What Games People Are Talking About: A Pie Chart

You may have seen me talking about EN World's HOT GAMES TRACKER recently. It asks the question: What's the current zeitgeist? What are the hottest games being played right now? This isn't a list of sales figures; it tracks what's currently being talked about using a top secret algorithm. Each game is also conveniently linked to a search for discussion about it right here on EN World, should you want to find out more. The spotlight list changes from time to time. The red and green arrows show a game's general trend over the last 90 days - is it being discussed more or less than it was in the previous 90 days?


This page tracks discussion of over a quarter of a million forum members and approaching a thousand blogs on a selection of major independent RPG discussion forums to create an overall sample from a list including EN World, RPGnet, UK Roleplayers, RPG Geek, the RPG Bloggers network of nearly 300 blogs and the RPG Blog Alliance of nearly 600 blogs.

I've extracted some data from that page and turned it into a couple of nifty pie charts. I've presented them below. A couple of caveats:

1. The pie charts aren't really the the thing. The raw data on the linked page is. If you disagree with the way the data is presented here, I encourage you to look at the actual numbers instead and derive your own conclusions.
2. This is NOT sales data; it's also NOT what games folks are playing at home. It's exactly what it says it is: a large representative sample of the game folks are talking about online. So be careful what conclusions you extrapolate from that.
3. The final D&D Next playtest packet was just released. This gave DDN a huge boost. I looked at this data this time last week (sadly, I didn't think to graph it) and Pathfinder was leading D&D Next by nearly 5%. I'll look again at it in a few weeks to see if D&D Next holds its current lead or drops back down to second place again.
4. The two graphs were compiled a couple of days apart, so the figures changed slightly between them.
5. I was asked yesterday why 13TH AGE was considered D&D in one graph, and not part of "Other D&D" in the second. That was simply because it was the largest item in "Other D&D" so I slipped it out separately as a clear visual point of comparison. It's not meant to imply the "D&D-ness" or "lack-of-D&D-ness" of it or anything else.
6. It's ROLEPLAYING GAMES sites and blogs only. I'm sure if we were looking at tabletop wargaming sites, things like Warhammer 40K would be vastly more popular; as it is, that game refers here to the line of RPGs, not the wargame.
7. This is not a qualitative judgement. Your favourite game is the best.

So, without further ado:

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[darjr]

Would you include the forums of game companies like Goodman games and Paizo?

 

[darjr]

On my tablet the pie chart window is to big and I can't click the x to close it. Nexus 7

 

[Morrus]

Would you include the forums of game companies like Goodman games and Paizo?

I've decided not to. If I did one, I have to do them all. So I've made a decision to stick to large independent sources only.

It's a sample, not a census. The latter, unfortunately, is impossible. But a statistically significant sample is much more achievable.

 

[darjr]

Cool. Somewhere on g+ there is a trending web page

 

[Morrus]

" Star Wars D6 is the greatest game since Star Wars D6, it uses D6s, this Star Wars D6 game, and it takes place in the Star Wars universe, all in all, much fun is to be had with the Star Wars D6 game, run out and buy some used Star Wars D6 books now."

Obviously, this facetious example is over the top, but we are gamers, someone is going to try and game the system, but again, I feel a publisher or marketer is more likely to do that than a regular gamer.

If a publisher were to do that , they'd do so for much more compelling reasons than this. They'd be doing it already, and also for SEO.

As to other sources, I see RPGGeek is one you use, the top of their "The Hotness" list on the left hand side of the page lists Torchbearer in the top slot, but it doesn't even make any of your lists (though I suppose maybe RPGGeek is the only place it's being discussed maybe?). Have you considered using show notes from popular podcasts as a source of data?

I thought their hotness was based on average review scores? Whatever the case, Torchbearer is being counted currently as part of OSR.

Podcasts, sure - if there's a depository like the blogs of hundreds of them with an RSS feed it can be added. Does anyone collect that?

 

[coz]

Fair enough about publishers gaming things. I wasn't sure what RPGG's Hotness was based on actually, I just happened to notice that it was at the top because I backed the book and haven't seen anyone talking about it yet. How do you define OSR though? Is it enough that a game mimics the old-school style? Or does it need to have old-school rules, because Torchbearer is most certainly not a retro-clone rules-wise. Do you count Dungeon World the same way? I have no idea if there's any repository for gaming podcasts unfortunately, it just seemed a good source for another data point.

 

[shamsael]

Given the size of the sample and the secrecy of the "secret algorithm", I don't think it would be possible for anyone to intentionally significantly effect a given game's rank.

 

[Morrus]

Given the size of the sample and the secrecy of the "secret algorithm", I don't think it would be possible for anyone to intentionally significantly effect a given game's rank.

It was just a Google rankings joke. Though now I want to write one!

I want to include pi.

( [threads] * [blogs] / ( [pi] / [podcasts] ) )

 

[shamsael]

I would look into some way of weighting sources. Blogs are probably more valuable than forum posts. Blogs that are gaming oriented but rarely call out specific games by name are probably more valuable than gaming blogs that regularly call out games which in turn are more valuable than mainstream blogs that occasionally call out games by name.

But still, I think at least sample size would prevent these rankings from being intentionally messed with.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I've decided not to. If I did one, I have to do them all. So I've made a decision to stick to large independent sources only.

It's a sample, not a census. The latter, unfortunately, is impossible. But a statistically significant sample is much more achievable.

Would including all the major company forums be that difficult? Like, maybe as something that could be toggled on and off?

Because it seems like what you have now is going to skew (possibly quite heavily) your results toward out-of-print games and away from games that benefit from strong company website communities.