[...] Kawaguchi Dimitri Vorkapich Lansky “Mild und Leise” mp3 Lansky & Radiohead Remko Scha Raph Koster Xah Lee Algorithmic Art Programs Alvy Ray Smith PostModernEssay Generator Clifford A [...]

[...] alecaustin[Tags|computational media analysis]Raph Koster has a good post up about the algorithmic structure of hit production, and why computer analysis can predict the commercial success or failure of Hollywood movies and pop songs. The explation offered as to why even works which we know are aesthetically sub-par can nonetheless ‘push our buttons’ and evoke strong positive reactions are quite persuasive, particularly when niche products are described as pushing a more limited set of buttons really hard. Sounds about right to me… linkpost comment [...]

[...] Raph Koster has a great write-up on a computerized movie spoiler (script summary) analysis tool.  The tool predicts commercial success of a given spoiler.  I would love to have one of these for games. [...]

[...] Raph writes a great post called “The algorithm or art“. He also links over to a fascinating art experiment where two Russian painters made “ideal paintings” based on opinion polls — the results being kitsch. There are two things that come up in this discussion: letting mass-thinking lead innovation and trying to discover recurring components of popularity. The former is usually a disaster and the latter is fairly spooky, but oddly intriguing. [...]

[...] Raph’s Website » The algorithm or art I’ve read not one but two articles on using algorithms to predict the success of movies. (tags: http://www.raphkoster.com 2006 art algorithms predição) [...]

What you are reffering to is actually called predictive modeling. Its used widly to predict not only price points and costs but trending and modeling for programs, as well as consumer prefferance (a newer application of data mining)

This is used widely in health care, retail, petroleum, manufactured goods, et al. And its used because there are a number of factors in place to allow for it.

1. Uniform (or somewhat) industry launguage to describe your market/industry. (easier for things like medicine, law, geology, music!, marketing, business, and goods you can physically describe not so for art* and design*)

2. A good analysis and inventory of all previous permutations and offerings to the market, (in other words an aggregated data set that examines all the component parts, what platinum blues done for music, or in movies the 36? standard plots and all the movies that have used them, in health care the different types of diabetes, thier stage, and associated co-morbidities and costs, etc.)

Morgan mentioned strange agency, my impression from thier site is that they might have something along these lines, and Frank mentioned the Bartle piece, I believe there was a TN tread on this I commented on, if I recall the proposition from the academics was manual review of the text for acadeic rigor was a good method, I believe I suggested conversion of the forums to XML, setting tags and aggregating it into a database for data mining, I dont think anyone agreed with me

3. A significant sample size representative of your market. (I wont get started on this again)

4. An ongoing method of capturing and adding to the data set.

5. Representative data points, not just descriptive data, but measurable data. Measures and dimensions that can be used to extrapolate information to help decision making.

Admittedly I’m a noob related to the gaming industry. Theres still a lot for me to research, read and understand but I’ve done my best to understand where the gaming industry is related to 1-5 above. And the damning conclusion I’ve come to is that well….I’m not sure the industry has any of it really, my feeling is that people think: Well why go through all that trouble when we could just be making games? And who finds that kind of thing interesting anyhow?

I find that kind of thing interesting, whats more I like games and I think it might be able to help the “ideal painting” a bit easier to make, or at least cost less, appeal more, and help the industry understand what gamers like, dislike, and think is important.

Now on to the interesting part.

Raph, please finish A Grammer of Games. from what I’ve read it apples to #1 above or goes a long way toward it. I emailed you very excited when I first read it, because I think that its seriously that important, and other works that describe the data that needs to be captured go a long way toward it. What I’m saying is that gaming needs a language, #$%^ that it needs an alphabet too.

When #1 occurs even if its a work in progress, those who’ve done #2 can apply the principles of #1 to set up the foundations for predictive modeling. However #2 is best handled by academics, its subject to much debate and otherwise reasonable people will be disagreeing on it. (note this is definately PhD thesis bait, just make sure its in a SQL DB pls thx

What we’re doing at GameMarketMetrics is #3-5 above, predictive modeling is possible with only 3-5, but it’ll take time (basically until historical trending can take place) to be accurate without 1-2 above, for various complex reasons that would likely bore the hell out of anyone not into data.

Art* & Design* I’m not an MFA, but I know that art and design can be broken down into components of color, subject, form, function, medium etc. this is what the “language of games” IMO must be able to accomplish.

This does not take the place of the ART of game design, from a strictly mechanist POV data mining and predictive modeling can tell you what people like/dislike and what thier likely to prefer or trend thier consumption, it will not tell you HOW to design the component parts, or what the house should look like, I dont think what constitutes “asthetically pleasing” in a game can be accurately predicted, because art elicits an emotional response, and people are not robots, what I’m saying is there are huge limitations to what data can tell you, when it comes to art and design, and I dont think data can or should take the place of creativity. I do think it can help us understand the subject better.

Especially if its affordable and easy to get to

PS: I want people to understand that I feel there is a lot of room to develop more of the data set than what we have already, part of this will come from the community (players), but there will also be a space for designers, academics and industry stakeholders to propose new data, or help us refine what were already capturing as well as ask questions and etc. 3-5 alone is a big order, I know I have not thought of everything, we’re in a new space and it’ll take input from a wide range of people to improve our relavence. So basically I’ll be asking for input and hoping people feel what we’re doing is important enough to bother giving us some.

We’ll be at the GDC this year as well and so if anyone is interested in talking more let me know.

Allen
ceo at gamemarketmetrics.net

[...] [...] Over at Raph Koster’s Website, he’s got a post up about "The algorithm or art." Using feedback to determine the "worthiness," whether economic or artistic, of songs, movies and games. [...] [...]

While popularity may not be art. There are lasting innovations where popularity and art intersect. The Old Masters of painting were masters at applying new techiques. The ‘old masters’ or Rock ‘n Roll were also masters and innovators. So, I think we can get there.

F

Also enjoy the more lighthearted sisters of this site:
http://thefunniest.info/
http://thecutest.info/

And if you haven’t already, enjoy “xkcd”, the great webcomic written by the creator of these sites:

http://xkcd.com/c173.html
http://xkcd.com/c161.html

For me, the question to an game-appeal-test-o-matic would be this: Is a tool that tells me my game is not a hit — but doesn’t tell me anything about what the problems are or how to fix them — better or worse than a human play tester that tells me they don’t like my game, and provides me with lots of subjective (and probably bogus) advice about what they’d like to see?