Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Lucian Paul Smith
After being bugged enough by the various posts we tend to get around here
complaining, "The competition is all anyone lives for anymore," I went to
GMD to disprove that theory.
Wow. There are a lot of games at GMD.
I'll start from the end, and work my way backwards.
In conclusion, the competition is not detracting from anything. Games are
still being released, both large and small. More and more Inform games
are being released, and TADS games, having taken a dip in '97, are still
going strong.
Here's a table I compiled. It lists all games written for various systems
or groups, by year (I used the ftpstats.9* files from gmd, which started
in '94, so that's as far back as I could go.) I've tried to not count any
games that were produced commercially at one time, as well as games
written in languages other than English. Also, I tried to keep games
written *originally* for each platform. This way, every platform doesn't
get bumped by one every time 'Colossal Cave' is ported to it.
System/Group 1994 and 1995 1996 1997 1998
prior (so far)
IF Competition --- 12 27 34*** --
Alan: --- -- 1 1 1
TADS: 11 8 16 4 6
Adventions*: 4 1 -- -- --
Inform: 2 9** 14 18 10**
AdvSys: 5 -- -- -- --
Mac-only: 2 -- -- 1 --
Mac/PC: 2 -- -- -- --
PC/AGT: 136 30 33 15 4
TRS-80: 4
TextFire: 21
Total: 167 62 92 73 43
* All Adventions games were written in TADS.
** 2 of which were self-acknowledged 'abuses'.
*** Plus 'Legacy', which was withdrawn.
Also of note: Since some people have said that the competition is
discouraging the production of 'large games', I went through the list and
(very unscientifically) pulled out all the games that I recognized that I
thought had gotten a reasonable amount of exposure on r*if, and which were
somewhat larger than the standard competition game. So far, we've been
averaging about six such games a year, pretty steadily. I don't think the
competition has changed that much. Also, some of the authors of said
larger games are past competition veterans, especially from the '95 one.
If this trend continues, even more competition entrants will later turn
out big games. (On a personal note, I know that I am a competition
'veteran', and that I would like to produce a larger game. I would also
like to point out that without the experience of the competition, I very
much doubt I would have the confidence or the motivation to produce such a
thing as my very first work of IF.)
I considered posting the various lists of games I compiled, but I think
it's too large for a post. Instead, I've put all the data on the web, at:
http://www.bioc.rice.edu/~lpsmith/IF/stats/
To start with (I told you I was doing this backwards), here's how I
compiled my statistics. I downloaded the 'Master-Index' from gmd, as well
as the ftpstats.9* files from the /if-archive/info/ directory. I deleted
everything but that which was in the /games/* heirarchy, as well as all
/games/source/ files. Then I deleted the numbers and did a 'diff' on each
successive year (these results can be found in the 'diff9*-9*' files in
my /stats/ directory). Then I compiled 'Games.each.year.txt', trying to
keep out duplications and commercial games, as well as ports of games from
one system to another (and glory be, but there must be 5 bazillion ports
and variants of 'Colossal Cave' out there--sheesh!)
Other random observations:
TADS authors, following in the steps of 'Adventions', tend to upload their
games to the 'pc' and 'mac' directories as well as the 'tads' directory.
Inform authors, following in the steps of Graham Nelson, don't do this (I
don't think there's a one).
AGT is still alive and kicking. 1997 was the first year that released
games from another system (Inform) outnumbered games released in AGT
(well, AGT and PC-only; I didn't distinguish the two. But I think the
majority of said games are indeed AGT). Also, the yearly AGT contest is
apparantly still going on, although the entrants may not be uploading
their games to gmd--there's one game at GMD from the '7th annual AGT
contest', uploaded this year (The Game of Recovery).
Other platforms continue to languish (at least in terms of number of games
released so far), despite good reviews in r*if (notably Hugo and Alan).
My speculation? These platforms need a 'totem' game that people will
follow. They need a game people can play and say, "I want to write a game
like *that*." TADS had this in Adventions, and Inform had this in Curses,
to get them started. Note to new authoring-system writers: this means
that it won't be enough to write an excellent IF language--you'll also
have to write an excellent *game* in that language if you want to receive
the kind of popular following currently seen for TADS, Inform, or AGT.
(This even applies to systems which attempt to break the mold, like the
Erasmatron or StoryHarp. I don't think it'll be enough to be the only one
in a certain area--you'll have to prove that it's an interesting area to
occupy.)
At any rate, feel free to visit my site and tell me that game X didn't
actually come out in year Y, but actually came out in year Y2K, or to
flame me for putting game Q on the list but not game W. I'll probably
cheerily hand you a handbasket and tell you to make your own statistics,
but if it makes you feel better (or if you actually *do* go ahead and make
your own statistics), go for it! The data's all there.
-Lucian "Lucian" Smith
Stephen Robert Norris
In article <6l9ir0$70j$1...@joe.rice.edu>,
[ Excellent post snipped ]
> -Lucian "Lucian" Smith
How dare you! That's months and months of arguments destroyed! :)
Hmm, maybe we can get into bitter flame wars about your interpretation
or classifications. There's hope yet :)
Thanks Lucian.
Stephen
Todd Baumann-Fern
There is always some way to start a fight!
>
Dan Shiovitz
In article <3578A117...@midstate.tds.net>,
No there isn't.
--
(Dan Shiovitz) (d...@cs.wisc.edu) (look, I have a new e-mail address)
(http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dbs) (and a new web page also)
(the content, of course, is the same)
Todd Baumann-Fern
Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?........
Paul A Krueger
Todd Baumann-Fern wrote in message <3579B1F9...@midstate.tds.net>...
>Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?........
He must be talking to you, because there's no one else there ;)
Todd Baumann-Fern
Hehehe
Den of Iniquity
On 5 Jun 1998, Stephen Robert Norris wrote:
>Hmm, maybe we can get into bitter flame wars about your interpretation
>or classifications. There's hope yet :)
Yeah! Hey Lucian, you did stats for TRS-80 but ignored Amiga games, you
dastard! That makes me really bitter. Rrrrrgh!
--
Den