The lights are on
Veteran Member - Level 11
I love statistics about as much as I hate them. They are both good and evil; they can reveal much or nothing at all. Whenever dealing with statistics you have to walk that razor thin line of not providing irrelevant superfluous data that causes eyes to glaze over. Neither do you want to provide information that can cause dissension among the ranks. When highlighted properly, statistics can be an eye opening and entertaining summarization that quantifies individual and group contributions. Typically it's more meaningful for senior leadership to read key numbers and specific accomplishments than broad statements full of fluff. Translate that to GIO - let's assume that Andy McNamara and/or members of the Game Informer team happen to read this. Seeing that the blogging community posted 5,000+ blogs among 700+ different bloggers and who the top contributors were is more impactful that reading a generic statement to the effect of, "We have a very active blogging community."
The reason I post this blog is for the benefit of the community. It's certainly not for me to have a space to put my name at the top of any list to highlight anything I've achieved. In fact, my contributions are only considered in the group counts and not taken into consideration for any of the individual stats. I do this to recognize the contributions of my fellow bloggers and to encourage others to contribute as well.
Now before we begin with the statistics, I will tell you up front there are errors, or at least potential for errors. It is simply...unavoidable. I have checked and rechecked the numbers, but there are certain facts that I can't undo or change that will result in the data being skewed ever so slightly. I will characterize how these errors are likely to occur:
1. User Member Name Changes: This is perhaps the biggest obstacle affecting the statistics. I put forth my best effort to collate the different names I was absolutely sure belonged to the same user, but any instance where I didn't make the connection, it will at a minimum result in the individual user's numbers being off as well as the total number of bloggers not being completely accurate.
2. Pre-Level 5 Contributions: Given the period of this report spans a year, some members may have been less than Level 5 in which case their blogs would not have shown up on the main page. Once they attained Level 5 their blogs would begin displaying on the main page. Since I only have visibility on blogs posted on the main page (or those that asked me to view their blogs directly from their profile) it is conceivable that blog count totals for individual users might be off due to this circumstance.
3. Blog Updates Vice New Blogs: Some users will routinely update a previously posted blog vice submitting a new blog which will result in a single blog potentially getting counted more than once. I try to notice when this occurs and delete it from consideration, but in some instances the title is changed too so it is possible that I missed the duplicate entry.
4. Reporting Period: Blogs posted before or after the reporting period are not taken into consideration for the totals, so your profile might indicate a different number than what is reflected here in this blog.
Regardless of these potential errors, I am confident the statistics as a whole are complete and accurately reflect the contributions of the community.
Reporting Period
Start: August 22, 2011
Stop: August 26, 2012
Number of BH Episodes: 52
Quicklook:
Number of Blogs Submitted: 5396
Number of Bloggers: 702
Blogs by Members: 5,333 (99%)
Blogs by Moderators: 61 (1%)
Blogs by Staff: 2 (N/A1)
Number of Blogs Featured in Blog Herding: 572
Percentage of Blogs Featured in Blog Herding: 11%
Number of Bloggers Featured in Blog Herding: 194
Percentage of Bloggers Featured in Blog Herding: 28%
1Staff Blogs normally wouldn't show up here but when the Interns were first announced, they had staff titles and two of their blogs showed up in the user blogs. One of these was from Ali Rapp and the other was from Jack Gardner.
Number of Blogs Posted By Blogger:
1 (264)
2 - 9 (304)
10 - 50 (112)
51 - 99 (20)
100+ (2)
*81% of bloggers posted 9 or fewer blogs for the year; 19% of bloggers posted 10+ blogs for the year.
Top Ten Bloggers Featured in Blog Herding:
Member Blogs Herded Blogs Posted % of Blogs Herded
1. thegodofwine7 35 71 49%
2. Kyle Wadsworth 31 45 69%
3. Noobtubin8er 15 39 38%
4. Stranger 15 81 19%
5. Doctor Apozem 14 73 19%
6. Jack Gardner 14 65 22%
7. Oni no Tenshi 14 82 17%
8. Chris Mrkvicka 13 55 24%
9. Craigaleg 11 27 41%
10. Euphoric Ennui 11 13 85%
Random Blog Herd Fact:
19 of the bloggers (comprising 10% of the total number of bloggers featured in blog herding) only submitted one blog for the reporting period. It's also worth noting, community member screamingllama135 submitted one blog (his only blog) and not only was it featured in Blog Herding it was also featured in the newsletter.
Top Ten Most Active Bloggers (and number of blogs posted):
1. wayoverdue (139)
2. Hannibal (89)
3. Jolt the Cynic (86)
4. BlackHeartedWolf (85)
5. Oni no Tenshi (82)
6. GoldvsSilver (81)
7. Stranger (81)
8. jordanthegamer (77)
9. Mike (77)
10. DJH (75)
Averages:
Blogs Per Week: 104
Bloggers Per Week: 64
Blogs Selected for BH Per Week: 11
Min/Max:
Most Blogs in a Week: 156
Least Blogs in a Week: 65
Most Bloggers in a Week: 84
Least Bloggers in a Week: 48
Most Blogs Selected for BH in a Week: 20
Least Blogs Selected for BH in a Week: 7
Blog Posted By Month:
Jan: 414
Feb: 363
Mar: 418
Apr: 454
May: 459
Jun: 384
Jul: 529
Aug: 459
Sep: 477
Oct: 604
Nov: 449
Dec: 386
*February witnessed the fewest blogs posted; October witnessed the most blogs posted.
Blogger User Name Statistics:
Longest Name: The guy who never really fought Ganon himself...
Shortest Name: JC
Alphabetical Order (First): @ChrisContinues (First A = A Dark Knight)
Alphabetical Order (Last): ZRDTard
*There is a blogger user name starting with every letter of the alphabet. The letter Q is the least used letter with only 2 members; the letter T is used the most with 84 members. User names starting with numbers or symbols were not considered.
Review Statistics:
Total Reviews featured in Blog Herding: 163
Total Reviewers featured in Blog Herding: 84
Top Reviewers:
16 - Craigaleg
13 - Samurai Zero
07 - Orochi Assassin LEVON
06 - Cody Gilley
05 - Apricot
05 - John Wrek
05 - Jonathan Barnes
04 - Applesteak
04 - Frosty
04 - Mike Mahardy
04 - Stranger
03 - GoldvsSilver
03 - JiroGamer SGS
03 - The Monster Hunter
Most Reviewed Games Featured in BH:
07 - Mass Effect 3
05 - Uncharted 3
04 - Batman: Arkham City
03 - Diablo III
03 - Journey
03 - Kid Icarus: Uprising
03 - Max Payne 3
03 - Skyrim
03 - SSX
03 - Super Mario 3D Land
Noteworthy Statistics:
There are blogs beginning with Who, What, Where, When and How.
The Indie & Mojo Show podcast (including Jacked Up version): 44
Robot In the Corner podcast: 35
There have been 293 blogs in the 30/30 or 31/31 series.
There have been 103 Writer's Guild Weekly Challenge (WGWC) blogs.
Two blogs from two different users had the same title on 3 different occasions.
There are 29 blogs with Pokémon in the title.
Each episode of Blog Herding included a quote from a different game for 52 unique quotes.
During the Public Service Announcement blog soliciting members for requests and guesses, fellow community member Coachscorner00 stated, "If you have time to check through the data, I would be very interested in how many blogs were about sports games compared to the other genres."
Well, Coachscorner00...after sifting through 5,000+ blogs, here are the handful of blogs pertaining to sports that I could find:
An open letter to EA Sports
Are Sports Games Worth it Every Year?
Fantasy Football For Gamers
Madden 12: First Impressions
Madden is selling football, not football games.
Monopolies in Gaming Or Madden's Maddening Monopoly
My Feelings - The World Series
NCAA Football Predictions! A Little Bit Off-Topic.
UFC Undisputed 3 Review
Video Review: SSX (2012)
So, to answer your question...there were 10 blogs in the past year pertaining to sports.
Video Game Titles Mentioned In The Title Of A Blog:
There were quite a few video games mentioned in the title of the many blogs, and the following list includes the top five:
Mass Effect (126)
Skyrim (76)
Battlefield (56)
Assassin's Creed (26)
Modern Warfare (20)
The trend lines for all three fields might seem troubling as they don't show an upward (or increase) in activity, but I would offer that given the significant number of users who have left or don't blog as much, this would indicate that other new members have arrived and are continuing to maintain the same level of output. Besides, if the community grows to large, my personal feeling is quality and visibility diminish somewhat. So, personally I'm pleased to see horizontal trend lines.
Well, given this has doubled my normal self-imposed page limit, I think I will wrap it up with a final note. This is the most active, productive and united online community I have ever been a part of. You all are a joy to collaborate with and I look forward to the future and what opportunities it holds.
Group hug.
A special thanks to the loyal and dedicated readers for whom I would not do this if it weren't for your contributions and support. You often go unnoticed, but personally speaking, for every view I get on a blog, I thank you...whether I know who you are or not.
Happy Blogging.
So. Many. Numbers. Way to crunch some numbers Saint! Very interesting stuff.
Your welcome! Im a nut for stats....
Well, Excel does most of the crunching, but the data doesn't enter itself(well sometimes it does!)!
Thanks for taking the time to bring this to us, some interesting stuff to be sure, and it really is remarkable looking back on a year of hard work from all the great GIO bloggers.
This is... a lot. Kudos to you sir.
Lol, didn't think I was one of the top 10 most active bloggers here. DJH is below me too. Well, at least he's on the list, and Hannibal is 2nd, with wayoverdue on 1. That will change xD lol
You read all 5,000+ blogs in one year right? I just can't wrap my head around that... Great job man, and thanks for being so great to the community!
85% Blog Herding rate? Ennui WTF that's crazy, awesome as it may be!
And Saint, holy (expletive here). "Well done" doesn't even encompass half of it. 5000+ blogs? Dayuuuuum!
cool cool cool
Awesome work Saint
I am amazed that you can keep up with all of this. 5396 blogs! I would have went insane doing this lol.
I'm definitely not surprised Mass Effect 3 is the most reviewed game. Though, I am a bit surprised Skyrim was so low. I guess everybody was too wrapped up in it to review it lol.
OMFG... Saint, this is insane! Simply insane! I shared it on Facebook for others to read (which I never do, don't know why). Maybe we can attract more people to join our community this way.
But yeah, this was something I just couldn't pass without reading. Sadly, I'm not anywhere myself (my daily blogging thing was pre-August 2011), but maybe I can do that starting September...
I'm not gone, I'm here, because that brain up there came up with tons of ideas yesterday...
Impressive. Most impressive. I understand wanting to be humble and not include yourself in some of the stats, but give yourself some credit, man.
Haha I also noticed the Lost reference like Harry and DJH! I understand what you mean about uncertainty. In college we'd say that research is a fickle friend hah. Anyway, this was pretty cool to read Saint, thanks!