can pretend it's claiming to be about something else and then bash it for not really being about that thing, but that's almost as stupid as you not reading it to begin with.  It's not claiming to measure anything other than what it claims to measure, which is "what people are talking about".  That's it.  Conclusions are left to others to discuss or not.  It's explicitly not measuring sales data, for example.

BTW, he was asked specifically what most of the content about DungeonWorld was about, and he said the majority of DW discussion was "whether or not Dungeon World should be called a D&D variant. Just that.".

QuoteIt would have been better sticking to EnWorld, at least then it would have actually been correct and meant something, even if limited.  When someone from Google or any other place worthwhile decides to analyze G+ traffic, let me know.

I believe it is analyzing G+ traffic.  It's also tracking most RPG-related things that can feed trough an RSS reader of some sort.

IF you guys want to make sure some set of sites is included in the analysis, just make up a list of them and I will ask Morrus if they are currently included, and if not then whether he could add them.  He's totally open to adding more, as his intent is to capture as large a section of TRPG discussion on the internet as possible, and to make it as accurate as possible, EXCEPT for company websites.

So, if most of the DW traffic is whether or not it is a D&D variant, and most of the SIFRP traffic is how to create alternate timelines to not mess with Martin's plot, I'm not sure exactly how useful this data is?

It's like finding out whether Snookie and Jwowowow are trending up or down compared to Miley Cyrus's left tit.

We've had a thousand-page shitfest on "Colonial, Racist, D&D" - so?

I'm just not getting what Morris is up to.  If he's planning on selling the data, go him?  If not, why bother?  Is this a testrun of methodology leading later to more meaningful analysis?

It almost sounds like "let's take the concept of there is no bad publicity and who cares about signal/noise ratio" - you know, what ruins analysis and discussion of oh, just about everything else in life, and apply it to this hobby.

Quote from: Mistwell;694930Certainly if you're going to dismiss a sample size that large as an echo chamber...

"Like minded people gather to discuss their common interests ...", all forums, etc.; are echo chambers to an extent. I am leery of the 250,000 users number as well, where I have a feeling it is far less.

However, from a business standpoint, what does the survey actually suggest, and more importantly, how does it express revenue? For example, the raw figures I pulled from OP, of 14,000 for 4e, 9,000 for 3.5, and 9,000 for Pathfinder, that means a gross revenue for OP of $1,280,000; even though due to various factors it is probably only close to one fifth of that at $250,000. Still nothing to sneer at, and it represents that there is a revenue stream to try to get a part of. In marketing, and general business strategy, I can see plenty of opportunities, for businesses such as OP and others; but if this is just about if D&D is the dominant force, I would say yes, but I don't have a dog in that fight.

Quote from: CRKrueger;694937So, if most of the DW traffic is whether or not it is a D&D variant, and most of the SIFRP traffic is how to create alternate timelines to not mess with Martin's plot, I'm not sure exactly how useful this data is?

It entirely depends on what your interests are.  I'm pretty sure it's not a CRKrueger-centric world, so it may well not be of interest to you but is interesting to others.

QuoteIt's like finding out whether Snookie and Jwowowow are trending up or down compared to Miley Cyrus's left tit.

To some people, that information is highly useful, and to others like yourself apparently it is not.

QuoteWe've had a thousand-page shitfest on "Colonial, Racist, D&D" - so?

This is more "it's not about something I am interested in"?

QuoteI'm just not getting what Morris is up to.  If he's planning on selling the data, go him?  If not, why bother?  Is this a testrun of methodology leading later to more meaningful analysis?

For a message board operator, what people are talking about the most is useful.  Later, I believe he will use the data he is gathering to run a large survey.  

QuoteIt almost sounds like "let's take the concept of there is no bad publicity and who cares about signal/noise ratio" - you know, what ruins analysis and discussion of oh, just about everything else in life, and apply it to this hobby.

How is this publicity of any sort? And, what are you whining about with life being ruined by information?

Quote from: dragoner;694960"Like minded people gather to discuss their common interests ...", all forums, etc.; are echo chambers to an extent. I am leery of the 250,000 users number as well, where I have a feeling it is far less.

I think he's counting unique user names in posts over a relatively short period of time. Obviously some will overlap as some people choose different handles at different forums.  But I don't think it's much overlap.

Quote from: Mistwell;694964How is this publicity of any sort? And, what are you whining about with life being ruined by information?

How is it publicity of any sort?  He's currently advertising his list as the "hottest games list" in other words, Hey everybody, these are the games most people are talking about.  Has it been used in an ad yet? No, at least not by anyone other then Morris, but I'm sure it's coming.  That's what this information is typically used for.

The idea of a "hottest list" based on sheer number of threads or topics means there is no idea of whether the "hotness" is positive or negative, whether it is content vs. edition wars, in other words, information completely without context, exactly the sort of "who's up, who's down, who's hot, who's not, what's trending, what's oh so last week" aspect of fast food culture bereft of any meaning other then something to plug into marketing and ad calculations or to tag along because you want to be "in".  

A lawyer in LA needs this explained to him? Oh wait, nevermind. :rotfl:

I found it interesting mostly for two reasons.  One, it broke my expectations as to the likely popularity of D&D 4E.  The survey being done by EN World made it seem less likely that this was all bias due to who connects to that forum.  But the other point was to see just how small the internet footprint is for a lot of non-D&D games.  I had noticed this when I tried to find blogs on Savage Worlds or GURPS -- they were not non-existent but the different in volume is quite notable compared with D&D (and derivatives).  

Games like Dragon Age end up looking like rounding errors . . .

Pretty interesting.  The methodology excludes industry boards?  Wonder why?

Quote from: Old One Eye;695307Pretty interesting.  The methodology excludes industry boards?  Wonder why?

Oops.  I should have taken some Mistwellian advice and read what that Morrus guy had to say about it.  Not technically feasible for him.  Very fair.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;694778I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

Yet they do not seem to be drawing data from either Facebook or Google+, which is where the bulk of RPG discussion seems to be happening now. TheRPGSite and Citizens of the Imperium also seems to not have a voice in this data.

Quote from: J Arcane;694919But don't you see! Popularity contests are totally awesome! Now I can use the bandwagon fallacy to further justify my sense that my choice of games are superior!

I like Traveller, therefore my taste in games is superior. By definition. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;694976How is it publicity of any sort?  He's currently advertising his list as the "hottest games list" in other words, Hey everybody, these are the games most people are talking about.  Has it been used in an ad yet? No, at least not by anyone other then Morris, but I'm sure it's coming.  That's what this information is typically used for.

The idea of a "hottest list" based on sheer number of threads or topics means there is no idea of whether the "hotness" is positive or negative, whether it is content vs. edition wars, in other words, information completely without context, exactly the sort of "who's up, who's down, who's hot, who's not, what's trending, what's oh so last week" aspect of fast food culture bereft of any meaning other then something to plug into marketing and ad calculations or to tag along because you want to be "in".  

A lawyer in LA needs this explained to him? Oh wait, nevermind. :rotfl:

From what I can tell, the data used also does not discriminate who the posters were, just how many posts. A handful of really dedicated fanbois could be responsible for the majority of those posts. Since the content of the posts are not qualified most of them could just be "QFT" or a smiley and you would get the same results, but no real quality discussion.

Obviously, it's far from perfect but it's a decent attempt given that sales figures are generally unavailable, especially now that less goes through distributors.  The polling of game store owners is just as flawed.  I'd be really hesitant to compare recent vs older games too much as older games are more likely to be played.  But 20th century D&D appears to be small niche these days.
 
The lack of company forums is unfortunate as some of them are big.
 
The new Star Wars game looks to have roughly a 10th of the interest of Pathfinder, despite having a big name to push sales.  Plus they have to pay for a license.  I'm curious how FFG doing with that and if they are going to have trouble making money for a license like many past rpgs.  I know it's far from their only Star Wars game but I never hear anyone talking about the starship miniatures game either - though I haven't been seeking out talk about it.

The one advantage too of this approach is that it means that games when are actually played, or at least discussed, but not necessarily sold or selling in great number, can potentially rise up higher in the rankings, provided it's done right.

Another flawed way to look is Amazon sales rankings.
 
All game books:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fantasy-Gaming/zgbs/books/16211/ref=zg_bs_unv_b_3_16221_1
Mostly Pathfinder.  Rpg books are often overshadowed by cheat books for computer games.
 
Amazon doesn't seem to have a consistent cataloguing of rpgs.  Start wars is 76 in boardgames.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/toys-and-games/166225011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_t_1_3_last
I have no idea how that compares to a given rating in gaming books.

Quote from: jeff37923;695338Yet they do not seem to be drawing data from either Facebook or Google+, which is where the bulk of RPG discussion seems to be happening now. TheRPGSite and Citizens of the Imperium also seems to not have a voice in this data.

I think the way to approach this is to recognize it as potentially helpful data, but that it is limited and only reflects how often certain key words came up on these venues. It tells us something, but obviously is providing a simple model that might miss certain subtelties. I dont think anyone was trying to skew numbers and i think Morrus likely figured it would be cool to put this sort of thing up on the news page. But i agree with others it could have drawn from wider sources. Still it tells us something about the particular sites it took data from. Might be interesting if someone else tried to repeat the results with wider pool of forums and websites.

Quote from: CRKrueger;694976How is it publicity of any sort?  He's currently advertising his list as the "hottest games list" in other words, Hey everybody, these are the games most people are talking about.  Has it been used in an ad yet? No, at least not by anyone other then Morris, but I'm sure it's coming.  That's what this information is typically used for.

LOL you didn't even bother to read what he wrote about it.  This whole thing is, essentially, incidental to another project he's working on.  He threw it up there for fun, because he could as he had that data.  You're looking for some "publicity" motive where there isn't one...at least no more than anything a guy who posts something to his site has when that site is for-profit.  Are Pundit's posts here "for publicity"?

QuoteThe idea of a "hottest list" based on sheer number of threads or topics means there is no idea of whether the "hotness" is positive or negative, whether it is content vs. edition wars, in other words, information completely without context, exactly the sort of "who's up, who's down, who's hot, who's not, what's trending, what's oh so last week" aspect of fast food culture bereft of any meaning other then something to plug into marketing and ad calculations or to tag along because you want to be "in".  

If that were the motive for doing that, you'd have a point.  Given it's not, unless you're claiming some hidden nefarious purpose, your point is about as meaningless as you claim this thing is.  Look, if you find no meaning in it, that's fine.  He's not looking to satisfy your particular desires.  You keep talking about this in terms of what is valuable to YOU, as if this thing is about YOU.  Again, it's not a CRKrueger-centric universe no matter how much you want it to be.  If it's not for you, it's not for you - but others find it interesting even if you don't.

QuoteA lawyer in LA needs this explained to him? Oh wait, nevermind. :rotfl:

You have not explained anything other than you're some spoiled brat demanding that some other website make something interesting to his particular interests or else he's going to stomp his foot and whine about how life is wrecked by stuff you don't like.

Quote from: Nicephorus;695426Another flawed way to look is Amazon sales rankings.
 
All game books:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fantasy-Gaming/zgbs/books/16211/ref=zg_bs_unv_b_3_16221_1
Mostly Pathfinder.  Rpg books are often overshadowed by cheat books for computer games.
 
Amazon doesn't seem to have a consistent cataloguing of rpgs.  Start wars is 76 in boardgames.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/toys-and-games/166225011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_t_1_3_last
I have no idea how that compares to a given rating in gaming books.

I'm looking at the first list and it has some game books that haven't been released yet (Pathfinder Bestiary 4), so I wonder if they are including preorders with that.

Quote from: jeff37923;695338Yet they do not seem to be drawing data from either Facebook or Google+, which is where the bulk of RPG discussion seems to be happening now. TheRPGSite and Citizens of the Imperium also seems to not have a voice in this data.

He's drawing some data from G+ I believe.  But, he can't draw data from FB, at least not at the moment (from a technical perspective).

I suspect both of those other sites you mention are covered, but if you'd like me to check (and see that they're added if they're not included) I can probably do that.  He's really just beginning this thing (and he's doing it for a later purpose concerning a survey), so he wants to include as many sources of information that are relevant to his project as possible.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;695430I think the way to approach this is to recognize it as potentially helpful data, but that it is limited and only reflects how often certain key words came up on these venues. It tells us something, but obviously is providing a simple model that might miss certain subtelties. I dont think anyone was trying to skew numbers and i think Morrus likely figured it would be cool to put this sort of thing up on the news page. But i agree with others it could have drawn from wider sources. Still it tells us something about the particular sites it took data from. Might be interesting if someone else tried to repeat the results with wider pool of forums and websites.

The data is interesting, but it needs to be sorted through before it can be used in a meanigful way. I don't think Morrus is intentionally trying to skew numbers, but the unintentional consequence is that they are skewed and thus the results are questionable.

Quote from: Mistwell;695442He's drawing some data from G+ I believe.  But, he can't draw data from FB, at least not at the moment (from a technical perspective).

I suspect both of those other sites you mention are covered, but if you'd like me to check (and see that they're added if they're not included) I can probably do that.  

Do that, please.

Quote from: Mistwell;695442He's really just beginning this thing (and he's doing it for a later purpose concerning a survey), so he wants to include as many sources of information that are relevant to his project as possible.

What is the project? What information is considered relevant?

For some context, here's what Morrus posted when he put these up:

Quote from: Morrus;1504630OK, so take these as you will.  What they are are charts showing what games people are discussing online based on a sample consisting of several independent RPG forums (totalling about 250K members) and just under 1000 blogs over a period of 90 days.  Note that this was done today, just a few days after the final D&D Next playtest package was released (well, one was done two days ago, and the other was done today, so the figures changed slightly in between), which undoubtedly skewed the results.  So that's what it displays; decide what it means - or what it doesn't mean - for yourself.  

It's *not* sales figures; and it's *not* what folks are playing at home.  It's games that are discussed in forum posts, blogs, and PbP games on the web.  So it's probably not worth extrapolating any meaning beyond that.

Figures gathered using this system: http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

Basically I took the figures, pasted them into Excel and said "make me a pie chart!"

and

Quote from: Morrus;1504634One important thing to bear in mind: I deliberately chose NOT to include official sites.  So the figures do not count discussion at wizards.com or paizo.com, or any other official site.  Obviously each of these would constitute a big extra chunk for the game in question; however, when I started to do it (and they were harder because many don't have RSS feeds the system could access and monitor) I found that proportionally the ratios stayed very similar - a publisher site with twice the amount of discussion as another publisher site also tended to have twice the amount of discussion off-site that the other publisher had.  That meant that the independent sites and the 1000-ish blogs appear to have a reasonably neutral sample.  So it's best to keep that fact in mind when looking at the percentages.

And for context on what he said next...

Quote from: francisca;1504723LOL!  Nice try, but it's the INTERWWWEBZ, buddy!  People are going to take this as the gospel and use it in ammo in the next round of edition "warfare".

His response was...

Quote from: Morrus;1504730Yup.  You should see Google+.  Out of all that data, the one single thing folks are focused on is whether or not Dungeon World should be called a D&D variant.  Just that.

Probably it shouldn't, but whether it's called a D&D Variant or a Slice of Pink Cheesecake, the numbers stay the same!  I mean, wood, trees... :)

Quote from: Morrus;1504780Bwa ha ha!  I have now been accused on Google+ of fraud by a chap named Jesse Butler who is claiming that the system does not track the sources it claims to and is based only on EN World posts.  I'm curious what my motive or profit is in his wild imaginings?

Plus someone on Twitter says I'm the equivalent of Fox News for it; but then he once demanded I keep my personal opinions off my own Twitter account so I take that with a grain of salt.

Quote from: Morrus;1504785Just Googled him - he works for Open Design, apparently. Which is disappointing.  And on his own G+ timeline he's started his own thread (https://plus.google.com/116738509537151724845/posts) which, as far as I can tell, accuses me of lying. I still don't get what my motive is supposed to be though.  But, hey.  He's not heard of RSS feeds, I guess.

Quote from: Morrus;1504791Aha!  I now know the motive.

His favourite game is Earthdawn, and it didn't rank.  And apparently me publishing a pie chart without Earthdawn on it would result in more traffic to my website than one with Earthdawn on it, and thus result in profit.

This guy's a professional writer, BTW.  That's the best evil villain plot he could come up with?

Quote from: Mistwell;695439LOL you didn't even bother to read what he wrote about it.  This whole thing is, essentially, incidental to another project he's working on.  He threw it up there for fun, because he could as he had that data.  You're looking for some "publicity" motive where there isn't one...at least no more than anything a guy who posts something to his site has when that site is for-profit.  Are Pundit's posts here "for publicity"?

Well, yes.

I don't think Morrus is evil, he's trying to find a way to serve ALL tabletop gamers.  His forums obviously don't do that.  The more stuff he can make available that people can consume no matter what game they play (or sell, or want to cross-advertise to, etc...), the more hits he gets, the more money rolls in.

I understand it's a trial run of both tools and methodology, but the information itself, raw unquantified data, only provides the level of depth of any type of "hot and trending list" which is really not useful for anything other then uninformed TMZ-level marketing (which is probably what the Fox News thing was about, no context).

If he'd clarified what he's doing and mentioned this is just the trial run, that would be one thing, but he didn't.  He put a Hot Games tab up on his site, to answer the questions...

What's the current zeitgeist?
What are the hottest games being talked about right now?

It sounds like his "secret formula" is mainly RSS, which is not exactly the best tracking method he could use either.

Quote from: CRKrueger;695453If he'd clarified what he's doing and mentioned this is just the trial run, that would be one thing, but he didn't.  He put a Hot Games tab up on his site, to answer the questions...

Uh, he did qualify it.  Extensively.  He's only run two tests.  He just posted what he got, having thrown it into an excel sheet and typing in a few titles.  

How about this CRKrueger: what what make this more interesting to you, that he could plausibly tweak? Is there some verbiage you'd like to see, or additional data, or some additional sources for data, or what?

OK I asked him to add these:

//www.therpgsite.com

//www.travellerrpg.com

//odd74.proboards.com

//www.dragonsfoot.org

And he responded that for him to include data it needs an accessible RSS feed and he wasn't finding one for any of those sites.

I see we have an RSS feed for the reviews forum of this board.  Is there one for this forum?

Even though I don't post much at ENWorld, I think that Morrus is pretty decent and the moderators there seem okay.  I'm not sure why this thread is veering into conspiratard territory.

For one thing he could stop calling his partial test run the "Gaming Zeitgeist", I mean sheesh, seriously?  Just poking fun at him...kinda. :D

As far as data analysis goes, I know what I would want to look at, or what I think WotC might want to look at, but that requires something more then looking at RSS feeds, that requires some Google people turning loose some good web-analytics at the info or some professional data guys coming up with the right queries, something Morris obviously doesn't have the cashflow for.

That's the problem, good data analysis costs money, so it's much much cheaper to go with a blanket eyeballs count and call it good, which leads to very superficial interpretations, like
"The Hottest* Game is game X!"
(*for undefined values of Hotness.)

Quote from: Mistwell;695439You're looking for some "publicity" motive where there isn't one...at least no more than anything a guy who posts something to his site has when that site is for-profit.  Are Pundit's posts here "for publicity"?

I'd barely call this site "for-profit".  We raked in a whopping $60 last month.

Quote from: RPGPundit;695947I'd barely call this site "for-profit".  We raked in a whopping $60 last month.

Some Cambodian guys somewhere are jealous of your massive wealth :)

Is there an RSS feed of this message board, by the way?

Quote from: RPGPundit;695947I'd barely call this site "for-profit".  We raked in a whopping $60 last month.

To be fair it is about $155 in local purchasing power relative to the United States.

Quote from: Mistwell;696157Is there an RSS feed of this message board, by the way?

I don't think there is.