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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire
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And again, oh please.
YES it is significant , if you are using it for what it is. How many people on x-fire are playing a game now on x-fire.
Compare it again in 2 weeks and so on and YES you will get a trend of how a game is doing on x-fire.
Take that and compare ALONG with other ways to get info and you will be able to get a trend on the whole game.
It is not the be all and end all, just more info for those that are not biased against it.
What I said was that just because that is accurate doesn't prove that everything else IS accurate.
My example was a solid one and I'm not "foolish" as you called me.
Poeple were saying "wow is at the top so xfire is an accurate source of data!" that's not true.
Like I said, if a larger percentage of wow users use xfire than say eve or SWTOR or any other game's player base, then the sample is biased towards wow. It's not an accurate way to tell what percentage of people are playing those other games.
Here. I'll put it this way:
Let's say (for arguments sake) that 50% of all gamers play wow, while 15% play eve an 35% play TOR. I know, very simple numbers that aren't real.
So then let's say 50% of all wow players use xfire, but only 25% of TOR players use xfire and only 10% of eve players use xfire.
Xfire would accurately report the games rankings in this scenario, but the actual numbers of people playing would heavily underrepresent the actual player base.
If there were 1000 gamers in the entire world, wow would have 500, TOR would have 350, and eve would have 150.
A 100 player sample on xfire would show that wow had 250 players, TOR had 87-88 players and eve had 15.
This would report eve as only having about 5% of the gaming population! A ten percent difference.
The TOR and wow numbers would be very close to accurate, but eve would be way off.
We have no way of knowing if this is the case, which is the point. We don't know if the sample is biased or not.
Even if xfire shows some accuracy in some areas, it doesn't mean every number on there is accurate.
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I was not trying to call anyone in particualr foolish, i was meaning the point i read was foolish:)
Throwing out numbers fake. made up. or real. about the WHOLE gaming audience of a particualr game is pretty irrelevant here.
People seem to be trying to work oh so hard to "prove" that x-fire gamers should not be considered or counted, AT ALL.
I think that is foolish. Use it as one piece of info along with others and you will get better answers and "stats" if you will, than trying to just come up with all these false arguments about the whole population of a game. Of which they ARE a part.
No it doesnt?
Nielsen constantly fails to take digital distribution channels into account, they introduced time-shift ratings only 3 years ago when DVR was available for 10 years now (not counting good old VHS).
Nielsen is used by the industry because the industry itself is -old- , their channels only want to confirm their distribution, TV networks are not interested in how many people -actually- watch the program (over hulu, iTunes, timeshift, etc), they only care about the same day ratings because thats where the advertisment-money is allocated.
Nielsen is a -horrible- example to use for statistically significant samples.
Again, Xfire is not a statistically significant sample.
I'm registered but I don't use it.
Only ones that have "proof" are the game Dev's, they do not usually share:P If they did we would not be here discussing this:)
And FYI to all here, i am not "mad" at anyone. Do not care one way or the other on any particualr game at the moment. And i am not trying to make anyone mad.
I just found this post to be the best one at this time that interested me:) So if i offended anyone that was not my intention, sorry.
Now back to the discussion:)
Your belief has nothing to do with the validity of the X-fire statistics when you try to apply them to the non-X-fire using population. The facts still remain, and have yet to be refuted by you nor the other self-serving pro-X-fire people: No one knows the percentage of the total gaming population that uses X-fire, therefore it is pure self-serving bias to use these statistics outside the X-fire using community.
In the statistic's trade, that is known as "Bad statistics" and would immediately get you laughed out of the room for presenting them.
I don't use Xfire, but if I read the link correct in the OP's post does that mean 10,031 players using Xfire are playing SWTOR out of 1-2 million accounts?
If that is correct then Xfire is irrelevant as stated above.
If you don't like a game don't play it, and quit running to MMORPG.com to trash it.
Using your own words, No one knows the total game population, except the dev's who are not talking.
But we DO know how many x-fire users have and play a game when they log in with it.
Using that info you CAN see a trend over time of that part of the game population in that game.
Or are you saying that that is not true? Now if that is true, trying to refute it or ignore it, a sample of people that HAVE to own the game, and HAVE to be playing it to get the info. How can you turn around and say it is worthless?
It is what it is. A sample of people, that use x-fire, that own the game, and that played it.
Sounds like a pretty good piece of info to me. Would i make any overarching predictions on it like the OP? No, but i would for sure take it into account along with other info i had.
Yes they will (and already did), but that doesn't work as an excuse for you, because they would still be wrong in doing so.
Try to be the better man/woman and don't spread missinformation.
I wouldn't trust anything in xfire anymore. I use it now just to track my hours in games recently release. I used to have like 20 poeple I knew and friended. I sitll play MMO's with them but I can't get them to log in xfire anymore.
In the end guys, this post was created by someone who doesn't even like the game. He did it just to create a stir.
Then he wins cause it worked. hehe
Again, the straw man isn't necessary; we really haven't been discussing the results. There is a difference between pointing out the basic methodology is flawed, and questioning the results.
Given bad methodology, you have no assurance except Faith that results you receive are an accurate reflection of the market.
A good polling system, on the other hand--polling results can be confidently reported, analyzed, and assigned an actual degree of confidence and error range. Reproducable and testable results.
Arthur Sears Henning had Faith in his statistics in 1948. And they weren't even bad statistics; the sample size was fine. The confidence interval was standard fare; and the margin of error was reasonable. He had enough Faith to create one of the most famous headlines in the world--"Dewey Defeats Truman!"
Truman, fortunately for himself, did not have as much confidence in (what turned out to be) pretty bad polling methodology. In 1948, the pollsters used (for the first time) the telephone in order to expand the sample size for their polls. The problem was that telephones were an expensive item back then. Republicans owning one outnumbered Democrats by a margin of three to one.
Given a failure of pretty good statistics (failed only due to bad methodology), should we be so blithe to put complacent Faith in bad methodology?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Try to be the better man/woman and don't spread missinformation.
ummmm...I think it might be safe to say he wasn't using it as an excuse, but rather making the case that the same people who are dismissing the xfire stats now, would be praising them if they better reflected their wants for the game. bottom line is this, and I dont know why it is so hard for some people to accept...it is a sample of gamers, that has proven time and again to reflect trends in gaming. its not the last word, the final word, the only word on the subject, but it has shown, many times to reflect trends in gaming. Is it really so hard for you to understand ? I dont think so.
It's only accurate in showing trends from Xfire players. If you're concerned with what people on Xfire play it's an excellent tool. However thats all it shows and it's rarely been even remotely accurate outside of Xfire users. And yes that includes its accuracey showing trends.
Now I'm not saying Xfire has been wrong all the time, even a broken watch is right twice a day.
To this point, I don't use X-Fire and would never use X-fire. So where is my voice in these statistics? Answer: Not present.
Two other people at my work play mmo's and they don't use x-fire either. Where is their voice? Answer: Not present.
So X-fire may be an excellent tool to track a certain demographic of people but it's not entering in my decisions and I suspect it's not entering in the decisions of thousands of other people like me.
Perhaps it might help to figure out which demographic of "gamers" use x-fire and that might have more bearing on what it truly can track.
"To this point, I don't use X-Fire and would never use X-fire. So where is my voice in these statistics? Answer: Not present.
Two other people at my work play mmo's and they don't use x-fire either. Where is their voice? Answer: Not present."
THATS WHY IT IS CALLED A STATISTICAL SAMPLE !!!!!!!!!!! Just like polling or a survey. Just like when a movie is pre-screened, they take a VERY small sample of movie goers and get their feedback -- or even a closed Beta, they take a small sample of gamers and work with them. Come on !!! are you serious right now ???
ok deep breath now.
'yes" it's a statistical sample Which means that X-Fire takes a sample of a certain demographic. I and others are not part of that demographic therefore we aren't being counted as we are not part of the demographic that partakes in X-Fire. whcih means that using X-Fire to predict trends becomes a bit more dicey. What it can do is predict the trends of the types of players who use X-Fire.
Did you not see the part that I highlighted or were you too busy being incredulous?
Im not going to lie, I missed it.
Everything you need to know about it is right there on the front page.
When I looked at it, it said that Star Wars was more popular than WoW. Since we all know that's bullshit, then anyone trying to say that X-Fire is a representative sampling of general mmo players is full of it.
It just doesn't wash.
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Take a statistics class and try that argument with the professor. It will get shot down in a New York minute.
Anyone who's ever taken statistics or worked with them professionally will tell you that XFire would be a bogus metric for numbers. Sorry, but that's how it is.
Correlation =/= Causation.
That's the point. Even if TOR was #1 on XFire from now until George Lucas finally writes a decent script, it wouldn't make the numbers any more reliable. Self-selection bias ruins every bit of data that XFire provides. It just does.
The only flaw in the people argueing self selection bias is that people do not log onto Xfire to rate a game. It tracks minutes played. It does not ask questions. People do not give responses.
I'll give you that some fanbois may download xfire to do sway results, but the other 100,000+ people will normalize the results.
Self selection bias is people who have an axe to grind, or a great story to tell are more willing to participate. That simply does not apply to Xfire as it is not a rating system, but a tracking system.
Again, Xfire is not a poll. Its a tracking system.
Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that Xfire has predicted the decline of many previous MMOs. That is the most damning evidence for me. No MMO that has seen a decline on Xfire can be said to have continued its popularity. That is just a fact.
Say whatever you want, but Xfire has been spot on.
Who would think that somethin as simple as a telephone could skew the results so badly, but there it is.
The point those of us that are skeptical about the xfire sample are trying to make isthat there are many many factors like this example that can completely skew the results.
It doesn't mean that xfire is completely useless, but a lot of people are arguing that it is cold hard evidence of whatever view they hold of the game (positive, negative). While it certainly does show certain trends, it shouldn't be considered scientific or any kind of way to judge market share of a game.
I personally don't mind these xfire posts. They can be an interesting way to see a rough idea of certain trends, but there are many important things that could skew the numbers badly.
Think of this, what percentage of facebook game players are represented? 0. Not just because the software doesn't track it, but even if it did the people playing Farmville aren't likely to install xfire.
People that only play one game and aren't interested in anything else are also less likely o install xfire, I would think.
Take a casual wow player ho has no interest in other games(my wife), they have probably never heard of Xfire and it would be wrong to ignore that playerbase as they probably make up a substantial portion of wow subs.
There are many reasons put there why different groups of people wouldn't install xfire, just as there was a very crucial reason why poorer people didn't have phones in the Truman example. Think of guilds that use vent or TS. Some of their members probably use both, but I would bet that most of them see little use for xfire. Again, these are probably the people that play one mmo exclusively and would never use xfire for voice or other chat.
A large portion of vent users are probably not included in XFire numbers, and it would be wrong to ignore them when talking about MMOs.
Beyond that, there may be a similar reason why people use xfire. It may be to track time or to voice chat. Either way, for whatever reason, people that don't need/want that functionality are not selecting themselves to be a part of that sample.
People that don't care about how long they game for aren't going to track their play time. If those people also use vent, then they don't need voip. This is an important group. Think of unemployed people that live with their moms and game for 16 hours a day? Are they more or less likely to use xfire and what percentage of the population are they?
What about full time workers with families that play 1-2 hours a night? I would think they would be less likely to care about using xfire at all. I would also guess that there are a lot of these people out there.
If the 16-hour gamer is more likely to use xfire, but the working dad is less likely, than the working dad group will not be accounted for.
So what if a game that caters to the working dad by being more casual friendly (like TOR or wow) turns off the hardcore population from playing it? Working dads are subbing to the game and playing, while the hardcore blow through the content and unsub.
If hardcore gamer guy is in fact more likely to use xfire, then the game could appear to do poorly when in fact it is doing quite well with working dad guy.
Xfire can't be considered hard scientific evidence of anything. There are so many factors that could affect the sample that I can't even think them all up, let alone post them all.
It may be a cool snapshot of a moment in time of xfire is'ere interests, butthe question is: "Who are the Xfire users?" I certainly don't know, and Boone here does either.
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A tracking system that users have to CHOOSE to install and use. They have self-selected themselves as users of XFire.
That's why it's unreliable. It might track their users, but that's about it.
There are many possible motivations to use xfire or not use it that have nothing to do with a good sample group.
xfire is the very definition of a self selected sample. Stats 101.
From Wikipedia cause I'm lazy:
"In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling. It is commonly used to describe situations where the characteristics of the people which cause them to select themselves in the group create abnormal or undesirable conditions in the group."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias
This isn't about your opinion. This is about established research practices that have been tested and proven. Facts.
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