hoorayforicecream wrote...
deuce985 wrote...
Flawed statistics are flawed.
How do we know the number behind the percentage? 50% completion doesn't necessarily mean a higher number of players completed the game over 40%...
10% less players might be completing it because of mechanics like broader appeal to casual gamers. Just too many variables behind this to take it credible. It's one reason I ignore surveys because they never give you all the details on how the survey was performed.
Their data isn't from surveys. Bioware pulls data automatically from origin accounts with the "send data to bioware" checkmark in the options screen turned on (by default). Completion rate is number of accounts who have completed the game at least once divided by total number of accounts created to play the game. The result is typically several million data points, which is very precise when performing statistical analysis.
The issue is not the quality of the data (it rarely is at the corporate level, an undergrad Statistics class can ensure that). It is in the filter which the data is viewed and the interpretations people pull from it that Statistics are made wholly inaccurate.
To put this in context (which the OP did not do) this was a game design symposium where Fernando Melo, a Director of Online Development (read: the guy whose job revolves around selling DLC) was giving advice on how to best incorporate DLC into other developer's product roll out.
Melo was showing how, even with low completion rates, they were able to sell X amounts of DLC, thus proving his own success. It certainly behooved him to make it seem like the people who bought the original product disliked it, but then by his marketing and development genius, he was able to have all of these DLC downloads.
I'm sure his analysis also skipped over the fact that certain DLC were free or came with the shipped game. After all, that would make him look bad.
Always look at the person who is presenting data. I'm not just talking about "Bioware", I mean LITERALLY - the PERSON presenting the data. Melo made himself look better by making all of Bioware's core games look like dirt and gamers as uninterested, fickle, money sacks. And since he did it so well, EA is now able to sell their Day One DLC model to all sorts of other developers who want to be as successful as the Great and Mighty Bioware.
Its a shell game. They aren't real statistics, they are marketing statistics. And when you are being marketed to, you need to know the product they are trying to sell. Melo's product here? Base games, even for AAA developers, aren't interesting to gamers. So you need to have reasons to make them buy DLC - like crucial plot points, characters that input a lot to the story but can only be bought with Microsoft Points and locked content on the original disc to sell you later at a premium price.
Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 13 août 2012 - 11:37 .
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