A Note on That Twitter Thread

There is a thread going around about game budgeting that is getting some traction and, while I wish I could leave my thoughts to one tweet, there is a lot to get through. The thread concerns why large developers are not able to delay projects, and takes a frustrating reddit comment responding to an article …

Deals and Devils

Quote tweeters have been amusing themselves with the Wall Street Journal writing that Diablo IV is “shaping up to be a surprise hit”. Or should I say that the entire internet OWNED the out of touch IDIOTS at the MURDOCH OWNED Wall Street Journal who thinks it’s SURPRISING the series that sells TENS OF MILLIONS …

Two perspectives on sales and luck

Jake Birkett, as is his way, posted a tweet that prompted some reflection. Here it is: https://twitter.com/GreyAlien/status/1600913617372811276?s=20&t=SmvkeShC7Ziacz6o2DqHiw He may be responding to this thread by Momiji studios, though if he intended to make the association he would have done so. I am sympathetic to some parts of the thread, particularly the idea that data on …

The Ultimate Guide to Steam Wishlists in 2023

Steam wishlists are a leading indicator of a game's success and a significant area of focus for developers. They are used to forecast a game's sales and to break into the coveted Steam front page. Despite the significant attention they recieve, there are a lot of mysteries as to how wishlists work. The number requried …

Saving the mean

We are better at statistics than we normally get credit for. Greater statistical literacy is still important, since more data is being used to persuade, but our overall understanding has gotten better. One example of this improvement is that most people reading analysis will know that the arithmetic mean can be shifted by excessively large …

Uncertainty in Game Data

We do not know how useful most games analysis is. More developers and analysts are sharing their analysis publicly but regularly miss one measure that would make the results significantly more helpful. This measure is the variability of the estimate. It helps to think about what is being measured when applying statistics. Most of the …

Two Perspectives on Fairness in Game Pricing

Game pricing does not make a lot of sense. Most of us should be paying more for games, and at least some of them should get more expensive over time. The fact this doesn't happen may be strange, but the causes are not mysterious. Steam runs frequent sales events, and the practice of heavy discounting …

In Praise of Inefficient Searching

When things really matter, we would be better off using less efficient searches. Being able to find a website that confirms you're right in an internet argument is all well and good, but this is trivia. When knowledge is important, minor inconveniences come into their own and wind up giving us a broader perspective than …

Learning to Read Again

I think I count as a reader but sometimes it is difficult to tell. One frustration is that I spend a lot of time reading non-fiction now, but I read fiction when I was younger and first fell in love with reading. One complication is that non-fiction is terribly interesting while also being easier to …

We should probably chill out about spoilers

The idea of a spoiler is more of a drag than the reality of one. Such a view is heresy and will only serve to provoke a stream of anecdotes about how an individual story was ruined by a spoiler and what a terrible shame it was that the purity of the first experience was …