Jolt Country

So every once in a while I get curious, I look at the IF Archive download stats, and I fire up the old VisiCalc.

Of the top five most-downloaded games, three are Hugo games. Actually, two of the top three are. #1 is Guilty Bastards (still? WTF?). #2 is Fallacy of Dawn, and #5 is the FB demo. #3 and #4 are LASH and Curses.

Then, #6 is A Crimson Spring, #7 is Necrotic Drift, #8 is Anchorhead.

I'm sure this is all incredibly significant.

Wow! I had no idea. Do you have the numbers kicking around for GB and Fallacy? I thought I remembered that Chicks Dig Jerks came to about 10,000 downloads if you added up all the place it's located on the archive. But it could have been 1,000. Even my memory of how many people have played it is buggy!

For what it's worth, when I released Fallacy I searched for Guilty Bastards on the net and went to every site that you had reached in an attempt to get them to link to me as well. Using your language, using your compiler, using your marketing techniques: you've been like a father to me. Instead of sending child support you send verblib.g support.

Kent wrote:Of the top five most-downloaded games, three are Hugo games. Actually, two of the top three are. #1 is Guilty Bastards (still? WTF?). #2 is Fallacy of Dawn, and #5 is the FB demo. #3 and #4 are LASH and Curses.

Then, #6 is A Crimson Spring, #7 is Necrotic Drift, #8 is Anchorhead.

I'm sure this is all incredibly significant.

It certainly is. That could mean people are looking for IF works that offers a little more visual feedback.

Why not Guilty Bastards? Even Adam Cadre mentioned playing the game and considering using Hugo when Glulx wasn't around yet.

Unless, of course, you're joking when you said "WTF". I think I gotta lay off the coffee. ;)

Where'd you see the stats? Very interesting!!

I bet GB must be linked from some key places -- some resource or download sites. That would definitely make it easier to get. :)

Merk wrote:Where'd you see the stats? Very interesting!!

I bet GB must be linked from some key places -- some resource or download sites. That would definitely make it easier to get. :)

I did some digging on this, and there is a Stats file, essentially, that is compiled each month for all the downloads to the if-archive proper (IIRC, the mirrors do not add to these totals).

OK, lemme see if I can find this directory again, I knew I had it at one point... argh...

Maybe it's not that people like games with visual feedback, maybe it's because they like games that are "fun" and "accessible".

I don't know, but the last time I checked out IF, it generally came in three flavors:

1. Crap.

2. Authors trying to show you how much smarter and more
clever they are than you.

3. Robb Sherwin.

I hope I'm category 3, man.

Sorry, I also could've actually answered a couple questions while I'm at it.

Yeah, these are basically pulled from the generated archive stats and quickly sorted.

The nine most downloaded individual games in 2005 (not counting comp packages) were:

• 8078: guilty.exe
  7090: dawn.zip
  3790: LASH.zip (Z-code)
  3503: curses.z5
  2923: future_boy_demo.zip
  2670: scourge.zip
  2238: ndrift.zip
  2190: anchor.z8
  1874: slouch.z5

The stats may or may not be less reliable than in the past given that more downloads seem to come from mirrors than the official IF Archive (which produces the stats). For instance, in 2004, guilty.exe had 19735 downloads. The top 5 that year were oneweek.zip, guilty.exe, dawn.zip, magicflu.zip, and scourge.zip.

I just pulled up the September 2006 stats, and they look like:

• 981: LASH.zip
  521: dawn.zip
  400: guilty.exe

for the top 3.

So basically, all your base, Robb Sherwin, etc. etc.