Where is the source of information saying that XFire is created for FPS gamers? It is being bundled with all kinds of games and I have not seen or heard that it would be catering to any type of gamers. So again, source please.

Also XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR players because I have not seen anything to suggest that, first what was said above, and second anything else to indicate that XFire users would be bias for or against SW:TOR. It is just a number of people who are playing, or haved played, SW:TOR and also happened to have XFire installed. It would be just as random as sending mails randomly to SW:TOR players.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by gervaise1

Originally posted by Yamota

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)#Simple_random_sampling

"However, SRS can be vulnerable to sampling error because the randomness of the selection may result in a sample that doesn't reflect the makeup of the population. For instance, a simple random sample of ten people from a given country will on average produce five men and five women, but any given trial is likely to overrepresent one sex and underrepresent the other."

This is the main issue with XFire polling.

Technically XFire isn't polling - there is no design behind it whatsoever

Happily no one here (I hope) is saying that XFire is without error. Sadly some are saying XFire is worthless without thinking however?

Some pages back I looked at several things that we actually know about SWTOR and compared them to what XFire showed. Not the "my server is full/empty so SWTOR is thriving/dying" useless comments but real data; real observations. I had no preconceived idea one way or the other. Bottomline: yes XFire is not perfect but it is far from worthless.

An example. Knowing that SWTOR had sold 2M copies at the end of the year if you were to use XFire to predict the numberof subs at the start of Feb your answer would have been 1.5M. So XFire underrepresented the population by c.14%.

So there you have it!  XFire is either totally worthless ....... or not perfect but not bad enough to simply dismiss.

 

There is no design behind random polling either, it is random. XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR gamers which has X-Fire installed so I would say it is like random polling.

Now there could be some bias in this selection of people, but I have not seen any facts supporting this statement. Like XFire is used mainly by FPS gamers, young people, etc. The only known bias I know of is that it is mainly a tool for the western audience so it is very inaccurate at gauging the eastern gaming trends.

XFire isn't a random selection.  XFire attracts a certain type a gamer.  How many casual gamers take the time to get and create an XFire account?  I was aware of it for years and never bothered.  There are still tons of people that don't even know what it is.  I only discovered it because of forum signatures.  Considering how many people don't used forums ...

Yamota, it's not random at all.

Random = roll of the dice or flip of the coin

xFire = someone CHOSE to install it. Not even close to random.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Yamota

,,,

There is no design behind random polling either, it is random. XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR gamers which has X-Fire installed so I would say it is like random polling.

Now there could be some bias in this selection of people, but I have not seen any facts supporting this statement. Like XFire is used mainly by FPS gamers, young people, etc. The only known bias I know of is that it is mainly a tool for the western audience so it is very inaccurate at gauging the eastern gaming trends.

XFire isn't a random selection.  XFire attracts a certain type a gamer.  How many casual gamers take the time to get and create an XFire account?  I was aware of it for years and never bothered.  There are still tons of people that don't even know what it is.  I only discovered it because of forum signatures.  Considering how many people don't used forums ...

Yes I keep hearing this but not seen any hard evidence of this. Not saying it is not true but it would be like saying casual gamers would be more likely to use goggle mail over yahoo than say hardcore gamers would. That could be the case but where is the evidence for such a statement?

As for people not knowing what it is, that is irrelevant. Alot of people dont know how polling works and have never been asked in polls, that does not invalidate the polls aslong as the poll sample is large enough and XFire sample is definetely large enough as only a random selection of 1000 is needed to get a maximum error of 5-10%. Assuming no bias in the selection and since no bias has been provent either way, you cannot invalidate the trends which XFire shows about SW:TOR.

Originally posted by dubyahite
Yamota, it's not random at all.

Random = roll of the dice or flip of the coin

xFire = someone CHOSE to install it. Not even close to random.

That a SW:TOR gamer choose or choose not to install xFire is what makes it a random selection. Unless you can somhow show that those who choose to install xFire is a certain sub-group of SW:TOR players.

A poller choose to pick a person  to poll  as well, that does not make it inherently not random. If the selection was based on some critera, then yes that would make it not random.

Random:

ran·dom/?rand?m/
Adjective:
Made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision: "a random sample of 100 households".
Governed by or involving equal chances for each item.
Synonyms:
fortuitous - haphazard - accidental - chance - incidental
Wikipedia Dictionary.com
Answers.com Merriam-Webster



It is a conscious decision to install xfire, therefore not random.


A decision is the opposite of random.

120 some pages argueing about this?

SWTOR is making more money from subscribers than every paid subscription game but WoW, isn' t that a fact?

 

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Yamota

,,,

There is no design behind random polling either, it is random. XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR gamers which has X-Fire installed so I would say it is like random polling.

Now there could be some bias in this selection of people, but I have not seen any facts supporting this statement. Like XFire is used mainly by FPS gamers, young people, etc. The only known bias I know of is that it is mainly a tool for the western audience so it is very inaccurate at gauging the eastern gaming trends.

XFire isn't a random selection.  XFire attracts a certain type a gamer.  How many casual gamers take the time to get and create an XFire account?  I was aware of it for years and never bothered.  There are still tons of people that don't even know what it is.  I only discovered it because of forum signatures.  Considering how many people don't used forums ...

Yes I keep hearing this but not seen any hard evidence of this. Not saying it is not true but it would be like saying casual gamers would be more likely to use goggle mail over yahoo than say hardcore gamers would. That could be the case but where is the evidence for such a statement?

As for people not knowing what it is, that is irrelevant. Alot of people dont know how polling works and have never been asked in polls, that does not invalidate the polls aslong as the poll sample is large enough and XFire sample is definetely large enough as only a random selection of 1000 is needed to get a maximum error of 5-10%. Assuming no bias in the selection and since no bias has been provent either way, you cannot invalidate the trends which XFire shows about SW:TOR.

I've said it before using Xfire to say a game is going down is like polling 15 republicans and 5 democrats on the job Obama is doing and expect that poll to be what people really think.

Originally posted by dubyahite
Random:

ran·dom/?rand?m/
Adjective:
Made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision: "a random sample of 100 households".
Governed by or involving equal chances for each item.
Synonyms:
fortuitous - haphazard - accidental - chance - incidental
Wikipedia Dictionary.com
Answers.com Merriam-Webster



It is a conscious decision to install xfire, therefore not random.


A decision is the opposite of random.

Ok I get what you are saying but we are talking about if the selection has any bearing on how representetive it is of the general population. Assuming that those who chose to install xFire does not represent any particular sub group of SW:TOR then it would be like a random selection.

It is like: I will poll SW:TOR users who were born on a specific week of the day. Assuming that the spread of days are roughly even, which it would be if you have millions of users, then your selection would be as representetive as people born in any other day. Unless you are claiming that people born in monday are less or more likely to stick with SW:TOR than those born on tuesday.

So what I am saying is that xFire users would not be more or less biased towards or for SW:TOR than any other selection of people so it is like randomly selecting SW:TOR users.

Originally posted by William12

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Yamota

,,,

There is no design behind random polling either, it is random. XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR gamers which has X-Fire installed so I would say it is like random polling.

Now there could be some bias in this selection of people, but I have not seen any facts supporting this statement. Like XFire is used mainly by FPS gamers, young people, etc. The only known bias I know of is that it is mainly a tool for the western audience so it is very inaccurate at gauging the eastern gaming trends.

XFire isn't a random selection.  XFire attracts a certain type a gamer.  How many casual gamers take the time to get and create an XFire account?  I was aware of it for years and never bothered.  There are still tons of people that don't even know what it is.  I only discovered it because of forum signatures.  Considering how many people don't used forums ...

Yes I keep hearing this but not seen any hard evidence of this. Not saying it is not true but it would be like saying casual gamers would be more likely to use goggle mail over yahoo than say hardcore gamers would. That could be the case but where is the evidence for such a statement?

As for people not knowing what it is, that is irrelevant. Alot of people dont know how polling works and have never been asked in polls, that does not invalidate the polls aslong as the poll sample is large enough and XFire sample is definetely large enough as only a random selection of 1000 is needed to get a maximum error of 5-10%. Assuming no bias in the selection and since no bias has been provent either way, you cannot invalidate the trends which XFire shows about SW:TOR.

I've said it before using Xfire to say a game is going down is like polling 15 republicans and 5 democrats on the job Obama is doing and expect that poll to be what people really think.

Then you are saying that xFire users would be biased against or for SW:TOR. You have no basis for such a statement, unlike your other example where you could reasonably claim that the republicans would be biased against Obama (because he is a democrat).

Why would a majority of SW:TOR xFire users be biased against SW:TOR? xFire is not a competitor to SW:TOR so there is no reason for such bias.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by William12

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Yamota

,,,

There is no design behind random polling either, it is random. XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR gamers which has X-Fire installed so I would say it is like random polling.

Now there could be some bias in this selection of people, but I have not seen any facts supporting this statement. Like XFire is used mainly by FPS gamers, young people, etc. The only known bias I know of is that it is mainly a tool for the western audience so it is very inaccurate at gauging the eastern gaming trends.

XFire isn't a random selection.  XFire attracts a certain type a gamer.  How many casual gamers take the time to get and create an XFire account?  I was aware of it for years and never bothered.  There are still tons of people that don't even know what it is.  I only discovered it because of forum signatures.  Considering how many people don't used forums ...

Yes I keep hearing this but not seen any hard evidence of this. Not saying it is not true but it would be like saying casual gamers would be more likely to use goggle mail over yahoo than say hardcore gamers would. That could be the case but where is the evidence for such a statement?

As for people not knowing what it is, that is irrelevant. Alot of people dont know how polling works and have never been asked in polls, that does not invalidate the polls aslong as the poll sample is large enough and XFire sample is definetely large enough as only a random selection of 1000 is needed to get a maximum error of 5-10%. Assuming no bias in the selection and since no bias has been provent either way, you cannot invalidate the trends which XFire shows about SW:TOR.

I've said it before using Xfire to say a game is going down is like polling 15 republicans and 5 democrats on the job Obama is doing and expect that poll to be what people really think.

Then you are saying that xFire users would be biased against or for SW:TOR. You have no basis for such a statement, unlike your other example where you could reasonably claim that the republicans would be biased against Obama (because he is a democrat).

Why would a majority of SW:TOR xFire users be biased against SW:TOR? xFire is not a competitor to SW:TOR so there is no reason for such bias.

 

The number of people who use Xfire is far to small to get an accurate sample to say im within 5-10%.   Say out of 1.7 mil players 50k use it do you think thats an accurate enough sample size of the playerbase to say the game is dieing ?   Its far from accurate it just shows a trend among Xfire users thats it maybe its right but you cannot say it is.

I think if there are this many posts on the subject, there's enough data to debate the viablility of the game. I, for one, think that X-Fire is a fine sample size of the population of the game - because I'm not buying EA's 1.7 million subscriber claim.

Originally posted by Yamota

*snip*

Ok I get what you are saying but we are talking about if the selection has any bearing on how representetive it is of the general population. Assuming that those who chose to install xFire does not represent any particular sub group of SW:TOR then it would be like a random selection.

It is like: I will poll SW:TOR users who were born on a specific week of the day. Assuming that the spread of days are roughly even, which it would be if you have millions of users, then your selection would be as representetive as people born in any other day. Unless you are claiming that people born in monday are less or more likely to stick with SW:TOR than those born on tuesday.

So what I am saying is that xFire users would not be more or less biased towards or for SW:TOR than any other selection of people so it is like randomly selecting SW:TOR users.

 That still doesn't make it random. Some might argue that a larger percentage of hardcore gamers use Xfire compared to casual gamers. If TOR caters more to casual players you could have a reason for bias there. Being born on a given day is random, chosing to install and use Xfire isn't random.

Xfire is an indication, maybe not the best possible indication, but an indication. There's no way to know how representative they are for the general TOR population. I think it's a pretty good indication of what's going on, but it can be contested. Only actual cold hard numbers can't be contested.

Don't think Xfire is very valid sampling for game health. In all my years of mmos I have yet to have a guildie or meet anyone who said they used it.

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

Originally posted by Yamota

*snip*

Ok I get what you are saying but we are talking about if the selection has any bearing on how representetive it is of the general population. Assuming that those who chose to install xFire does not represent any particular sub group of SW:TOR then it would be like a random selection.

It is like: I will poll SW:TOR users who were born on a specific week of the day. Assuming that the spread of days are roughly even, which it would be if you have millions of users, then your selection would be as representetive as people born in any other day. Unless you are claiming that people born in monday are less or more likely to stick with SW:TOR than those born on tuesday.

So what I am saying is that xFire users would not be more or less biased towards or for SW:TOR than any other selection of people so it is like randomly selecting SW:TOR users.

 That still doesn't make it random. Some might argue that a larger percentage of hardcore gamers use Xfire compared to casual gamers. If TOR caters more to casual players you could have a reason for bias there. Being born on a given day is random, chosing to install and use Xfire isn't random.

Xfire is an indication, maybe not the best possible indication, but an indication. There's no way to know how representative they are for the general TOR population. I think it's a pretty good indication of what's going on, but it can be contested. Only actual cold hard numbers can't be contested.

For sure it can be contested but there are people who want to disregard it completely and unless I see some clear indication that xFire users are biased for/against SW:TOR I will not agree to that.

I mean just looking at the ten top of games being played on xFire you have MMORPGs, FPS and RTS games and actually 4 out of 10 are MMORPGs (two of which are considered casual, WoW and SW:TOR) so I am not buying the biased against casual MMORPGs thing.

Originally posted by Yamota

Where is the source of information saying that XFire is created for FPS gamers? It is being bundled with all kinds of games and I have not seen or heard that it would be catering to any type of gamers. So again, source please.

Also XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR players because I have not seen anything to suggest that, first what was said above, and second anything else to indicate that XFire users would be bias for or against SW:TOR. It is just a number of people who are playing, or haved played, SW:TOR and also happened to have XFire installed. It would be just as random as sending mails randomly to SW:TOR players.

Maybe you should look up by whom xfire was developed, what kind of games that person played and with what kind of community said person interacted with and what kind of functions and purpose xfire had when it was developed, before denying xfires own history to pretend its something it isnt. But considering your kind of notion towards ... or rather complete denial and ignorance about all the other previous aspects about x-fire, I doubt you will concede to the unpleasant reality in this case either. Oh wait... let me guess...! The developer of xfire just happens by pure coincidence, almost randomly, no pretty much randomly, to be a prominent now veteran e-sport star too. He could as well have been a baseball player.

So you want to keep insisting xfire just "happens" to "randomly" track only and exactly all xfire user and keep twisting the order and reasons which is tracked by whom, by what kind of selection critera and by whoms choice, just to make it sound a bit more "coincidentally" and then feign it a "random" and also still ignore the provided evidence for deviations from real surveys. Its apparent you have no intentions to stop relying on deliberate ignorance and denial and your case can be considered as closed.

But your stories are almost frightening. Maybe tommorow even I just happen to be randomly selected and suddenly have xfire installed on my computer either and from one second to another I start chatting with my non-existent xfire friends from my never existing old Quake3 clan. Damn you random selection! Damn you xfire "surveys", leaving us no choice!

xFire isn't useless. It'll accurately show just how well the game is doing with xFire users.

It can definitely be used to suggest a trend amongst all users of that game, but that suggestion will not be significantly accurate. A true random sampling would include xfire users amongst non xFire users.

I think this is a case of using the wrong tool for the situation. No matter how much you want to user that hammer to crush that hex nut, you're probably better off with a socket wrench.

Originally posted by Sukiyaki

Originally posted by Yamota

Where is the source of information saying that XFire is created for FPS gamers? It is being bundled with all kinds of games and I have not seen or heard that it would be catering to any type of gamers. So again, source please.

Also XFire is a random selection of SW:TOR players because I have not seen anything to suggest that, first what was said above, and second anything else to indicate that XFire users would be bias for or against SW:TOR. It is just a number of people who are playing, or haved played, SW:TOR and also happened to have XFire installed. It would be just as random as sending mails randomly to SW:TOR players.

Maybe you should look up by whom xfire was developed, what kind of games that person played and with what kind of community said person interacted with and what kind of functions and purpose xfire had when it was developed, before denying xfires own history to pretend its something it isnt. But considering your kind of notion towards ... or rather complete denial and ignorance about all the other previous aspects about x-fire, I doubt you will concede to the unpleasant reality in this case either. Oh wait... let me guess...! The developer of xfire just happens by pure coincidence, almost randomly, no pretty much randomly, to be a prominent now veteran e-sport star too. He could as well have been a baseball player.

So you want to keep insisting xfire just "happens" to "randomly" track only and exactly all xfire user and keep twisting the order and reasons which is tracked by whom, by what kind of selection critera and by whoms choice, just to make it sound a bit more "coincidentally" and then feign it a "random" and also still ignore the provided evidence for deviations from real surveys. Its apparent you have no intentions to stop relying on deliberate ignorance and denial and your case can be considered as closed.

But your stories are almost frightening. Maybe tommorow even I just happen to be randomly selected and suddenly have xfire installed on my computer either and from one second to another I start chatting with my non-existent xfire friends from my never existing old Quake3 clan. Damn you random selection! Damn you xfire "surveys", leaving us no choice!

 

Do you have any idea how ridiculous that statement is.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

Originally posted by Yamota

*snip*

Ok I get what you are saying but we are talking about if the selection has any bearing on how representetive it is of the general population. Assuming that those who chose to install xFire does not represent any particular sub group of SW:TOR then it would be like a random selection.

It is like: I will poll SW:TOR users who were born on a specific week of the day. Assuming that the spread of days are roughly even, which it would be if you have millions of users, then your selection would be as representetive as people born in any other day. Unless you are claiming that people born in monday are less or more likely to stick with SW:TOR than those born on tuesday.

So what I am saying is that xFire users would not be more or less biased towards or for SW:TOR than any other selection of people so it is like randomly selecting SW:TOR users.

 That still doesn't make it random. Some might argue that a larger percentage of hardcore gamers use Xfire compared to casual gamers. If TOR caters more to casual players you could have a reason for bias there. Being born on a given day is random, chosing to install and use Xfire isn't random.

Xfire is an indication, maybe not the best possible indication, but an indication. There's no way to know how representative they are for the general TOR population. I think it's a pretty good indication of what's going on, but it can be contested. Only actual cold hard numbers can't be contested.

For sure it can be contested but there are people who want to disregard it completely and unless I see some clear indication that xFire users are biased for/against SW:TOR I will not agree to that.

I mean just looking at the ten top of games being played on xFire you have MMORPGs, FPS and RTS games and actually 4 out of 10 are MMORPGs (two of which are considered casual, WoW and SW:TOR) so I am not buying the biased against casual MMORPGs thing.

I am. 

xfire shows more people are playing Diablo 3 than AOC, DDO, COH, Everquest 2, Everquest and well, many more. 

Diablo 2's at #37.  Its a 2d game with horrendous graphics kicking ass on alot of newer games.

If xfire is really that accurate it's gotta scare developers like ArenaNet who are relying entirely on box sales and repeat business to pay for their big-budget Guild Wars 2.

Originally posted by karat76

Don't think Xfire is very valid sampling for game health. In all my years of mmos I have yet to have a guildie or meet anyone who said they used it.

lol this argument never gets old.