IF Game Timeline

[James Lawton]

Hey,

I wrote a quick script today to find out the number of games indexed on IFDB, by year of publication. I'm sure someone has properly mined these data more comprehensively, but I haven't seen it, and I thought the results were interesting enough to post here. I also added points to show how many games were entered into the annual comp.

The data collected amounted to 3491 of 3645 games in IFDB. The others, I guess, have no recorded year of publication, or didn't show up for some other reason. I put no store in these numbers, as game count is a pretty flawed metric from which to base any conclusions, and anyway, IFDB doesn't encompass nearly everything that might be considered interactive fiction. On the other hand, I think the IFDB is comprehensive enough in its space to make me pose the question of what this graph would look like.

I put a png version of the graph at the following location, in case I'm not allowed to attach the pdf, or it causes problems with your mail client:

http://sites.google.com/site/jlawtonstorage/if/IF-Timeline.png

--James

[Andrew Plotkin]

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010, James Lawton wrote:

> I wrote a quick script today to find out the number of games indexed on
> IFDB, by year of publication. I'm sure someone has properly mined these
> data more comprehensively, but I haven't seen it, and I thought the
> results were interesting enough to post here. I also added points to
> show how many games were entered into the annual comp.
>

> http://sites.google.com/site/jlawtonstorage/if/IF-Timeline.png

Very nice. Thanks.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[Cathy Saxton]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your results.

Cathy

[Andrew Plotkin]

Hey, can I snarf a copy of this graph for the Gameshelf blog?

[James Lawton]

Sure. Be my guest.

--James