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Moneyball comes to the NHL with ProPuck Wizard
Billy Beane with the Oakland A's earned the most attention for his early use of analytics in setting up a line-up and running a major league baseball team. Now more and more sports are employing front office personnel with strong statistical and math backgrounds. ProPuck Wizard, a free universal app, now makes it possible for even casual fans to study and analyze their favorite NHL teams and try to discover what is responsible for the team's success or failure. ProPuck Wizard works on IOS 4.3 or later and makes available to fans a thorough breakdown of NHL team and league statistics that goes way beyond what fans would normally find available. Here is a breakdown of just some of the stats available: Tracks teams performance and standings by points, win percentage, and momentum Travel analysis including distance travelled, time zones, and back to back games Goal type analysis including even strength, power play, and short handed Shooting analysis of shots, shot percentage, and save percentage Game match-up analysis for past and future games Complete home/away/aggregate customizable game results All of these statistical breakdowns are updated each day so they are always up to date. In the Help section users will find explanations for all of the breakouts and how they are calculated. The breakout of season long travel for each of the teams demonstrates some numbers that might be important as the season progresses. Western Conference teams travel a much greater distance over the course of the season. All of the Eastern Conference teams are in the Eastern time zone so the distances between cities is relatively close. The only two teams that will travel more than 40,000 miles are Florida and Carolina. Meanwhile all but two of the Western Conference teams will exceed 40,000 miles in travel this year most by several thousand miles. Arizona and Dallas log the most air miles since the are both way south of the other teams. All those extra miles means longer flights after games and getting to bed much later. This could impact a team's performance at certain points of the year. The statistic breakdowns are all color coded. Green numbers mean the team is performing above the league average, red designates areas where teams are below the league average and the blue numbers mark the points where teams are right at the league average. That makes if very easy to see just how your team is doing as you go through the breakouts. All the number columns have headers which can be confusing but a single tap on the header brings up a table with an explanation of each header. If you are kind of a stat-head and really enjoy investigating all areas of performance by your favorite team in an effort to find the reasons for success or failure this app is for you. I am sure you will spend hours on ProPuck Wizard pouring through the numbers and forming your own conclusions on why your team should win the Stanley Cup.
Mathematician tries to predict the next two 'Game of Thrones' books
Tired of waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series? So is the University of Canterbury's Richard Vale: he's created a statistical model based on the series' previous tomes to predict what might be in the next book. Don't worry though, it's mostly spoiler free. Vale's analysis of Game of Thrones doesn't account for plot or foreshadowing -- it's strictly a numbers game.
Jawbone knows how many of its users were roused by the Napa earthquake
Think you could sleep through an earthquake? Probably not, judging by data from Jawbone. The company says that almost everyone using its Jawbone Up device to track their sleep near South Napa was awakened by yesterday's earthquake. About 90 percent of its users were asleep, and the closer you were to the epicenter, the more likely it is you woke up. Farther out, about half the users in San Francisco and Oakland arose; almost nobody was disturbed 75 to 100 miles away in Modesto. Since Jawbone's fitness trackers push data to smartphones and other devices, the company was able to get a quick and detailed look into how the locals felt. The stats are interesting, to be sure, but may give you pause if didn't realize Jawbone could publish your exercise stats at a moment's notice.
The Crew revs up for second beta test on August 25th
Gas up those cars and wipe down the upholstry, because the second beta test for The Crew is set to begin on August 25th and end on August 29th. Ubisoft promised to hand out more keys for this second round of closed beta testing, saying that players will now be able to register for it through Steam if desired. You can get into the beta by pre-purchasing The Crew prior to the start of this next test, having played the first beta test, or snagging one of the new keys. Ubisoft announced that there will be no NDA for the beta later this month. According to a new infographic, over 237 million miles were driven during the first beta test, in addition to 387,113 police chases and over a million skill challenges attempted. You can view the full infographic after the jump.
Destiny beta: 88.3 million games played
Last week, Bungie revealed that 4.6 million players participated in Destiny's beta phase, a program that pushed the game's servers ahead of its September 9 launch. The developer has since offered more numbers behind the beta in large infographic form, found after the break. Destiny's beta program saw 88,384,720 games played as well as the creation of 6.5 million guardians. The community's kill-to-death ratio in the cooperative story, strike and exploration missions was 22.53, thanks to a grand total of 3.7 billion kills during those quests. What's more, Bungie's Saturday field trip to the moon resulted in 853,235 concurrent players. Relive the Destiny beta through our archived discussions and livestreams, in which we determined we would appreciate an apartment in the game's tower, but still enjoyed kicking back in the social sections. [Image: Activision]
Camelot Unchained's use-based stat system will trade grind for immersion
This week, the folks at City State Entertainment have a massive game mechanics infodump planned for Camelot Unchained fans as part of its "batshit-crazy" reveal week. A few weeks ago, we spoke with CSE co-founder Mark Jacobs about each of the topics being presented to backers this week on Twitch, so to coincide with today's announcements, we asked about the mechanics of the sandbox's proposed stat system. Enjoy the reveal and the interview! Massively: Can you explain the thinking behind allowing players to fall into "gotcha" builds, unwittingly creating characters that simply will not perform well in the game? By the same token, does the studio not anticipate the preset classes to result in attendant cookie cutter stat builds? CSE's Mark Jacobs: We've been very clear from the beginning of the Kickstarter that we are going to allow players to create builds that aren't 'ideal' for their class or even race selection. Now, having said this, we've also been clear we will present plenty of information so they can make informed choices. I want to give players the freedom to play a race/class/stat combination that is not ideal, but to also warn them and give them the ability to read lots of information at the same time. We are also considering giving out a limited respec after creation just in case, for example, you quickly realize trying to play a Luchorpan tank that you made as small and weak as possible wasn't a great idea.
Apple provides green details on new "Spaceship" campus, reports reduced emissions in 2013
Apple talks a big game when it comes to the environment, so the company's annual report on its green efforts are always an interesting read. This year, Apple's Environmental Responsibility Report (PDF) brings news on renewable energy for its retail stores and the company's overall carbon footprint. Despite using more power than ever before, Apple's carbon footprint from that power consumption actually fell 3% from 2012 to 2013. This marks the first time that figure has fallen since Apple first began reporting these figures in 2009, and proves that while the Apple's growth has lead to greater power needs, those needs are being filled without detrimental effects. Apple also reported that 145 of its U.S. retail stores, as well as all of its locations in Australia, are now using renewable energy exclusively. Looking to the future, a few details on Apple Campus 2 -- AKA "the Spaceship" -- made it into the report as well. Campus 2 will use 30% less energy than a typical R&D facility of its size thanks to its unique design which provides natural air ventilation for three-quarters of the year, and a massive solar installation that will soak up some precious energy from above. Apple is also planning on planting upwards of 6,000 trees at the new campus location, and will provide 1,000 bicycles to employees looking for a zero-emission commute.
WWDC 2014: Tim Cook highlights developer numbers
This year's WWDC keynote has kicked off and Tim Cook took the opportunity to share some stats on this year's attendees. There are developers from 69 different countries in the crowd this year, with 70% of attendees being first-timers. Tim also gave a shout-out to the student developers who "worked very hard" to attend the event, noting that the youngest developer at WWDC is just 13 years old. It's exciting to see so many eager young developers in the crowd. Enjoy the show folks, and stay tuned to TUAW for all-day coverage.
How to win more in League of Legends: play as blue team
Would you believe that a team's color can influence how often they win or lose? If you're shaking your head and thinking 'of course not," The Daily Dot has some data to show you regarding wins vs. losses in League of Legends. According to the Dot's data sampling, in ranked matches with draft pick rules, the blue team won a solid 15 percent more than red team. (Note: We'd say it's more of a "byzantine magenta" than red, but to each their own.) What's particularly interesting about the data is that the Dot attempted to eliminate as many variables as possible from its numbers, and even found data that would logically suggest blue should be losing more games. For example, the red team killed more Dragons than the blue team, and often killed Dragons before the blue team. This should give the red team a boost to their gold, allowing them to buy items and become stronger faster than their opponents. Yet clearly this didn't happen, as blue team won more often against teams ranked lower than them and against teams ranked higher than them. There's no solid answer as to why this is happening. And while we could spend all day looking at bar graphs, it's important to remember that correlation does not imply causation. Just because it looks like the rain in Howard County, Missouri causes people to get hit by a railway train doesn't mean that's what actually happens. Likewise, there's probably more to this data than a first glance would suggest. Or, maybe blue is just a more powerful color, like how the Green Lantern used to be weak to the color yellow. Who knows! [Image: Riot Games]
Crafting the perfect tweet is one-third talent, two-thirds science
Random and fickle as social networks may seem, the success of an individual Tweet or Facebook post can be hugely dependent on the way it's worded. Some sentences will work well, while others will quietly implode in a puff of indifference. However, researchers from Google and Cornell University now claim that they can predict this outcome using straightforward linguistic rules. The rules may not be especially practical when it comes to actually crafting a Tweet (the main tips are: make it sound like a news headline, follow "community norms," and add more detail where possible), but there does seem to be decent statistical evidence to back them up.
Neverwinter releases post-Shadowmantle infographic
So how is Neverwinter doing these days? The game's been a little quiet since the launch of Shadowmantle. But it looks as if it's doing fairly well, judging by a brand-new infographic, which is embedded just past the cut. More than 2 million new characters have been created since the launch of Shadowmantle, with Hunter Rangers turning up as the most popular new character and Devoted Clerics as the least. Beyond that, over 3 million characters have died in PvP matches and a combined total of 405 years' worth of experience has been gained. If you can't get enough of numbers about games, go ahead and jump past the cut to see exactly how the game has been doing since its last update. On a numerical level, it seems pretty solid. [Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release]
Broken Age on sale for 33% off, game contains 15 minutes of credits [Update: Sale over]
The first act of Double Fine's Kickstarted adventure game, Broken Age, is currently on sale for its lowest price ever on Steam. For $16.74 you can get the game, or for $20.09, you can snag the game as well as a copy of the soundtrack. Hurry though, because at the time of posting, you've only got two and a half hours to take advantage of the deal. The release of Act 1 existed partly to fund the development of Act 2, so the back half of the game isn't ready to go just yet. Those who purchase ahead of Act 2's release will be given the conclusion as a free update, according to Double Fine. Double Fine also announced a slew of statistics regarding Broken Age's production, in case you're the type who was ever curious about just how many lines of code go into creating a game like this. (Hint: it's a lot.) It's also been a time-consuming project: over the course of 22 months (or 339 man-months), the team has created 1,181 cutscenes, recorded 4,417 lines of voice, and consumed more than 680 gallons of coffee. Broken Age also takes 15 minutes (at a resolution of 1024x768) to show off 12,846 name strings during the credits. Broken Age: it's kind of a big deal. Update: The sale for Broken Age has come to its conclusion. The game is $24.99 once more. [Image: Double Fine]
Star Trek Online posts a four-year infographic
Space -- it's not really much of a frontier any longer. These are the voyages of a large number of different ships in Star Trek Online. Their continuing missions: To complete reputation projects. To seek out new ships and new duty officers. To boldly go where a lot of people have gone over the past four years -- specifically, 3.2 million captains -- but it's still worth exploring just the same! With the official four-year mark for the game just around the corner, Cryptic Studios has put out a new infographic detailing stuff like exactly how many captains are currently exploring the final not-so-much-a-frontier. It also contains a handy timeline of the game's major content releases over the past four years and all of the former Trek actors now providing voices to iconic characters in the game. If you want a quick look at the game's history for yourself, check out the infographic on the official site.
World of Warcraft breaks out a decade in Azeroth by the numbers
World of Warcraft is hitting its 10-year anniversary this year, and the franchise as a whole is turning 20. So it's a find time to take a look at the numbers behind the game, something Blizzard Entertainment did today with a large and exhaustive infographic. That header up there? That's a count of how many worldwide accounts the game has had created, including trials. Yes, that's 100 million. That's a lot of people who have stepped into Azeroth (or Outland for a little while). There are a lot of interesting bits of information in there as well. As a whole, the game has seen more than 500 million characters created (more characters than there are people in the United States). Approximately 2.8 million auction house transactions take place every day, 11 million achievements have been earned per day since the launch of Mists of Pandaria, and the game currently sits on about 6 million words written for quest content. There's a lot more in the infographic; feel free to jump on over and take a look at it for more stats on the game's decade of history.
Blade & Soul tops 1.5M concurrent users in China
While we twiddle our thumbs in the West waiting for a game that might never come, Blade & Soul is stampeding across Asia and has the numbers to prove it. MMO Culture reports that Blade & Soul China has 1.5 million players (wait for it) online at the same time. As in concurrency, not total numbers. While that certainly smacks of popularity, what's even more astonishing is that some players in the region have to wait around six hours in a queue just to play. Other impressive statistics include the Blade & Soul beta trailer being viewed 30.4 million times, 450 million monsters killed on the first day of the game, and one player who's already sunk 1,345 hours into the title.
GTA5, CoD: Ghosts rank as Raptr's most-played games of 2013
Stat-tracking gaming community Raptr has released its list of the most-played games of 2013, revealing that site members sunk more hours into the Xbox 360 version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 in its first month of release than any other individual game released this year. While GTA5 ranked as the site's most-played game in its first 30 days of release, Activision's Call of Duty: Ghosts emerged as the single most-played Xbox 360 game for all of 2013, beating out popular favorites like Minecraft, FIFA 13, and Halo 4. Raptr's results name League of Legends as its most-played PC game of 2013, outperforming rival MOBA Dota 2 and MMORPGs Rift and World of Warcraft. Grinding Gear Games' Path of Exile takes top honors as the site's most-played new IP, while Terraria's 1.2 content update ranks as the year's most-played DLC/expansion. It's worth noting that Raptr only tracks member playtime across the Xbox 360 and PC platforms; Wii U and PlayStation 3 gameplay is not calculated as part of the site's rankings. Still, the results give an interesting look at how much time players invest in a game after its release on an individual platform, as compared to its long-term popularity throughout the year.
US app usage spikes on Thanksgiving to the tune of more than 1.2 billion app starts
If you live in the US and own an iPhone or iPad, there's a really good chance you booted up an app or two on Thanksgiving weekend this year. In fact, there's a better chance you used an app this year on Thanksgiving than any year prior, with more than 1.2 billion app start-ups initiated according to new data from Flurry Analytics. For comparison, Thanksgiving weekend last year didn't even break 800 million app starts. So why the spike? Well, Flurry's data shows that Thanksgiving is a huge time for smartphone usage, which can be attributed to travel, cooking, football and a host of other common Thanksgiving traditions. This year, however, both media apps (music, video and camera apps) and games were used more than the previous two years, while travel apps were used less than in 2011 or 2012, possibly due to an untimely winter storm. What did you use your smartphone for while relaxing with some turkey and stuffing this year?
Catalog Spree claims 66% of consumers will shop for holiday gifts from tablets... wait, what?
According to a press release published today from digital magazine company Catalog Spree, 66 percent of consumers will use a tablet to shop for holiday gifts this year. If that figure strikes you as odd, that's probably because it's not even close to accurate. This is called sampling bias, and it's what happens when a company or group uses a biased sample to generate a favorable figure. Here is everything Catalog Spree says in the release about how it collected its data: "These findings are part of Catalog Spree's annual holiday shopping survey, which highlights consumer shopping behaviors around the holiday season." There is no mention of what the sample actually is, how the survey was conducted or who participated. After contacting Catalog Spree I've been told that the survey is conducted directly from within the app itself. So, really, 66 percent of people who already have a digital shopping app installed on their tablets are planning on using it to shop for gifts. Of course, this isn't made clear on the press release, and who knows where that figure will be regurgitated elsewhere without clarification? It's clearly misleading, but how wrong is the "66 percent" data point? Well, according to a 2013 survey from Pew Research Center only 34 percent of all American adults even own a tablet to begin with. So take 34 percent of holiday shoppers, then take the minute percentage of those individuals who actually have Catalog Spree installed, and then cut the resulting figure by a further one-third, and you are left with a more accurate survey result. Math! In any case, the company is really telling us absolutely nothing about the habits of shoppers, and publishing misleading press releases doesn't exactly make us want to browse its digital catalogs anyway. The entire press release can be viewed below. Sixty-Six Percent of Consumers Will Shop for Holiday Gifts from Tablets, According to Catalog Spree November 6th, 2013 Avoid the Mall and 'Gift' Straight from the Couch this Holiday Season LOS ALTOS, Calif. (Nov. 6, 2013) – Catalog Spree, the personal digital mall that lets consumers browse, discover and shop their favorite brands, today reported that 66 percent of consumers will shop for holiday gifts from tablets this year. In addition, 25 percent of consumers will use both tablets and smartphones to shop for gifts. These findings are part of Catalog Spree's annual holiday shopping survey, which highlights consumer shopping behaviors around the holiday season. With more than 350 full-page digital catalogs and lookbooks, the Catalog Spree mobile shopping app makes holiday shopping easy by letting consumers shop on an iPad or iPhone. "Retail customers are rapidly gravitating toward tablets and smartphones for shopping. In fact, we believe 2013 will go down as the last year in which retail web traffic from PCs will be greater than web traffic from mobile devices," said Joaquin Ruiz, CEO of Catalog Spree. "Consumers are initially drawn to the convenience of shopping from an app on a tablet or smartphone, but it's the experience that makes them stay. At Catalog Spree, we are dedicated to making mobile shopping so fun and easy that it becomes the primary shopping method for consumers." Catalog Spree offers visually engaging digital catalogs and lookbooks that allow consumers to quickly and easily flip through pages to browse, be inspired and shop on an iPad or iPhone. Highlights from this year's survey include: – 66 percent of consumers will shop for holiday gifts from tablets. – 25 percent of consumers will use both tablets and smartphones to shop for holiday gifts. – A majority of consumers will shop from digital catalogs, including 12 percent more shoppers than last year. – 63 percent of consumers have already started shopping; 30 percent started shopping before Halloween. – Top places consumers get gift ideas include digital catalogs, searching online, print catalogs and suggestions from friends and family. – 25 percent of consumers will share wish lists via social media. To make holiday shopping even easier, Catalog Spree is launching a new Gift Center that features a series of gift-themed catalogs. These catalogs, such as Gifts Under $25, Gifts for Her and Gifts for Kids, offer great gift ideas and inspiration for the holiday season. All of these Catalog Spree-branded catalogs are produced in a matter of hours with Spree Studio, the company's all-digital publication platform. For additional information on Catalog Spree, visit www.catalogspree.com. # # # ABOUT CATALOG SPREE: Catalog Spree is the personal digital mall that lets consumers browse catalogs and lookbooks, discover new brands and share products they like. The award-winning app brings the fun of window shopping to the iPad and iPhone, connecting consumers with the brands they love in a personalized, one-stop mobile shopping experience. Catalog Spree works with retailers to publish digital versions of print catalogs, create custom lookbooks with its all-digital publishing platform, Spree Studio, and distribute content to over 100 million targeted shoppers on the web through its partnership with Google. Based in Los Altos, California, Catalog Spree is privately held and backed by angel investors and venture capital firms including Relay Ventures. For more information visit www.catalogspree.com. [Image credit: Acme]
NPD: 'Almost' as many kids gaming on mobiles as consoles, computers
Information broker The NPD Group's "Kids and Gaming 2013" report found that children aged 12 to 17 are spending seven hours per week on mobile gaming, up from five hours per week in 2011. The report studied the gaming habits of children aged 2 to 17. While more children still use computers and consoles for gaming, the report notes there are now "almost" as many kids playing on mobile devices as there are on the more prominent platforms. Liam Callahan, an industry analyst with The NPD Group, said in the report that "kids are engaged as less expensive tablets and an increasing amount of hand-me-down phones create greater accessibility to these platforms than before." The report's findings were gathered online from a sample of female adults, aged 21 to 60, that are part of NPD's online panel and house children between the age of 2 to 17. The report is based off the answers of 3,842 children and, in the case of younger children, answers provided by adults on their behalf. [Image credit: Flickr user 'Nearsoft']
Raging League of Legends players win 35% fewer matches than average
Riot Games recently pushed live an interesting, stats-driven look at the way players in League of Legends win games, and the conclusion is simple: Teams that work together tend to do better than those that do not. According to the video, "sportsman-like players" win over 1.7 million more games each day than average players. The video also explains that "rage doesn't win games," noting that the win rate for zero-rage teams is 54%, while teams with three keyboard-smashing players sink to 46%. The numbers get worse from there. Players who avoid flaming in chat and instead work to refocus their team see higher win rates overall. Riot also tracked the way individual players rank based on behavior. Players with a positive record of behavior win 10% more games than average players, while players with a history of community reports win 35% fewer. The decline generally starts with one loss, which starts the raging, which in turn causes more losses. Check out the video after the break to see the stats in action.
