Some Numbers to Consider

[CMDR Lukas Vance]

I am well aware I am poking the hornet's nest here, but it is honestly with good intentions. Caveat: I'm a PS4 owner looking forward to the release of ED (not played ED on any other platform but played the original Elite on BBC Micro back in the day, as well as Frontier on the Amiga and Oolite on various systems).

I just did some wildly speculative number crunching today, to get some kind of perspective on some of the things I read on this forum. I've probably been overly generous with these, to help make the point. Here they are;



Note: Numbers taken from http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/FDEV/12881582.html

My good intentions are that anyone looking to purchase ED on the PS4 (at a very reasonable price IMHO) will make their own mind up.

I believe everyone who is unhappy is perfectly entitled to their opinion, and has the freedom to express it here (probably a better place than any other). I'm presuming the 'Dangerous' in the title here relates to the game and not that by posting here I'm risking my life...

 

[who?]

Some slight corrections - there have been 2.1 million sales as of December (source) and there are >80,000 forum members, though how many of those are active posters isn't clear.

 

[Flavourless]

No idea. But a quick look at the forum shows 80,000 members not 1000.

 

[fennster]

Some slight corrections - there have been 2.1 million sales as of December (source) and there are >80,000 forum members, though how many of those are active posters isn't clear.

No idea. But a quick look at the forum shows 80,000 members not 1000.

If you look at the member list by order of number of posts, the last 1000 members in that list have made 52 posts upwards.

45,000 members have made 5 or less posts.

Even so some long time forum members have made less posts than 52.

 

[Flavourless]

If you look at the member list by order of number of posts, the last 1000 members in that list have made 52 posts upwards.

45,000 members have made 5 or less posts.

Even so some long time forum members have made less posts than 52.

Absolutely. But a huge chunk of the sold copies do not relate to active players either.
(I know this is pointed out in the OP, but way under 10% of the players that I know are still active in the game)

 

[CMDR Lukas Vance]

Thanks for these comments, all constructive. Sorry I had no idea where to look for forum member counts. Is there any way to search for previous polls (I know they are disabled now) to get more evidence on the 90% stat I completely made up!

 

[Whitehair]

Look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%_rule_(Internet_culture)

 

[fennster]

Thanks for these comments, all constructive. Sorry I had no idea where to look for forum member counts. Is there any way to search for previous polls (I know they are disabled now) to get more evidence on the 90% stat I completely made up!

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/326757-Are-you-happy-with-how-Frontier-develop-Elite

Is one. It's all very subjective though. Forum users might have a different vision of the game than say Reddit users. Silent users another. I'm very wary of on the numbers that get thrown around.

Anyway search in google.... poll site:forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[LeoBartlet]

Thanks for these comments, all constructive. Sorry I had no idea where to look for forum member counts. Is there any way to search for previous polls (I know they are disabled now) to get more evidence on the 90% stat I completely made up!

Another way to gauge interest in a particular subject is to look at the participant count for each thread.



So that thread has 141 participants with the most popular thread in terms of participants on the main discussion board seems to be...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ology-and-other-mysteries-Thread-9-The-Canonn

With nearly 2k participants.

In other words threads that claim to speak for vast numbers of players do anything but.

 

[Shar]

Sorry your numbers are way off, but in general its a game you buy it get a few hundred or more hours out of it then move on, frontier never promised to be the centre of your life. if i stop today, elite will be in my top 3 games, in value for money it has been a good deal.

 

[defekt]

Also read up on the importance of statistical significance when/if you start to draw comparisons between raw population numbers and participation levels.

I'm not saying that you're about to pull the same 'this forum only represents n% of the entire player base' fallacy that many do.

 

[Kosmetas]

Less than 4% of any games population waste time posting on the forums, 94% of those post are driven by a negative experience. Most players just play the game with zero desire to subjugate themselves to the ridiculousness of negative posts. Let's not forget a majority of the stats and recollection of in game "issues" are made up for dramatic effect. Most polls are tainted by the very questions posed. Overall the forums are a relief valve for over zealous personalities wishing to publish their thoughts and beliefs, no matter how wrong. Less than 3% of requests from players make an impact in a developers decisions or direction of a game.

TLDR; We are here to make ourselves feel better not make a better game.

 

[Shar]

Less than 4% of any games population waste time posting on the forums, 94% of those post are driven by a negative experience. Most players just play the game with zero desire to subjugate themselves to the ridiculousness of negative posts. Let's not forget a majority of the stats and recollection of in game "issues" are made up for dramatic effect. Most polls are tainted by the very questions posed. Overall the forums are a relief valve for over zealous personalities wishing to publish their thoughts and beliefs, no matter how wrong. Less than 3% of request from players make an impact in a developers decisions or direction of a game.

TLDR; We are here to make ourselves feel better not make a better game.

Spot on sunshine apart from a small dedicated group of fans and an equally dedicated group of trolls and haters. This place is burn-out central and totally biased toward the negative its actually amazing this forum is as positive as it is.

Although as long as the moderaters are asleep (most of the time) it can be quite entertaining. only joking mods i know your watching.....[zZzZz]

 

[Jex =TE=]

Some slight corrections - there have been 2.1 million sales as of December (source) and there are >80,000 forum members, though how many of those are active posters isn't clear.

Correction, there have been 2.1 million Franchise Units sold. A franchise unit could be a bobble head

 

[SkipRat]

I am well aware I am poking the hornet's nest here, but it is honestly with good intentions. Caveat: I'm a PS4 owner looking forward to the release of ED (not played ED on any other platform but played the original Elite on BBC Micro back in the day, as well as Frontier on the Amiga and Oolite on various systems).

I just did some wildly speculative number crunching today, to get some kind of perspective on some of the things I read on this forum. I've probably been overly generous with these, to help make the point. Here they are;

View attachment 116480

Note: Numbers taken from http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/FDEV/12881582.html

My good intentions are that anyone looking to purchase ED on the PS4 (at a very reasonable price IMHO) will make their own mind up.

I believe everyone who is unhappy is perfectly entitled to their opinion, and has the freedom to express it here (probably a better place than any other). I'm presuming the 'Dangerous' in the title here relates to the game and not that by posting here I'm risking my life...

How how many of those active players are double accounts, how many of those sales are double accounts?

Not to mention, you cant tell if it is a high turnover players either.

 

[CMDR Lukas Vance]

Can you point me to anything? When I googled the first line the first result I got in google was a link to your post! Damn google is fast.

I'm not a statistician, hence the phrase "wildly speculative" =]

 

[Kosmetas]

How how many of those active players are double accounts, how many of those sales are double accounts?

Less than 1% of the player base own multiple accounts.


I'm not a statistician, but I play one on the forums.

 

[Shar]

How how many of those active players are double accounts, how many of those sales are double accounts?

A lot more after v2.3 pay-for-pips goes live.

Fdev should stop that pretence and just sell pips in the frontier store for enviromental reasons ie many surplus computer running just for pips.

 

[c00ky1970]

I dintb think you need to look at all those numbers, just look at the thread data instead.

Formadine rift thread - 244 participants

Alien Archeology thread - 1863 participants

Worried about 3.0 season expansion - 179 participants

I think everyone would agree that the number of active players is greater than 1863, so the other threads which have a participant number less than this are from a smaller section of the active player base.

There is no data on the number of foprum users that do not play the game, but I do see the occasional "I haven't touched this since 2.0/for last 6 months posts".

So whatever teh num,bers you find the num,ber of players that dont use these forums is potentially much greater than those that do actually post here.

 

[SkipRat]

A lot more after v2.3 pay-for-pips goes live.

It's sad really. I really hoped would buck the trend and do something original and fresh, but instead, they have caved in to everything that has blighted modern gaming, especially it is to hard to use my brain so I want the game made easy, so please make it accessible for 3 year olds...