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4 x as many Xfire users playing GW2 than WOW.

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  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Originally posted by Naevius
    The Xfire sample is only problematic if you can demonstrate a reason why more/fewer WoW players would use it compared to GW2.For example, suppose only lefthanded redheads use XFire. Doesn't matter, unless there is some systemic reason more lefthanded redheads play one of the two games.As long as the same percentage of players in each game use XFire, the ratio is meaningful.

    So, what percentage of players in GW2 use XFire? What percentage of WoW players use XFire?

    If you had the number of concurrent players at the time you looked at XFire, you would know those percentages. But then...you wouldn't need the percentages because you'd have the actual number of players. That relation between XFire and the game is useless because you can't get it without knowing the number you're trying to get using XFire in the first place.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by lizardbones

     

    Originally posted by Naevius
    The Xfire sample is only problematic if you can demonstrate a reason why more/fewer WoW players would use it compared to GW2.

     

    For example, suppose only lefthanded redheads use XFire. Doesn't matter, unless there is some systemic reason more lefthanded redheads play one of the two games.

    As long as the same percentage of players in each game use XFire, the ratio is meaningful.


    So, what percentage of players in GW2 use XFire? What percentage of WoW players use XFire?

    If you had the number of concurrent players at the time you looked at XFire, you would know those percentages. But then...you wouldn't need the percentages because you'd have the actual number of players. That relation between XFire and the game is useless because you can't get it without knowing the number you're trying to get using XFire in the first place.

     

    You also need to know how the GW2 players using XFire tend to be skewed relative to the general GW2 players, and likewise for WoW.  Etc, etc.  For instance, it's quite likely that Xfire is composed of more hardcore gamers who try out lots of new games, for instance, so they'll behave quite a bit different than a casual gamer (which make up most of the gaming population).

  • NikkitaNikkita Member Posts: 790
    Not only lets compare a 4 days old MMO with an 8 year old one on xfire but also the B2P model  with P2P model. Makes so much sense isn't it?

    image


    Bite Me

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Originally posted by FrodoFragins
    Originally posted by Drachasor Originally posted by Naevius The Xfire sample is only problematic if you can demonstrate a reason why more/fewer WoW players would use it compared to GW2. For example, suppose only lefthanded redheads use XFire. Doesn't matter, unless there is some systemic reason more lefthanded redheads play one of the two games. As long as the same percentage of players in each game use XFire, the ratio is meaningful.
    I don't need to demonstrate a reason, I just need to show that it exists.  Since WoW makes up over 50% of the market for MMOs and that doesn't show up on Xfire, then Xfire is biased.  This shouldn't be surprising as casual gamers don't typically get additional programs to help with their gaming.  In general, services that are designed for a particular sort of interest tend to attract more people heavily interested in that activity, but there could be other biases at play and probably are.
    Huh?  WOW makes up 50% of the number of daily MMO players (F2P, B2P and sub combined)?  Where did you get that number? 

    XFire does not measure subscribers, it measures the number of XFire users playing that day.  That's it. 

    Name a game that XFire indicated had lost a lot of daily players that hasn't in fact lost them. 

    AoC?  nope they got that right. 

    SWTOR?  Guess again.

    Diablo 3?  Nope they got that right too.



    So long as you don't quantify the results, XFire is historically shown trends in concurrent (active) players. For example, this week, compared to last week, WoW has fewer concurrent players. The quantity of players cannot be determined, but there are very likely fewer concurrent players compared to last week.

    It never stops there though. From there someone makes up a number to calculate how many fewer players there are this week relative to last week. Then someone else takes the numbers from one game, and using another made up number they relate it to the numbers from another game. Then people start talking about how because it's a large sample it must be accurate and because it's sort of random it is pretty accurate. That's why adding XFire to a thread almost always increases the misinformation.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by Nikkita
    Not only lets compare a 4 days old MMO with an 8 year old one on xfire but also the B2P model  with P2P model. Makes so much sense isn't it?

    Eh, nothing wrong with comparing sales models or with comparing new verses old MMOs.  Though with an MMO that's only been out for a few days you can't tell how its numbers will change -- but of course we don't really have numbers on GW2 since Xfire numbers are crap.

  • MephsterMephster Member Posts: 1,188
    Still mind boggling that people use xfire as a benchmark.

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  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Originally posted by Drachasor
    Originally posted by lizardbones   Originally posted by Naevius The Xfire sample is only problematic if you can demonstrate a reason why more/fewer WoW players would use it compared to GW2.   For example, suppose only lefthanded redheads use XFire. Doesn't matter, unless there is some systemic reason more lefthanded redheads play one of the two games. As long as the same percentage of players in each game use XFire, the ratio is meaningful.
    So, what percentage of players in GW2 use XFire? What percentage of WoW players use XFire? If you had the number of concurrent players at the time you looked at XFire, you would know those percentages. But then...you wouldn't need the percentages because you'd have the actual number of players. That relation between XFire and the game is useless because you can't get it without knowing the number you're trying to get using XFire in the first place.  
    You also need to know how the GW2 players using XFire tend to be skewed relative to the general GW2 players, and likewise for WoW.  Etc, etc.  For instance, it's quite likely that Xfire is composed of more hardcore gamers who try out lots of new games, for instance, so they'll behave quite a bit different than a casual gamer (which make up most of the gaming population).


    Interesting Factoid: The median played time per game for XFire players is 3 hours. The mean played time is much higher, something like 40 hours. What does that mean? It's means the popularity of games on XFire is very skewed.

    Does this represent the average gamer? Does this represent the average MMORPG gamer? I do not know the answer to these questions. I didn't do the research paper that resulted in those numbers so I didn't do any research on average gamers. :-)

    There are just a lot of problems with XFire's data. I'm sure, given time, we could find more problems with the data that can't be rectified without further input from both XFire and the game developers themselves but I'm done for a bit, I think.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by FrodoFragins
    Originally posted by Drachasor
    Originally posted by Naevius

    The Xfire sample is only problematic if you can demonstrate a reason why more/fewer WoW players would use it compared to GW2.

    For example, suppose only lefthanded redheads use XFire. Doesn't matter, unless there is some systemic reason more lefthanded redheads play one of the two games.

    As long as the same percentage of players in each game use XFire, the ratio is meaningful.

    I don't need to demonstrate a reason, I just need to show that it exists.  Since WoW makes up over 50% of the market for MMOs and that doesn't show up on Xfire, then Xfire is biased.  This shouldn't be surprising as casual gamers don't typically get additional programs to help with their gaming.  In general, services that are designed for a particular sort of interest tend to attract more people heavily interested in that activity, but there could be other biases at play and probably are.

    Huh?  WOW makes up 50% of the number of daily MMO players (F2P, B2P and sub combined)?  Where did you get that number? 

     

    XFire does not measure subscribers or revenue, it measures the number of XFire users, and the number of hours, they were playing that day.  That's it. 

     

    Name a game that XFire indicated had lost a lot of daily players that hasn't in fact lost them. 

    AoC?  nope they got that right. 

    SWTOR?  Guess again.

    Diablo 3?  Nope they got that right too.

    It's been estimated to be over 50% of the marketshare, so yeah, that would imply an extremely high average number of players per day compared to other MMOs.

    And there's a huge difference between Xfire having a rough correlation with the population at large and being a represenative sample of the population at large.  If a game does badly, for instance, you'll get casuals and hardcore gamers both quitting it.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they'll quit in the same numbers or at the same rate.  You'd expect a correlation like yours to work with games that had major problems like the ones you named.  It'll not work so well with games that are successful and don't cause major a major falling out with the playerbase.

    From what I've understood, WoW has shown big drops on Xfire and there without having big drops, so there are certainly innaccuracies present.

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by lizardbones

     

    So long as you don't quantify the results, XFire is historically shown trends in concurrent (active) players. For example, this week, compared to last week, WoW has fewer concurrent players. The quantity of players cannot be determined, but there are very likely fewer concurrent players compared to last week.

    It never stops there though. From there someone makes up a number to calculate how many fewer players there are this week relative to last week. Then someone else takes the numbers from one game, and using another made up number they relate it to the numbers from another game. Then people start talking about how because it's a large sample it must be accurate and because it's sort of random it is pretty accurate. That's why adding XFire to a thread almost always increases the misinformation.

    Except given that the big 5.0 patch for WoW came out Teusday, you'd generally expect a bump in the number of players actively playing.

  • daltaniousdaltanious Member UncommonPosts: 2,381

    So what? Never used xfire in my life with any game. Usually buy in shop "hard copy" or buy digitally from Gamefly. Or directly from provider. So it is pretty silly relying on SINGLE source for any stats.

    Is more psychological question why would some kind of players prefer one way over another.

  • CrimsonSixCrimsonSix Member UncommonPosts: 42

    WoW is 3 weeks away from an expansion. I wonder what all those bored WoW players are doing right now. Jeez.

     

    Compare the numbers three weeks from now when MoP launches, or better yet three month from now, when 'the-game-is-the-endgame' begins to take its toll.

  • otacuotacu Member UncommonPosts: 547

    Jeez ... calm down. Xfire is not an indication of the overall player population but it's nice to see trends.

     

     

    And keep in mind that NO mmorpg ever surpassed WOW in the xfire chart. Not even swtor.

    Today is

     

    ♦ Guild Wars 2 (54.5%)

    ♦ World of Warcraft (13.3%)

    ♦ Star Wars: The Old Republic (2.9%)

    ♦ Aion (2.4%)

    ♦ Other (26.9%)

  • observerobserver Member RarePosts: 3,685
    Ah, here we go.  The obligatory Xfire topic.  It's used in almost all major MMO launches. :D
  • k-damagek-damage Member CommonPosts: 738

    It's both funny and sad to see some people desperately try to pull some thin strings here and there just for the sake of defending WoW.

    Until MoP, GW2 is killing WoW, period. Only cavemen wouldn't see that. And that doesn't mean WoW is dead btw ... just severely bleeding.

    p.s : Xfire sampling gathers 100 times more samples than any official governmental survey (generally an official survey is sampling ~1000 people, and yet it claims to be representative).

    ***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****

  • DrachasorDrachasor Member Posts: 2,678
    Originally posted by k-damage

    p.s : Xfire sampling gathers 100 times more samples than any official governmental survey (generally an official survey is sampling ~1000 people, and yet it claims to be representative).

    Your knowledge of statistics is severely lacking.  1000 people is enough to get a good representation of a large population if you conduct the survey properly.  If you don't, then a sample size of 300,000 done badly will get you really bad information on a much larger population.

    Xfire isn't taking represenative samples of the gaming popualtion because its userbase is not a represenative sample.  It doesn't matter if they have a large number, because the base information is going to be biased and nothing is being done to try to counteract that bias.

  • InFlamestwoInFlamestwo Member Posts: 662
    X-fire users mostly play FPS..GW2 is alot like FPS and mobas.

    image

  • vee41vee41 Member Posts: 191

    While XFire might be good for analyzing general trends it's quite pointless to make any sort of comparisons due it's nature. XFire users form their own usergroup that does not represent a random selection of gamers in anyway which makes comparisons between games pretty much meaningless.

    General trends like 'GW2 is popular and there seem to be lots of people playing it'

    Not 'GW2 is more popular than WOW!'

    An analogy, as everyone loves them. Lets ask 5000 random people who should be president of United States and we will get a decent idea of what people think. If we ask 5000 republicans the result will be very different.

    Thus I conclude by saying XFire users = Republicans. Thank you.

    My Guild Wars 2 blog. Read it. The bestestest and most TRUTHEST BLOG EVER!!

  • TyvolusNextTyvolusNext Member Posts: 192
    Originally posted by Drachasor
    Originally posted by TyvolusNext
    Originally posted by Gravarg
    Originally posted by otacu

    Xfire users must really like Gw2

    The only real truth about these numbers...doesn't mean anything

     

    Edit: I know hundreds of people outside my guild in WoW, and then there's about 150-200 in my guild.  I've never once heard about any of them using or even talking about xfire or xfire numbers...alot of people don't use xfire.  Like I said in the other posts,  it's like saying apples are horrible, because at the orange store people only buy oranges.

     you couldnt be more wrong.  xfire users represent a SAMPLE of gamers and presents a statistical sample of what said gamers who use xfire are playing.  alot of people play wow -- as a result xifre accurately reports nearly 25% of its MMO playing users playing wow.  dont think you are going to see Conan showing these results in xfire.  the fact you and your buddies dont use it, doesnt mean the numbers are meaningless.  and for the record i dont play GW2, wow or use xfire.  but then again, that doesnt change the fact that enough gamers do use it, for it to provide a small idea of what is popular.

    It provides a small idea of what is popular among a certain subsection of the gaming community, in particular, among Xfire users.  Last I checked, WoW makes up more than 25% of the MMO market for instance, over 50% in fact.  So the Xfire numbers, if anything show a marked selection against WoW players.

    That data is biased as heck, making drawing conclusions about the MMO community based on the Raw data worthless.

      "Last I checked, WoW makes up more than 25% of the MMO market for instance, over 50% in fact."

    And since last you checked, a game called Guild Wars 2 came out and that game is showing a trend amongst xfire users that is showing signs that things have changed since last you checked....and thats where the information xfire provides is of use...it shows trends in a statistical sample of gamers and that trend currently is GW2 more, wow less. 

     

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    Originally posted by Drachasor
    Originally posted by lizardbones   So long as you don't quantify the results, XFire is historically shown trends in concurrent (active) players. For example, this week, compared to last week, WoW has fewer concurrent players. The quantity of players cannot be determined, but there are very likely fewer concurrent players compared to last week. It never stops there though. From there someone makes up a number to calculate how many fewer players there are this week relative to last week. Then someone else takes the numbers from one game, and using another made up number they relate it to the numbers from another game. Then people start talking about how because it's a large sample it must be accurate and because it's sort of random it is pretty accurate. That's why adding XFire to a thread almost always increases the misinformation.
    Except given that the big 5.0 patch for WoW came out Teusday, you'd generally expect a bump in the number of players actively playing.


    XFire trends have a history of being "right" if you don't bother trying to nail the numbers down. When XFire shows "Less" players, there's usually an indication that there really are "Less" players, regardless of the game. That is not an indication that XFire will be that accurate in the future though. Changes in the WoW population and changes in the XFire population have an impact on these things. We have an idea of the XFire overall population changes, and an idea of the overall WoW population changes, but where the two groups intersect, the changes are undefined. We don't know how many XFire users dropped their WoW subs. It's kind of a cr@pshoot really.

    For myself, I think the coming xpac is more of a factor than the patch. Just before an expansion, it feels like you largely have the server to yourself. It's kind of nice in a survived the apocalypse kind of way. :-) Combined with their subs dropping from 10m to 9m, I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be fewer players playing, and so there would be fewer players shown in XFire. Again, so long as you don't try to nail down the numbers or the degree of "Less"*. That's anywhere from 1 "Less" person to infinite fewer people. Unless Blizz or any other developer starts releasing actual concurrent player numbers on a regular basis, that's as close as it gets. Of course, then XFire would be a total waste, wouldn't it? :-)

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • ShadoedShadoed Member UncommonPosts: 1,459
    Originally posted by k-damage

    It's both funny and sad to see some people desperately try to pull some thin strings here and there just for the sake of defending WoW.

    Until MoP, GW2 is killing WoW, period. Only cavemen wouldn't see that. And that doesn't mean WoW is dead btw ... just severely bleeding.

    p.s : Xfire sampling gathers 100 times more samples than any official governmental survey (generally an official survey is sampling ~1000 people, and yet it claims to be representative).

    Hmmmm, except from x-fires own support forums people are complaining because since the patch x-fire hasn't been registering any hours played on WoW, soooooo.....if it isn't collecting stats then it makes all of the figures pretty useless?!?

    http://forums.xfire.com/showthread.php/265236-World-of-Warcraft-with-new-x-64-exe-(New-Patch-5-04)

    I would have expected GW2 to be massive on launch especially since most WoW players will be going about their normal business at the moment, other than a few returns for the pre-patch so it wouldn't have been a huge surprise but people's absolute belief in a few unsubstantiated stats still never ceases to amaze me :)

    It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.

  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852
         Who cares about Xfire numbers..  Xfire is a niche community mostly made up of "esporters" playing anything from PvP to Starcraft and LoL..  Xfire does not represent majority of the PvE generation..   Just saying..
  • k-damagek-damage Member CommonPosts: 738
    Originally posted by Drachasor
    Originally posted by k-damage

    p.s : Xfire sampling gathers 100 times more samples than any official governmental survey (generally an official survey is sampling ~1000 people, and yet it claims to be representative).

    Your knowledge of statistics is severely lacking.  1000 people is enough to get a good representation of a large population if you conduct the survey properly.  If you don't, then a sample size of 300,000 done badly will get you really bad information on a much larger population.

    Xfire isn't taking represenative samples of the gaming popualtion because its userbase is not a represenative sample.  It doesn't matter if they have a large number, because the base information is going to be biased and nothing is being done to try to counteract that bias.

    lol, are you implying that all government/media surveys are conducted properly ... ?

    ***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****

  • loulakiloulaki Member UncommonPosts: 944
    Originally posted by otacu

    http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

     

    In the mmorpg genre

     

     

     Guild Wars 2 (48.6%)

    ♦ World of Warcraft (21.5%)

    ♦ Star Wars: The Old Republic (2.7%)

    ♦ Aion (2.6%)

    ♦ Other (24.6%)

     

    Even Swtor at his peak at start didn't top WOW. It was half of wow at best. Xfire users must really like Gw2

    well now i see 80.000 hours for GW2 and 15.700 for WoW ...

    image

  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    Originally posted by loulaki
    Originally posted by otacu

    http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

     

    In the mmorpg genre

     

     

     Guild Wars 2 (48.6%)

    ♦ World of Warcraft (21.5%)

    ♦ Star Wars: The Old Republic (2.7%)

    ♦ Aion (2.6%)

    ♦ Other (24.6%)

     

    Even Swtor at his peak at start didn't top WOW. It was half of wow at best. Xfire users must really like Gw2

    well now i see 80.000 hours for GW2 and 15.700 for WoW ...

     

    Now it's:

     

    ♦ Guild Wars 2 (55.9%)

    ♦ World of Warcraft (11.0%)

    ♦ Star Wars: The Old Republic (3.1%)

    ♦ Aion (3.0%)

    ♦ Metin 2 (2.3%)

    ♦ Other (24.8%)

    http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

     

    This time we'll also look at the specific game's stats:

    GW2

    http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

    WoW

    http://beta.xfire.com/games/wow

     

    Taking all the info into consideration (not just the % above but also the # of players and # of hours in the links) could give an insight on what might be happening on a macro scale but it in no way is this concrete data.  I would like to speculate that xfire has been around a long time so these are likely players that have been playing for a while which is why until now WoW has been on top.

     

  • RuandelRuandel Member UncommonPosts: 15
    Originally posted by Gravarg
    Originally posted by otacu

    Xfire users must really like Gw2

    The only real truth about these numbers...doesn't mean anything

     

    Edit: I know hundreds of people outside my guild in WoW, and then there's about 150-200 in my guild.  I've never once heard about any of them using or even talking about xfire or xfire numbers...alot of people don't use xfire.  Like I said in the other posts,  it's like saying apples are horrible, because at the orange store people only buy oranges.

    Its probably safe to say that, the same percentage of people using Xfire in WoW, and GW2.

This discussion has been closed.