Three Generalizations About The Borderlands Community
Sat, 03/07/2009 - 22:03
Generalizations can be useful tools to simplify a complicated reality. They can also be dangerous and present falsehoods when not grounded in fact. That’s why I have charts to back mine up, amigos.
1) We’re probably buying the video game Borderlands for the Xbox 360.
When I polled you guys which system we’re planning on getting the game for, Microsoft’s creation won over half the votes.
I’m in the minority here. A decent size contingent, including me, will take the mouse-and-keyboard route.
And the PlayStation 3 gets no love.
2) We’re eager for expansive multiplayer capabilities in this video game.
When I polled you “Which unannounced Borderlands feature would you most like to see?”, split-screen play for consoles won.
The feature receiving the second most votes was another multiplayer one: a player versus player game mode. That won my ballot.
3) We’re patient.
The most recent poll question was “Would you rather Gearbox release Borderlands tomorrow with some rough edges or a more polished version later in the year?”
It’s been no contest. Over 80% of the people voted for “When it’s ready.” Besides, what's the rush when you can admire these charts while you wait?
Any suggestions for a new poll?
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 08:23
#2
The info came from the polls
The info came from the polls that have been up on the site over the weeks.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 09:17
#3
Un-needed condescending remark.......
Its ok Swift, we'll forgive this transgression since you're new.
Just dont let it happen again.
jk jk
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 09:53
#4
It's never unwarrented to ask
It's never unwarrented to ask for the source of a statistic. The first thing they teach you in any statistics course, is that the numbers are just numbers, figuring out what exactly they mean is rarely an excersise in simple common sense.
I don't mean to say it's bad to take poll's or something, I'm just warning against the dangers of drawing conclusions too quickly.
Also, it's really not the intent to be condesending, I'm just evaluating the results as I see it. Statistics are a huge point of interest for me, digging into the science is just something that's always kind of exciting.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 10:52
#5
When Charts Cause Controversy
Don't worry I don't mind you asking. I think it's good to question people's opinions and assertions as long as it's done politely and keeping in mind that this site is ultimately about us enjoying ourselves while we wait for the game.
L3vi and Johnny already answered some of the questions but I'll give it a go as well:
where are you getting your statistics?
Polls on the site, the graphs now link directly to them.
I'm not sure about the first graph, I'd probably argue that point but where the comunity majorities are going to come from is honestly a huge up in the air in my mind.
I would think of this poll like a Gallup poll for Presidential candidates a year before the election. It might be accurate at the time but a lot can--and usually does--change by the time of the election. This poll was taken a year before the game came out.
That said, there is some anecdotal evidence to back it up at this point. On GameFAQs, the 360 board is way more active than the PS3 and PC board combined.
it's confusing that you put PC 29% by the little green bar and PS3 20% by the medium sized blue bar.
Absolutely right. I'll fix that.
In regards to the second graph: PC gamers don't care about split screen.
They certainly don't, but a lot of people voted for that option any way.
I realize these charts would never get published in a scientific journal. I'm no statistician but also I realize they have small sample sizes and used online polling, which introduces certain problems. If anybody would like to donate a few thousand dollars to me, I'll hire some social scientists to conduct our next poll over the phone with a sample size of a few thousand. :)
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 12:07
#6
Console Gamers
Swift, I take it you're a PC gamer. Sure there's nothing wrong with that and even though you didn't want to talk down to console gamers, you kind of did. It's kind of like saying "Hey, you're mom's a whore. No offense." I'm a console gamer, though in the past not by choice, my computer was shit before. I'm not the only one who's been in that situation, a console is easier to justify buying with it's lower price and the knowledge that there won't be something better in a month or so. I can play Crysis full spec now but I still love my consoles lol. I don't think console/pc preference has anything to do with their industry experience. Nothing personal, just defending the console gamers out there :p
Anyway, the charts look fine to me. The results came from polls taken on this site actually. There's a correlation between the high number of 360 players and the high demand for split screen.
Love,
Fox Makenshi
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 21:43
#7
Well, ya, there's obviously
Well, ya, there's obviously more 360 players on this site, right now, at this point in time, for whatever reason. Still, we're dealing with numbers under 100 in terms of total votes, and I think visitor figures will change as the game's advertizing runs ramp up, and once again as it hits release. How exactly they will change, is hard to say. The current trend could become more pronounced, or it could lean more towards the PC, who knows. I wouldn't be suprized to see PS3 pick up one or two percent, simply because, for the most part PS3 gamers don't tend to be as hardcore as Xbox gamers, so they are less likely to stumble upon a prerelease site, expecially for a game that had announcments competing with the hype up for fallout 3. It's an interesting question anyways... but the current trend in game sales would lean towards the reality that PC games will be a poor seller in brick and mortor stores, and if BL has any success in that market it will be through online distribution.
Fox: regarding being offensive to console gamers, apologies, I was more trying to satirize the entrenched PC gamer stereotype that we all think we're top of the pile, and game companies should stop dumbing down our games for the dirty uneducated console player masses. There are DEFINATELY examples of that happening in the past, but there are examples that indicate exactly the opposite too. The SPORE debaucle comes to mind. I had to make the choice economoicly of sticking with PC or focusing on consoles, and for me the choice was simple because I'm studying computers at the same time, so having a powerful PC is a logical decision to make. In RTS and FPS I far prefer the PC for gaming, but in RPG's, sports games, racers, fighters, or really any game that doesn't enjoy a massive advantage from the mouse interface, I still prefer the console. It's hard to compare hunching over a keyboard to laying out on the couch and twiddling you thumbs in terms of comfort.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 22:24
#8
A stats student speaks
My girlfriend recently completed a statistics class in grad school. That's one more statistics class than I've ever taken so I consider her an expert on the subject. Here are her thoughts on the validity of the polls and what assumptions we can draw from them:
If the intention of a survey is to make assumptions about a larger population using a sample population, there can be several sources of error:1. Coverage error - Basically is your sample representative of the larger population? If not, certain elements of the group will always be excluded from your survey results.
2. Non-response error - Some questions are sensitive and people tend not to respond. Or people are simply lazy. This is probably not the case with this survey.
3. Measurement error - Poorly worded, ambiguous or leading questions will skew your survey results
4. Sampling error - This is unavoidable because you're always dealing with a sample population
The question here is really what assumptions are you making with these results? It's probably inaccurate to say that the entire US population or even the entire gaming population will have this breakdown because it's likely your sample isn't representative. However, for the purposes of this site, I'd say it's good enough.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 23:03
#9
Like I say, there's not
Like I say, there's not really anything all that wrong with the poll's or the question (except maby in the case of the second query, forcing Console players to choose between split screen and other less generic more gameplay modifying features). It's just an issue of drawing fair conclusions.
That 50 some odd percent of the current boarderlands comunity is planning to buy the game on Xbox is a fair assumption... however, you can't extend that to say that 50% of the game's total sales will be for xbox. This comunity is english speaking only, therefore it overheavily stacks the american market, which is the strong point of the xbox gamer base, just to cover one major source of potential inaccuracy. You also can't assume that because the comunity looks like this now, this is the way it will always look. Like I say, I'm just warning against drawing faulty conclusions.
The thing about statistics, numbers are just numbers, they don't lie, it's what they are telling you is the question that always needs to be critically reviewed.
[edit] Reading your post, and now with the provided statistics, there's really nothing at all wrong with the claims you've made. It's just sort of bad form to post statisics without providing a source. It might be a little presumptuous to claim that votes on this site are representitive of the entire borderlands comunity, but even then, the comunity as a whole is fairly small right now, so it's not a huge assumption. I'm more warning for the benifit of the readers.
Sun, 03/08/2009 - 23:08
#10
On to a more interesting topic: Spore
You mentioned at one point "The SPORE debacle comes to mind." What exactly happened there?
That game got sooooo much hype and then just disappeared a couple weeks after it came out. I was planning on buying it at one point but then just kind of forgot about it.
Sorry to be a stick in the mud... but where are you getting your statistics?
I'm not sure about the first graph, I'd probably argue that point but where the comunity majorities are going to come from is honestly a huge up in the air in my mind. However, there are alot of reasons the graph might look like that, you might have caught a wave of forumers linked from an xbox magazine preview or something, or PC gamers might just be lazier with prerelease games then they used to (most of us have been burned a fair few times), whereas the consoletards (pardon the term) are probably newer to the industry experiance. I think alot of PC users these days are sort of half and half gamer/techies, and for many of them, a game might as well not exist until it finds it's way onto the steam DL page, they don't have time to waste between lunix partitioning following up games that barely anything is known about yet. Certainly we have yet to see the mass marketing push that will create buzz about BL in the fallout, stalker, and mass effect comunities yet. BL has so far been barely a wisper, and unless you are a serious hardcore about this genre of games following the last E3 pretty closely, it probably got under your radar. I'm sure that graph will change up and down in various directions as BL hits it's major marketing push, and then hit's it's release stages. Certainly it's no suprize that the armchair gamer media enthusiests of the PS3 comunity haven't clued in yet in mass numbers. Lastly, it's confusing that you put PC 29% by the little green bar and PS3 20% by the medium sized blue bar.
In regards to the second graph: PC gamers don't care about split screen. I need to play the game before I know weather it will be any good with PVP, certainly it's not going to look or feel like most other shooters do with PVP. Honestly, in that field I'd have to entirely reserve judgement for after I see the game in action, asside from split screen play (which is irrellevant to me) any of those other items can either be immensely positive, immensely damaging, or just sort of irrellevant and useless.
In regards to the 3rd graph: It's good to see :)