What's the deal Mr Big Fish?

[Indiepath]

I've been doing research into portals "Online Play" sites and how they track the concurrent number of plays a game has. I was quite surprised by how and what is presented to the user on the Big Fish site - my findings led me to believe that the site is not as busy as some would like us to believe.

My findings in this particular case were:

1) The number of "Players" is not concurrent and is actually a measure of the times the game was launched.
2) A game launch increments the "Players" counter by 6 instead of 1:eek:

Perhaps someone could have a look for themselves and confirm that it's not my computers on my network that are causing this.

I'm also interested in some feedback regarding the reporting of concurrent players. What do you expect when you are presented with a "Players" number?

[Marshall]

Indiepath, are you like the very last person in the industry to know that they multiply the number of users by 6?

Their online ad-supported games effort was apparently acquired from a third party, and is obviously not even a fraction as successful as their downloadable games business, or their game studios. I can understand why they want to make it look big, but that's not a good strategy. They got customers and developers trust and that's a more important currency than their web games thingie looking successful.

"My Big Fish Games" is like two weeks old and already has way more real users than their online games site. You'd think whoever is behind My BFG would be assigned to directly manage and re-position that site for a while. They are starting to offer original games, which is a good start, but they shouldn't compete with pogo. No point in being a follower for something that's primarily driven by network effects. They should segment and identify/cater to specific communities instead.

Marshall.

[Indiepath]

Indiepath, are you like the very last person in the industry to know that they multiply the number of users by 6?
Apparently I am :rolleyes: Oh well, better late than never.

[James C. Smith]

I believe the theory is that it represents the number of people to play in the last 24 hours. I think they measure the number of people who played in the last 4 hours and multiply that by 6. Or something like that.

[Applewood]

Indiepath, are you like the very last person in the industry to know that they multiply the number of users by 6?Nah, that would probably be me. Cynic though I am, I wouldn't expect a legit company to so blatantly misrepresent data in this way. Is that even legal ?

[soniCron]

You're not alone, Paul. I haven't the faintest what they're talking about. I didn't even know they published numbers. Is there some whitepaper I didn't read?

[michalczyk]

Nah, that would probably be me. Cynic though I am, I wouldn't expect a legit company to so blatantly misrepresent data in this way. Is that even legal ?

I think such practices are far more common than one would like. If you start poking around you'll find that many sites (games and otherwise) cheat in such and similar ways just to appear big and busy.

[simonh]

Yeah, they must be multiplied by something as all the numbers are even. I suppose if they were really trying to con people they would at least make some of the figures odd.

[Dan MacDonald]

As I understand it, they know when a game starts but they dont know when a game ends. So they estimate the average play time and count the number of starts in a given period to get an idea of what the current players are. Seems like that "guestimation" likes to spit out multiples of 6.

[Nexic]

It does indeed increase the play count by 6. I always thought this kind of 'players' count meant this many playing right now, not today or this week etc.

[amaranth]

I've been doing research into portals "Online Play" sites and how they track the concurrent number of plays a game has. I was quite surprised by how and what is presented to the user on the Big Fish site - my findings led me to believe that the site is not as busy as some would like us to believe.


I can't vouch for players online at the same time, but do think that site is pretty darn busy. My site traffic went nuts when my game was first released there. More so than when my game hit Yahoo and Shockwave at the same time, and held the same popularity position.

[Indiepath]

Seems like we made enough noise - Big Fish now have a little box that shows the number of actual plays in the past 4 hours. Thanks guys.