Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Cave-o-sapien on November 30, 2017, 01:43:55 pm

Title: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 30, 2017, 01:43:55 pm
Question 1 (15 points):

Have there been more total paper games or online games of Dominion played, by anyone, anywhere?

(Show your work)
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Eran of Arcadia on November 30, 2017, 01:52:40 pm
Well, I've never played online, and I don't actually have any verifiable proof that the rest of you aren't just figments of my imagination.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Dylan32 on November 30, 2017, 01:55:39 pm
Well, I've never played online, and I don't actually have any verifiable proof that the rest of you aren't just figments of my imagination.

Counter point, I've never owned a single card-shaped-thing from a Dominion box, and I do believe my online Dominion experiences were real.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Kirian on November 30, 2017, 01:59:22 pm
Well, I've never played online, and I don't actually have any verifiable proof that the rest of you aren't just figments of my imagination.

Counter point, I've never owned a single card-shaped-thing from a Dominion box, and I do believe my online Dominion experiences were real.

What a conundrum you seem to have here, WanderingWinder.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: enfynet on November 30, 2017, 08:06:39 pm
I own all the physical cards, but suddenly I don't know if I am real...
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Limetime on November 30, 2017, 08:18:50 pm

Question 1 (15 points):
Does this mean 15 upvotes?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: crj on November 30, 2017, 08:28:21 pm
2.5 million Dominion sets, including expansions, sold. (Says Wikipedia without citation.) Assume an average of 1.5 expansions per base set and 10 plays per copy. So somewhere around 10 million RL games have been played.

Now: does somebody know how many games have been played in the various online platforms?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: jonts26 on November 30, 2017, 10:35:40 pm
Let n be the number of irl games.
Let m be the number of online games.
Premise 1: n>m
Conclusion: n>m.
QED.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: enfynet on November 30, 2017, 11:32:38 pm
What if we were to determine number of minutes of IRL vs online?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: dedicateddan on December 01, 2017, 12:34:31 am
The average online game only takes around 15 minutes. Real life games take much longer due to set up, shuffling and clean up.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: pacatak on December 01, 2017, 11:34:31 am
i've played 2-3 online games. 

hundreds if not thousands of games IRL.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: schadd on December 01, 2017, 12:18:17 pm
Let n be the number of irl games.
Let m be the number of online games.
Premise 1: n>m
Conclusion: n>m.
QED.
true for any values of (n,m) ∈ {(n,m)}
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Tozar on December 04, 2017, 12:05:44 pm
I have played probably less than 100 IRL games.

I have played thousands of online games.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: drsteelhammer on December 04, 2017, 12:28:02 pm
2.5 million Dominion sets, including expansions, sold. (Says Wikipedia without citation.) Assume an average of 1.5 expansions per base set and 10 plays per copy. So somewhere around 10 million RL games have been played.

Now: does somebody know how many games have been played in the various online platforms?

That's about the amount of games that have been played online in 2017. So if that number is close to accurate, there have been a lot more online games overall.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: jsh357 on December 04, 2017, 12:47:27 pm
It seems unfathomable to me that more paper games could have been played. I'd imagine that the number of games played online in a single year probably rivals the number of games played in person (all-time). Even if there are outliers (like Tozar's claim here) the sheer number of games individuals play in a single day has to be much greater online, enough to compensate for the number of players who don't play online at all. I alone have played at least 20,000 games online, which is higher than the average surely, but the thing is I'm not the only one who has done it.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Awaclus on December 04, 2017, 01:17:38 pm
What a conundrum you seem to have here, WanderingWinder.

I seem to have, I mean.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: GendoIkari on December 04, 2017, 01:20:36 pm
Each answer has a fact supporting it; the question is which fact contributes more weight:

1) As JSH and others have pointed out, an individual person can play far more online games per day than IRL games per day. I think it's a safe bet that aside from a few outliers, a person who plays online plays far more games than a person who doesn't play online.

2) There are a great number of people who have played IRL, but never played online. calculating this number is quite difficult. We can look at the total sales of Dominion; and get a rough idea of how many people own a copy.

I'm inclined to think that online wins, simply due to knowing that many individuals (myself included) have thousands of games played; while that number would be way smaller for the average IRL player.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 04, 2017, 01:20:54 pm
It seems unfathomable to me that more paper games could have been played. I'd imagine that the number of games played online in a single year probably rivals the number of games played in person (all-time). Even if there are outliers (like Tozar's claim here) the sheer number of games individuals play in a single day has to be much greater online, enough to compensate for the number of players who don't play online at all. I alone have played at least 20,000 games online, which is higher than the average surely, but the thing is I'm not the only one who has done it.

I agree, but I was hoping to get some sourced numbers for online game counts.

I think we should be able to estimate the total number of online games played (Po) to within 10%. Then the question is whether the number of paper games (Pp) exceeding the lowest estimate of Po is unreasonably high.

For example, let Po = 60 million (this is probably low), and let's assume the 2.5 million sets of Dominion sold (including expansions) leads to 1.5 million playable sets (this might be high); for Pp>Po this would require an average of over 40 plays per set.

That seems high, but it's not unreasonably high. With the assumptions I've made here, I think it's too close to call.

Edit: i got too lazy trying to find out how to easily put "hats" on my estimators. Pedants please forgive me.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Awaclus on December 04, 2017, 01:53:27 pm
I'll refer to the same Wikipedia quote for the number of games sold, but I'll assume that all 2.5 million sold copies were Base sets or first edition Intrigues. For 10 000 000 games to be played in 2017 IRL, that would have to mean 4 games per player assuming two-player games. That's likely.

EDIT: I think the math was wrong at first.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on December 04, 2017, 02:46:22 pm
How are we counting "a game of Dominion"? Does it count if somebody resigned or quit? Does it count if you played against bots? Does it count if you proxied fan cards/custom rules? Does it count if you accidentally played the wrong rules? What if it was a playtesting session for a set? Food for thought.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Jimmmmm on December 04, 2017, 03:31:24 pm
Here's another vaguely related question: How many games will continue until the heat death of the universe? How long until the total time of these games is more than the total time of all other games?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 04, 2017, 03:35:07 pm
How are we counting "a game of Dominion"? Does it count if somebody resigned or quit? Does it count if you played against bots? Does it count if you proxied fan cards/custom rules? Does it count if you accidentally played the wrong rules? What if it was a playtesting session for a set? Food for thought.

I think the only one of these that would have any appreciable effect on the result is the question on bots. I tend to think those should count.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Jimmmmm on December 04, 2017, 03:48:53 pm
How are we counting "a game of Dominion"? Does it count if somebody resigned or quit? Does it count if you played against bots? Does it count if you proxied fan cards/custom rules? Does it count if you accidentally played the wrong rules? What if it was a playtesting session for a set? Food for thought.

I think the only one of these that would have any appreciable effect on the result is the question on bots. I tend to think those should count.

What about games with only bots, including the 1000s of games played each time a simulation is run?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Accatitippi on December 04, 2017, 03:58:02 pm
Ok, let's look for some data. Over the years, there have been several platforms for 2p dominion online, and each one had its own stat-gathering site. Correct me if I'm wrong:
BSW
isotropic - councilroom
Goko/MF - Salvager
MF 2.0 - Salvager for 2.0
SI - Scavenger

I'm a bit fuzzy about the dates, again, correct me if those are wrong.

BSW is a mess to search, I think I could estimate the number of games played there but I'm not sure it would be worth the hassle.

isotropic has a recorded 12.051.301 games (I believe with all player counts) between 11 oct 2010 and 15 mar 2013. (of which 8.105.394 "eligible" games - I guess this means 2p).

Goko 1.0: I can get a full leaderboard on the Wayback machine dated 17 mar 2015, and it shows 2.044.155 2p games. I really have no idea about when Gokosalvager started keeping track. 17 march is also the very first capture of gokosalvager.com.

An analysis I ran almost two years ago (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15175.0) showed that between June 2015 (launch of Dominion 2.0) and April 13th 2016, there were 1.787.686 games. Unfortunately, the Wayback machine can't really help us fill the gap between April 13th and December 31st, because it only saved the partial leaderboard.

As of yesterday, Dominion Scavenger has a recorded 2.301.038 2p games in the leaderboard (29k players). (plays/2)
Does anybody know whether they started recording them on 1.1.17 or later? EDIT: They started on March 31. Thanks JW.

So, to recap:

BSW: ???
iso: 10/2010-03/2013: 12.051.301
Goko: ???-03/2015: 2.044.155 (2p only)
MF: 06/2013-04/2016: 1.787.686 (2p only)
SI: 04/2017-11/2017: 2.301.038 (2p only)

Don't know what to pull out of these data (except that dominion online is less popular today than it used to be), but I couldn't resist the temptation of looking them up.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: JW on December 04, 2017, 04:45:44 pm
As of yesterday, Dominion Scavenger has a recorded 2.301.038 2p games in the leaderboard (29k players). (plays/2)
Does anybody know whether they started recording them on 1.1.17 or later?

Later - the ranking system wasn't released until March 31 (http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=604.msg5892#msg5892). Also, games with bots are never rated on ShuffleIT, so they wouldn't be captured at all.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Accatitippi on December 04, 2017, 05:12:14 pm
As of yesterday, Dominion Scavenger has a recorded 2.301.038 2p games in the leaderboard (29k players). (plays/2)
Does anybody know whether they started recording them on 1.1.17 or later?

Later - the ranking system wasn't released until March 31 (http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=604.msg5892#msg5892). Also, games with bots are never rated on ShuffleIT, so they wouldn't be captured at all.

Yes, I don't think any of the above mentioned systems counted bot games.
Thanks for the correction regarding the rating system, I had forgotten. Updating the post. :)
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Holger on December 05, 2017, 08:10:25 am
The Goko Salvager initially included bot games (that's how I ended up high in the leader board for some time 😀😉). AI changed this at some point, but I don't remember exactly when this happened.
Also, unrated games were never included by definition.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: ackmondual on December 10, 2017, 07:29:30 pm
I've played a game of Dominion on my phone while in the middle of a IRL game of Dominion!
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Kirian on December 10, 2017, 09:09:48 pm
I've played a game of Dominion on my phone while in the middle of a IRL game of Dominion!

Dominionception achieved?  Did you win either game?
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Cuzz on December 11, 2017, 09:22:52 am
I've played a game of Dominion on my phone while in the middle of a IRL game of Dominion!

I once played a 6P IRL game with 4 first time players. I could have played a league match between each of my turns.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: JThorne on December 11, 2017, 10:09:22 am
Quote
I once played a 6P IRL game with 4 first time players.

Never again!

If I'm teaching Dominion to a group of IRL 6 players, I set up two 3-player kingdoms on opposite ends of the table, play one game, then have everyone switch seats and play the other kingdom. It's faster, more fun, a better experience, and underscores the dramatic differences between kingdoms and replayability of the game.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Kirian on December 11, 2017, 02:27:25 pm
I've played a game of Dominion on my phone while in the middle of a IRL game of Dominion!

I once played a 6P IRL game with 4 first time players. I could have played a league match between each of my turns.

It's like the Dominion player's hell.
Title: Re: Total number of paper games v. online games?
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 11, 2017, 07:13:20 pm
I've played a game of Dominion on my phone while in the middle of a IRL game of Dominion!

I once played a 6P IRL game with 4 first time players. I could have played a league match between each of my turns.

All 6-player games should use a card like Scrying Pool to keep players engaged while it's not their turn.

/s