Friday, 23 October 2015

Staaaaats

Some of the goblins from the statistics and accountants department have bothered to turn up to work lately, and thus, there are a handful of new stats to gawp at, and ooh and aah over like a fireworks display, if  your local cold invariably wet november park was a spreadsheet, and the small packages of cardboard filled with explosives were excel cell equations. At the very least, you won't freeze your ass off staring into the sky by looking at the NoBoG stats, and are unlikely to attract a tutting bearded man muttering about Earths precious resources and it all not being very green. Who knows where you are reading this page though - it's feasible you could read this whilst at a fireworks display and combine the negatives and positive all in one unbelievable experience.

But anyway. Stats.

How long have NoBoG been resident at the Mash Tun ? How many weeks since we left the Ribs ? Saving you the mad historical back paging and counting on your fingers and toes, we've been at the Mash Tun for 17 weeks, and were last at the Ribs 19 weeks ago. Nearly five months. Give or take.

Here's an attendance stat for the last 34 weeks, IE, comparing the last 17 weeks at the Tun, to the 17 weeks before hand. The dates are shown for the Mash Tun weeks. The previous 17 weeks runs from the 3rd March to the 23rd June.

Blue is first 17 weeks. Green is second 17 weeks. Click on it to enlarge.

As you can see, an unmistakable increase in numbers. But that hides a lot of logistical issues in there. Any number in the 40's at the Ribs was a significant issue to squeeze everyone in, and forced large player games only - and it was not unusual for us to lose players due to overcrowding. At the Mash Tun everyone fits in nicely. I think this chart pretty much demonstrates the growing pains quite aptly - as numbers suddenly consistently spring a good 50% higher in general week on week after the move. Of course we generated a lot of noise and interest during the Tour discussion, which no doubt pulled in more curious people, but, I think this probably mostly shows the effect of not having people uncomfortably jammed in. Some people can cope with that, others will choose not to have to.

A series of 3 month snap shots next.
The 37 dip was around the end of the school summer holidays. Clearly an unpopular day for going to the pub and playing games. Charlotte at the Tun noted that the whole week in general at that time of year was pretty dead.

The transition period. The NoBoG tour, shortest ever tour.

At the beginning of the year, NoBoG numbers are half what they will be by the time we get to October.

What that looks like combined together.

And finally the entire stat range... well... ever since I started bothering to count and record it anyway. Which actually isn't that long relative to the length of NoBoG history but long enough to capture the upswing in board gaming / NoBoG popularity.

Last time I did this, Elliot asked if I could track more number things than just people that attended. The only thing that I have half heartedly tracked as a result of that request is the Male to Female ratio - Elliot thought we were getting a broader appeal, to which I can say on average it's about 1:8. So if you are sitting on a table with seven other guys, the chances are, you're a gal. Just to let you know in case no one told you that. Last week it was 8 / 52. Which is 2:13, or 1:6.5 if you want to get funky.

I don't always track the ratio tbh, and it seems faiirrrllly consistent. So. Pfft.

If. And it's a big if. You tracked things a little more tightly. Age. Job. Household disposable income. It would no doubt be the holy grail of all juicy stat lines for say, board game publishers / retailers. I don't recall ever seeing stats like that personally. Would be interesting.

That concludes our stat run, hopefully you found it mildly interesting !

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The stats are wonderful. With #gamergate and current claims about women in gaming I think we are behind the curve here but I for one am very happy to see more women playing games and enjoying the hobby. (I deliberately avoided making any other puns about curves.)