Failure rates of Roguelike Games
Jeff Lait
development. I shall first present some dubious statistics and then
you shall complain that they don't accurately reflect roguelike
development.
To find the previous four studies, search for Failure inside this
newsgroup.
The data for this comes from:
http://thelist.roguelikedevelopment.org/
which Michal Bielinski has been maintaining.
First, the meaningless bargraph.
1 57! #
1 ^ #
1 # # #
1 # ## # #
1 # ## # #
1 # ## # #
1 # ## # #
1 # ### # #
1 # ### # # #
1 # ### # # ## #
1 ##### ## # ## #
1 ##### # #### # ## #
1 ###### # #### ## ## ##
1 ###### # ###### # ## ### # ###
1 ####### # ###### ##### ### # ###
1 ####### # ###### ######### # # #####
1 ################### ############ ### #####
1 000000000111111111122222222223333333333444>+94
1 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012>
This tracks the number of roguelikes by last release date. The first
column has a # for every roguelike released in the last month. I have
omitted the last column which would have all the roguelikes over 42
months old or without known release dates. There are now 94 such
roguelikes being tracked.
The peaks at 4, 16-17, 28, and 40 month marks are due to the 7DRL
challenges. The peak on the 23rd month is due to the 1KBRL challenge.
Note that this year's 7DRL challenge caused that month to hit 57
roguelikes last updated then! To conserve USENET bandwidth, I cut off
that bar.
Next, we will look at the cumulative totals for the last year.
Numbers: (July, 2010)
Month # Total Percent
1 14 14 4%
2 7 21 6%
3 14 35 10%
4 57 92 27%
5 10 102 29%
6 5 107 31%
7 3 110 32%
8 1 111 32%
9 6 117 34%
10 1 118 34%
11 1 119 35%
12 1 120 35%
Rest 223 343 100%
Copying from the last six year's reports:
Numbers: (July, 2009)
Month # Total Percent
1 6 6 2%
2 16 22 8%
3 7 29 11%
4 17 46 18%
5 8 54 21%
6 6 60 23%
7 5 65 25%
8 3 68 26%
9 5 73 28%
10 3 76 29%
11 14 90 34%
12 6 96 37%
Rest 166 262 100%
Numbers: (July, 2008)
Month # Total Percent
1 11 11 6%
2 5 16 8%
3 6 22 11%
4 12 34 17%
5 14 48 24%
6 6 54 27%
7 1 55 28%
8 5 60 30%
9 2 62 31%
10 2 64 32%
11 4 68 35%
12 2 70 36%
Rest 127 197 100%
Numbers: (July, 2007)
Month # Total Percent
1 10 10 6%
2 6 16 10%
3 9 25 15%
4 11 36 22%
5 9 45 28%
6 5 50 31%
7 5 55 34%
8 3 58 36%
9 3 61 37%
10 2 63 39%
11 1 64 39%
12 2 66 40%
Rest 97 163 100%
Numbers: (July, 2006)
Month # Total Percent
1 9 9 7%
2 3 12 9%
3 3 15 12%
4 11 26 20%
5 5 31 24%
6 1 32 25%
7 2 34 26%
8 3 37 29%
9 1 38 29%
10 3 41 32%
11 4 45 35%
12 2 47 36%
Rest 81 128 100%
Numbers: (July, 2005)
Month # Total Percent
1 15 15 15%
2 3 18 17%
3 10 28 27%
4 12 40 39%
5 2 42 42%
6 1 43 42%
7 5 48 47%
8 2 50 49%
9 3 53 51%
10 2 55 53%
11 3 58 56%
12 2 60 58%
Rest 43 103 100%
Numbers: (July, 2004)
Month # Total Percent
1 6 6 10%
2 5 11 19%
3 2 13 22%
4 3 16 27%
5 0 16 27%
6 0 16 27%
7 4 20 34%
8 0 20 34%
9 0 20 34%
10 1 21 36%
11 2 23 39%
12 2 25 42%
Rest 24 59 100%
The increasingly meaningless Percent Actively Developing Roguelike has
maintained its position despite what would seem an inevitable trend to
zero. This year the 35% of tracked roguelikes were updated in the
last year. This is largely due to the enormous success of this year's
7DRL challenge.
More interesting is the absolute number of touched roguelikes. 2006
seems to have been an anomaly as we've continued to see growth in this
area with a record 120 roguelikes updated in the last year.
This chart shows the number roguelikes touched in the last 6 months,
12 months, and the percentage the twelfth month number comprises of
the total number of roguelikes being tracked.
The New column records the increase in total tracked roguelikes. The
assumption is that these roguelikes were added in the last 12 months
since the last report, but it is possible that older roguelikes were
added to the list that inflates this number.
The last column is Old. These are roguelikes that have been tracked
for at least one year and have been touched in the last year. The
number is simply the 12 month total minus the new listing number.
This hopefully discounts the coffee-break effect of the myriad 7DRLs
and lets us see how many "real" roguelikes are currently being updated
per year.
Year 6 12 % Total New Old
2004 16 25 27% 59 - -
2005 43 60 42% 103 +44 16
2006 32 47 36% 128 +25 22
2007 50 66 40% 163 +35 31
2008 54 70 36% 197 +34 36
2009 60 96 37% 262 +65 31
2010 107 120 35% 343 +81 39
So where does seven years of data put us? We are doing very well for
roguelike creation - 6.75 new tracked roguelikes per month, a new
peak. It is tempting to dismiss this as a 7DRL effect, but the Old
column I think is correctly tracking the creation of larger projects.
While it is a new high, I'd hesitate to call that a trend. I suspect
we are seeing a continuation of the 30 new roguelikes a year rule
identified last year.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Björn Ritzl
> It is now time for my seventh annual analysis of roguelike game
> development. I shall first present some dubious statistics and then
> you shall complain that they don't accurately reflect roguelike
> development.
Nice work there Jeff. An interesting read!
> --
> Jeff Lait
> (POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
--
Björn
Auric__
> I shall first present some dubious statistics and then
> you shall complain that they don't accurately reflect roguelike
> development.
I love that line. :-)
--
Sometimes, you have to leave a few things in reserve,
just on the off-chance that you start winning.
Sherm Pendley
> On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:10:46 GMT, Jeff Lait wrote:
>
>> I shall first present some dubious statistics and then
>> you shall complain that they don't accurately reflect roguelike
>> development.
>
> I love that line. :-)
I do too - but it doesn't accurately reflect the comments this thread
usually gets each year. ;-)
sherm--
--
Sherm Pendley <www.shermpendley.com>
<www.camelbones.org>
Cocoa Developer
Darren Grey
> So where does seven years of data put us? We are doing very well for
> roguelike creation - 6.75 new tracked roguelikes per month, a new
> peak. It is tempting to dismiss this as a 7DRL effect, but the Old
> column I think is correctly tracking the creation of larger projects.
> While it is a new high, I'd hesitate to call that a trend. I suspect
> we are seeing a continuation of the 30 new roguelikes a year rule
> identified last year.
Hmm, I wonder if the annual roguelike release party will have an
effect on that? Will be interesting to see if it does cause an
inflation in numbers.
--
Darren Grey
Krice
> Hmm, I wonder if the annual roguelike release party will have an
> effect on that?
Let's hope that. The failure rate is now 100%, but I have a
feeling that we are going to see maybe even a roguelike in
ARRP releases.