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Hello.
I decided to check the popularity of our favorite game. Based on the total number of players on 5 main servers (West, East, Europe, Korea, Asia) at one time.
I will try to take measurements at the same time: 22:00 PM.
It will be possible to track the dynamics of the popularity of our favorite game.
I also made a Comments tab where you can leave your comments.
I hope it will be useful.
Link on Table in Google SpreadSheets: Popularity of SC:BW
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I changed the table.
I will also record data on the number of games played.
Thanks to a good person - ZZZero.O for the idea.
This is right. It will be possible to track the number of games played, rather than just the number of players.
If you have any other suggestions, write.
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The numbers are depressing tbh. I remember when Korea had like 20 or even 30k active. Why game with infinite potential isn't popular I don't get it...
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Croatia9435 Posts
You should also write down the time when you're taking this data. In fact, you should probably collect this data through different times in the day. There's a huge difference in number of active players at 6am and 7pm.
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On December 26 2023 01:14 jghzuztghjr wrote: Now what? Is there any value in that data? Maybe there is, maybe not. Maybe there will be some good guys who, seeing that activity is only growing (it would be nice), will start holding additional tournaments.
Initially, I just wanted to collect such information for myself. JUST out of interest. But I thought it would be interesting and useful for someone else.
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On December 26 2023 02:06 outscar wrote: The numbers are depressing tbh. I remember when Korea had like 20 or even 30k active. Why game with infinite potential isn't popular I don't get it...
So I have numbers from 22:00 PM. In Korea at this time around 05:00 AM everyone is still asleep (early morning). And if early in the morning it’s around 6000, then in the evening it’s 4-5 times more.
In the evening there are approximately 20-30 thousand people there.
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On December 26 2023 02:29 2Pacalypse- wrote: You should also write down the time when you're taking this data. In fact, you should probably collect this data through different times in the day. There's a huge difference in number of active players at 6am and 7pm.
Yes, maybe you're right. But I can pick it up only in the evening (at 22:00).
I just thought that by collecting data every day at the same time, it would be possible to evaluate the dynamics: growth/decline. (Although this will be a small group of players, but still).
Plus 22:00 in Korea, around 05:00 (very early in the morning). But even so early there are about 6,000 people on the server (Korea). Those. this is how early real fans can play
And it seems to me that if in a country where SC:BW is a religion , at 5 am the number of players begins to decrease, then in general interest in the game will decrease.
Maybe I'm wrong. Let's get a look. I'll collect it.
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The main idea is (I thought so) that by choosing the collection time: 22:00 pm:
In Europe - it’s time to sleep soon)) In Korea it is very early (5:00 am) In the USA (West and East Coast): it is around 13:00 - 15:00 (i.e. many are still at work).
It turns out that at this time the minimum number of players is playing.
And if this number decreases, then we can talk about a decrease in the number of active players in general.
Again, maybe I'm wrong. I will collect this data. Perhaps they will be useful to someone for the start of some cool tournament. It will be great.
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Picking Christmas day is also possibly not the most representative of activity in general, but rather a good baseline for lowest activity and then other days should be higher
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On December 26 2023 04:56 WGT-Baal wrote: Picking Christmas day is also possibly not the most representative of activity in general, but rather a good baseline for lowest activity and then other days should be higher
Agree. If I have enough strength for a year, fill out the table, next Christmas and New Year we will compare how many of us fans of this wonderful game are left.
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It depends if it is between weeks, weeksend, if it is hollidays and if there are other events going like world cup,etc.
Further, are games/players playing ladder even counted or custom games,etc.
Additional at night in Europe a lot of people change gateway to US-west, and many people playing ladder use ID for other Gateways... Even if we only take the total number of players or games, it is hard to see the transparency of what really counts, i sure dont know it... So that would be the first thing to show before getting into the numbers, otherwise they dont have that much meaning...
Further, there also people that may play single player, lan network, not on the Battlenet launcher system, that may pump the numbers up... So no need to get depressed.
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On December 26 2023 05:34 Leonix wrote: It depends if it is between weeks, weeksend, if it is hollidays and if there are other events going like world cup,etc.
Further, are games/players playing ladder even counted or custom games,etc.
Additional at night in Europe a lot of people change gateway to US-west, and many people playing ladder use ID for other Gateways... Even if we only take the total number of players or games, it is hard to see the transparency of what really counts, i sure dont know it... So that would be the first thing to show before getting into the numbers, otherwise they dont have that much meaning...
Further, there also people that may play single player, lan network, not on the Battlenet launcher system, that may pump the numbers up... So no need to get depressed.
Thx, Yes, I agree with you.
Here’s the same question: data about games played, which is written when logging into the server, are these games in the ladder or just custom ones. Plus, yes, many can play without entering the ladder, etc.
There are many different unknowns.
But I’ll collect it this way for now, then we’ll see. Maybe I’ll somehow rearrange the information in this table (taking into account wishes and comments) so that there is a more objective picture.
So far, at not the most popular times (on all servers), there are a total of about 8 thousand players. (In the most popular times, I think you can reach a total of 30-40 thousand). Yes, not all of them may be actively playing. But they are still in the community.
Yes, and I’m not falling into depression)) I’m just collecting this data for now. When the minimum total figure of 8 thousand gradually will decreases, perhaps there will be a reason to be a little sad.
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It s a good study to run.
Personally i consider that the wait times of about 30s I get to find a somewhat balanced ladder match for a 25yr old game is very good.
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Really great idea, I think it will be a useful stats for the community. I disagree with the idea you should measure at different times of the days.
If this is meant to be a long-term study (like 6m - 1y), then you should stick to the same hour each day and repeat it. In fact, consistency is more important than frequency. So if u feel like it's impossible to measure every day for 365 days a year, it's better to measure once at week x 52 weeks.
As for the comparison between different times of the day, you can also do that, but I think just 1-2 weeks worth of data is enough. The reason is the number of players may decrease / increase over time, but the ratio between different time windows are likely to be constant.
So if you wanna combine the 2 approaches, you could do this: 1. Choose 1 fixed hour per day (or per week), and measure it for the whole year 2. For a special period of 1-2 weeks, measure 2-4 times per day to see how the numbers fluctuate.
Just my 2 cents.
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On December 26 2023 23:43 namkraft wrote: Really great idea, I think it will be a useful stats for the community. I disagree with the idea you should measure at different times of the days.
If this is meant to be a long-term study (like 6m - 1y), then you should stick to the same hour each day and repeat it. In fact, consistency is more important than frequency. So if u feel like it's impossible to measure every day for 365 days a year, it's better to measure once at week x 52 weeks.Just my 2 cents.
Thank you. I also thought that it would be more correct to collect every day at the same time. When +/- the same players are on Battle.net.
And a cross-section of data for this period of time will be visible.
And POSSIBLY (!) based on this part of the players it will be possible to judge a little about the activity of the community as a whole (growth, decline, lack of change).
Let`s see
As I wrote above, I deliberately chose not the most popular time for all time zones.
22:00 pm In Europe - it's time to get ready for bed)) It's very early in Korea (5:00 am). In the US (West and East Coast): this is around 13:00 – 15:00 (i.e. many are still at work).
Therefore, at this time, the most persistent are on Battle.net.
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True, I don’t understand how exactly the number is calculated on the server: " Number of games played?
Since when are records kept? From 00:00:01 of the current day? What games count? (Melee, TvB, UMS etc.)
Because on the Europe server now: 620 people and only 40 games played (!!!). It turns out that 40 games were played in ~22 hours. This cannot happen.
Yesterday at 22:00 there were 550 players (Server Europe) and 34 games played. (That's almost a whole day). It’s somehow strange and incomprehensible to me that the number of games played is calculated.
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On December 27 2023 06:04 Sonic_md wrote: True, I don’t understand how exactly the number is calculated on the server: " Number of games played?
Since when are records kept? From 00:00:01 of the current day? What games count? (Melee, TvB, UMS etc.)
Because on the Europe server now: 620 people and only 40 games played (!!!). It turns out that 40 games were played in ~22 hours. This cannot happen.
Yesterday at 22:00 there were 550 players (Server Europe) and 34 games played. (That's almost a whole day). It’s somehow strange and incomprehensible to me that the number of games played is calculated. That number is "games in progress" (or perhaps "open lobbies", hard to say) it is not "games played since you last logged on" or anything else like that.
This data and the method you're using to collect it is really not that useful imo. #1 because Blizzard's service is quite weird as far as "regions" go because there are two layers of regions: the bnet launcher region and then the server choice within the game itself. I don't know how this affects these counts but it certainly affects things like friends lists and such (you can only friend people that are both on the same bnet launcher region AND ingame region), so it seems likely that it can affect user/game count as well. #2, as other people have stated, server population fluctuates greatly depending on time of day, day of the week, holidays, etc. so collecting a single data point once a day or once a week is not enough to get any kind of accurate count.
At best this data might be useful to compare against itself, but it's extremely prone to construing a local trend (e.g. BW is becoming less popular in Europe) to be a global one (e.g. BW is becoming less popular overall). Posting the raw numbers (which again, are meaningless) and not just the relationship between them also gives people the wrong idea (i.e. "there are only 1000 people playing BW these days!") which I think is a negative thing for the community in general.
So yeah, either make a better effort or this is doing more harm than good imo.
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Korea probably has a lot of people playing on LAN, so there's that.
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