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Gamers spent a lot more time playing on Steam in 2020
Valve also hit new highs in terms of daily active players and peak concurrent users.
UK soccer stars may sue betting companies over player data profits
Can a team of UK-based footballers get money for their athletic data?
NBA and Microsoft plan personalized, AI-powered game streaming
Microsoft and the NBA are teaming up to deliver personalized game broadcasts that use machine learning and AI to learn fans’ preferences. To start, they’ll broadcast live and on-demand games via Microsoft Azure and add personalized real-time stats overlays.
NPD's best-selling games of the decade charts 'Call of Duty' domination
As usual, the NPD group has rounded up sales stats for the last month, but with the flip from 2019 to 2020 it is also listing some of the best sellers over the last ten years. Grand Theft Auto V is the best selling game across all platforms and outlets tracked from 2010 through the end of 2019, but otherwise the top ten is dominated by the Call of Duty series, with Red Dead Redemption at number 7 and Minecraft at number 10 as the only other titles. Grand Theft Auto V Call of Duty: Black Ops Call of Duty: Black Ops II Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Call of Duty: Black Ops III Call Of Duty: Ghosts Red Dead Redemption II Call of Duty: WWII Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII Minecraft Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019 Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Mario Kart 8 Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Battlefield 1 Battlefield 4 Destiny The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Star Wars Battlefront 2015 In fact, Call of Duty accounted for 10 of the top 15 selling games over the last decade, with Infinite Warfare just making the list. The PlayStation 4 is the top selling console over the last ten years, and the DualShock 4, accordingly, is the best-selling accessory. Still, Nintendo managed to grab the sales crown for December and 2019 as a whole, and as we head into a new decade with a new generation of systems on the way things look wide open.
Blizzard bans third-party 'Overwatch' stats apps
Blizzard has declared that players are not allowed to use certain third-party Overwatch stat-tracking apps. The company said running software such as Visor and Pursuit while playing the game violates the End User License Agreement, and those who continue to use those tools could face permanent bans.
Snapchat gives influencers a look at how popular they really are
To date, Snapchat hasn't shown any more data to its biggest users than its everyday audience -- DJ Khaled and Chrissy Teigen probably know as much about their success as you do. That's about to change. The Snap team will offer a wide range of viewer data to the "tens of thousands" of popular users creating official Stories. That includes not only the views themselves (including how many people watched to the end), but demographics like age group, gender, regions and preferred topics. If creators are hip with the teens or have the beauty market cornered, they'll know.
Netflix users have streamed half a billion hours of Adam Sandler
That should explain why Netflix keeps throwing money at him.
Recommended Reading: Trump's own polling models prove accurate
Trump's Big Data Mind Explains How He Knew Trump Could Win Izzie Lapowsky, Wired While it could take some time to uncover the finer points of why the polls were so far off in the 2016 presidential election, the head of President-elect Donald Trump's data team knew the candidate had a good chance of pulling out a stunning upset. Wired talked with Cambridge Analytica's Matt Oczkowski to get some details on their internal polling models which correctly predicted how most of the states would vote.
Comcast set-top boxes now offer detailed stats for more sports
Did you like the abundance of stats while watching the Rio Olympics on Comcast? If so, you're in for a treat from now on. Comcast is rolling out those same on-screen stats for every sport its X1 set-top box app covers. If you want to see where a basketball team has taken most of its shots, or want to know how well your favorite hockey player is doing, the info is just a short hop away. Finding that data should be easier, too.
Facebook has been exaggerating ad video views for two years
So here's a funny thing about Facebook videos: it turns out people actually weren't watching the ads on them nearly as much as the social network said. The Wall Street Journal reports that since it introduced video ads in 2014, the company miscalculated average viewing time because it didn't include views that lasted less than three seconds. An ad buying agency says it was told by Facebook that average time spent viewing was likely overestimated by 60 to 80 percent.
Blast Motion's swing sensor data is coming to baseball broadcasts
Major League Baseball had already approved Blast Motion's swing analyzer for use in training sessions, but now that the gadget is official hitting sensor of the league, it's going to be used for a lot more. Data from the $150 device will be used in television broadcasts, starting with the MLB All-Star Futures Game on July 10th. While that matchup is only an exhibition of the baseball's up-and-coming young talent, Blast says other "select television broadcasts" will feature stats collected by the swing tracker.
Windows Phone sales have almost ground to a halt
Gartner has released its smartphone stats for Q4 2015 and the news is especially bad for Microsoft. In Q4 2014, the software giant owned 2.8 percent of the smartphone market -- not great, but still good enough for around 10 million units sold. In the same quarter of 2015, however, Windows Phone sales fell to 4.4 million, giving the OS a mere 1.1 percent of the total market. That means that it's basically in a death spiral, as consumers and app developers alike lose interest. Microsoft's rumored Surface Phone now looks like its last hope to rescue the division.
Study finds most drone incidents occur in prohibited airspace
The rising popularity of drones is a cause for concern for a lot of folks, not just the FAA. Thanks to the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, we have a bit more info on the dangers created by the UAVs. The center conducted a study of drone sightings and what the FAA classifies as "close encounters." In other words, any time a drone and a manned aircraft met the agency's criteria for a "near mid-air collision." The research, taken from info on flights between December 2012 and September 2015, shows that 35.5 percent of all incidents where the so-called close encounters while the rest were classified as sightings.
Latest IDC wearable numbers show Xiaomi's continued surge
While there was no change in the top two spots for the Q3 2015 IDC wearable numbers, Xiaomi made a staggering jump. In terms of market share, Fitbit is still in the top spot with a 22 percent market share and 4.7 million units shipped in the quarter. The company's numbers were padded by the fact that a number employers are giving their workers Fitbit devices, including Target's order of 335,000. Apple remains at number two, where it debuted in Q2. Cupertino shipped 3.9 million units, aided by both the release of WatchOS 2 and its gadgets going on sale in more locales.
Recommended Reading: Why the Cardinals hacked a bad MLB team
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. Why Astros' Sophisticated Database Would Be Worth Hacking by Johnette Howard ESPN In 2013, the Houston Astros finished the Major League Baseball season 51-111 -- fifth in the five-team American League West Division. They had a bad year, to say the least, and it followed two straight seasons of finishing last in the National League Central. So why would the St. Louis Cardinals want to hack the team's player database? A former St. Louis exec is the Astros' general manager, and his work on a similar collection of advanced stats helped the Cardinals win the 2011 World Series and five minor league championships. Oh yeah, the Astros, just three years later, are leading the division thanks to a remarkable turnaround this season.
Despite artist tension, Spotify subscriptions are growing quickly
At the end of 2014, artists like Taylor Swift pulled their music from Spotify citing inadequate compensation and music being made available to non-subscribers free of charge. Those vocal lashings didn't stymie growth though, as the streaming service has added 2.5 million paying users since November, bringing its paid tally to 15 million. During that time, the total user count grew to 60 million -- up from 50 million in two months. What's more, the growth is accelerating: It took about 17 months for Spotify to move from 5 to 10 million, but roughly half that time to hit 15 million. This means that only a quarter of the company's active users are paying customers, a percentage that's remained consistent for a while now.
WoW and FFXIV see boosted playtime on Raptr; ArcheAge playtime 'cratered'
Another month, another Raptr report. Yesterday Raptr.com posted its most played PC games list for November, and MMOs did rather well. Unsurprisingly, World of Warcraft surged up the list to #2 thanks to the Warlords of Draenor expansion. "The MMO's monthly play time was up 71.3% versus October," Raptr's press release says. And though WoW "likely" drew from League of Legends' numbers, it couldn't quite usurp the MOBA's #1 seat. Among other MMOs, ArcheAge playtime "cratered by 39.97%," but World of Tanks and Final Fantasy XIV both saw rises in theirs. Guild Wars 2 rose in rank, Raptr says, but lost playtime in November vs. October. SWTOR fell two places since October. As always, Raptr roundups come with the caveat that they represent Raptr users on PC, not all gamers; some MMO studios are also known to boost their Raptr numbers with in-game incentives. But since some of these games refuse to release population data, you might call this the next best snapshot of popularity outside of touring the servers yourself.
The Crew accidentally erases player stats
Whoops: It seems as though The Crew's launch wasn't without a few speed bumps after all. Ubisoft admitted that the game's servers had been erasing or showing incomplete player statistics due to a minor issue. Before you get frightened that the game has erased your identity and progress entirely, know that the good news is that "major data" weren't affected at all and that a patch is coming to fix the problem. The Crew launched on Tuesday, December 2nd. Ubisoft refused to provide the media with review copies of the game.
Apple's own stats show iOS 8 upgrades have slowed to a crawl
Despite the introduction of custom keyboards, Notification Center widgets and lots more, Apple users aren't taking to iOS 8. According to stats displayed on the company's developer portal, the proportion of iPhone and iPad owners currently running the latest version on their devices stands at 47 percent, only an increase of 1 percentage point from two weeks ago. By this point last year, iOS 7 uptake was already hovering around 60 percent, according to analytics firm Fiksu. We can only speculate, but it seems likely a combination of very large install files, the bungled point updates, and the dropping of iPhone 4 support could be reason enough for many users to stick with what they know, for now. Or maybe they're just paranoid.
The Mog Log: Expectations for Final Fantasy XIV 2.35
I realize it's kind of silly, but I'm still annoyed at Final Fantasy XIV's methods for numbering interquel patches. I get the schema, I really do, but "2.35" to me says a patch that's preceded by 34 others. "2.3.5." would indicate a patch partway through the 2.3 patch cycle. Could we get another dot in there? Please? No, evidently not. And yes, I know we'll probably have an expansion long before we'd be that far through 2.x, it's the principle of the thing. As I write this, we still don't have a preliminary set of patch notes or anything on 2.35, but while it's a "minor" patch it's still adding a fair amount of stuff into the game. This is one of the great parts about playing the game, that however bad some parts of it might be when it comes to balance, it pumps out content as minor patches that makes other studios look painfully lazy. Specifics are left to the audience for speculation. So what am I expecting from this week's little patch, the known and the unknown?
