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Random thought about the accuracy: If you published a game on Steam, you've probably noticed that many owners haven't cleared even "opened up the game" tier ac

Random thought about the accuracy: If you published a game on Steam, you've probably noticed that many owners haven't cleared even "opened up the game" tier achievements.

pixl97 8y ago
I've bought many games on sale and never installed them. Maybe one day I will, maybe I wont. My take is games that never have sales are more likely to be installed and ran.
- GuB-42 8y ago
  Also, bundles. I have a dozen of game I have never played, and will probably never play. They were part of a bundle that was cheaper than the individual game(s) I wanted.
  - hhmc 8y ago
    Also, some games had their achievements added after release (in some cases years). Achievements don't usually get backfilled to my knowledge, so any players with playtime before achievements will be underrepresented.
    - larsiusprime 8y ago
      This isn't the case, actually. Testing it against known sales data, the "achievers" stat derived by this method was ALWAYS higher than the # of ppl who had downloaded the game, or the # of ppl who had played it for at least 1 minute (these stats are known privately to developers). We don't know exactly how the total "achievers" pool for a game is calculated, but we know it isn't a simple measure of people who had achieved at least one achievement. It's almost certainly some measure of the total population that is able to register achievements, regardless of whether they have registered any. It probably includes something like family sharing accounts, so it doesn't exactly correspond to actual sales directly, but it seems to be roughly in the middle between the "players" and "owners" stats SteamSpy used to report. Sometimes it would overshoot both, but it was never less than "players."
larsiusprime 8y ago
I reviewed the algorithm, and as long as you have SOME users at all registering some amount of achievements, the method is quite accurate. Even if most players register no achievements, they still count towards the overall pool of "achievers" and provide a solid base for doing the calculation. You can verify this yourself with the supplied source code. The only cases where it can fail are: 1) When there is no achievement data 2) When there are not enough independent achievement %'s. 2 Can happen for games with very few achievements -- but in practice, if a game has even 3 achievements the chances of this happening become very small. TL;DR -- for very nearly every game on Steam, this was an extremely accurate method for estimating the number of "achievers" for that game. The tricky bit is correlating "achievers" with a metric you actually care about, like e.g. actual sales.
- ant6n 8y ago
  Isn't that the point of anonnyj? I.e. you don't know which % of sales are made without even registering a single achievement.
  - larsiusprime 8y ago
    Yes you do. Because even if they don't register an achievement, they still show up as part of the total population of possible "achievers". I've verified this from my own stats as a developer and that of other developers. As long as any portion of the userbase registers some achievement data, you can (well, could) get scarily accurate stats. The only "inaccurate" part is that the stat you're measuring -- "achievers" -- doesn't exactly correlate to any stat we directly care about, like sales. In all the measuring I did against known private sales data, it was always higher than the # of people who had downloaded the game, and the # of people who had played it for at least 1 minute. My best guess is family sharing inflates the "achievers" stat.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Yep. I even wonder if Steam has some kind of counter that would show me "Number of games you own that you've never played." I would probably be horrified.
- Deimorz 8y ago
  SteamDB's calculator can tell you that: https://steamdb.info/calculator/ https://steamdb.info/calculator/ It splits out a chart showing you how many games you have in a few different playtime categories ("12 or more hours", "6 to 12 hours", "Never played", etc.)
- lainga 8y ago
  There was an event a few weeks ago where Steam prompted you to play a game in your library that you had never opened or not opened in a long time.
bartervg 8y ago
Yes, this is an issue. One example is FreeFly Burning, which according to the achievement estimation method has 739 players [1]. Yet, the game has sold 25,562 keys through Go Go Bundles, and more through other bundles. Go Go Bundles lists the number of bundles delivered [2] and each bundle includes every game (in contrast to Humble Bundle that has tiers). This is consistent with Steamspy's estimate of 20,000 - 50,000 owners [3]. Those bundle buyers likely never downloaded the game and perhaps haven't even activated the game on Steam. With exceptions like F2P games or free weekend games: Units Sold >= Owners >= Players [1] https://barter.vg/i/40567/a/ https://barter.vg/i/40567/a/ [2] https://www.gogobundle.com/latest/bundles/bundlemega-7 https://www.gogobundle.com/latest/bundles/bundlemega-7 [3] https://steamspy.com/app/683530 https://steamspy.com/app/683530

Random thought about the accuracy: If you published a game on Steam, you've probably noticed that many owners haven't cleared even "opened up the game" tier achievements.

pixl97 8y ago

I've bought many games on sale and never installed them. Maybe one day I will, maybe I wont. My take is games that never have sales are more likely to be installed and ran.

GuB-42 8y ago
Also, bundles. I have a dozen of game I have never played, and will probably never play. They were part of a bundle that was cheaper than the individual game(s) I wanted.
- hhmc 8y ago
  Also, some games had their achievements added after release (in some cases years). Achievements don't usually get backfilled to my knowledge, so any players with playtime before achievements will be underrepresented.
  - larsiusprime 8y ago
    This isn't the case, actually. Testing it against known sales data, the "achievers" stat derived by this method was ALWAYS higher than the # of ppl who had downloaded the game, or the # of ppl who had played it for at least 1 minute (these stats are known privately to developers). We don't know exactly how the total "achievers" pool for a game is calculated, but we know it isn't a simple measure of people who had achieved at least one achievement. It's almost certainly some measure of the total population that is able to register achievements, regardless of whether they have registered any. It probably includes something like family sharing accounts, so it doesn't exactly correspond to actual sales directly, but it seems to be roughly in the middle between the "players" and "owners" stats SteamSpy used to report. Sometimes it would overshoot both, but it was never less than "players."

larsiusprime 8y ago

I reviewed the algorithm, and as long as you have SOME users at all registering some amount of achievements, the method is quite accurate. Even if most players register no achievements, they still count towards the overall pool of "achievers" and provide a solid base for doing the calculation. You can verify this yourself with the supplied source code. The only cases where it can fail are: 1) When there is no achievement data 2) When there are not enough independent achievement %'s. 2 Can happen for games with very few achievements -- but in practice, if a game has even 3 achievements the chances of this happening become very small. TL;DR -- for very nearly every game on Steam, this was an extremely accurate method for estimating the number of "achievers" for that game. The tricky bit is correlating "achievers" with a metric you actually care about, like e.g. actual sales.

ant6n 8y ago
Isn't that the point of anonnyj? I.e. you don't know which % of sales are made without even registering a single achievement.
- larsiusprime 8y ago
  Yes you do. Because even if they don't register an achievement, they still show up as part of the total population of possible "achievers". I've verified this from my own stats as a developer and that of other developers. As long as any portion of the userbase registers some achievement data, you can (well, could) get scarily accurate stats. The only "inaccurate" part is that the stat you're measuring -- "achievers" -- doesn't exactly correlate to any stat we directly care about, like sales. In all the measuring I did against known private sales data, it was always higher than the # of people who had downloaded the game, and the # of people who had played it for at least 1 minute. My best guess is family sharing inflates the "achievers" stat.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Yep. I even wonder if Steam has some kind of counter that would show me "Number of games you own that you've never played." I would probably be horrified.

Deimorz 8y ago
SteamDB's calculator can tell you that: https://steamdb.info/calculator/ https://steamdb.info/calculator/ It splits out a chart showing you how many games you have in a few different playtime categories ("12 or more hours", "6 to 12 hours", "Never played", etc.)
lainga 8y ago
There was an event a few weeks ago where Steam prompted you to play a game in your library that you had never opened or not opened in a long time.

bartervg 8y ago

Yes, this is an issue. One example is FreeFly Burning, which according to the achievement estimation method has 739 players [1]. Yet, the game has sold 25,562 keys through Go Go Bundles, and more through other bundles. Go Go Bundles lists the number of bundles delivered [2] and each bundle includes every game (in contrast to Humble Bundle that has tiers). This is consistent with Steamspy's estimate of 20,000 - 50,000 owners [3]. Those bundle buyers likely never downloaded the game and perhaps haven't even activated the game on Steam. With exceptions like F2P games or free weekend games: Units Sold >= Owners >= Players [1] https://barter.vg/i/40567/a/ https://barter.vg/i/40567/a/ [2] https://www.gogobundle.com/latest/bundles/bundlemega-7 https://www.gogobundle.com/latest/bundles/bundlemega-7 [3] https://steamspy.com/app/683530 https://steamspy.com/app/683530