The N types of gamers (Clustering analysis, revisited)
Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Back in October, I did a a list of the 10 types of gamers based on a clustering analysis of Top 10 lists: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/17062
Since then, many more people have created top 10 lists, and I've refined the analysis a little. On natural question is "Why 10?". Well, 10 actually yields a pretty good clustering, but there are techniques to try to pick more optimal values. These techniques involve seeing how much improvement you get for each additional cluster. You stop at the point where improvements start diminishing. Well, with gamers that's at about 10, hence why I picked that last time. This time though, I looked a bit more carefully.
There are basically 3 little plateaus. At 3 clusters, you get a substantial improvement over 2. To get the next big "bump" of improvement, you have to go up to 5 clusters, and to get the remaining bump, you have to go up to 9 clusters. A 10th cluster, helps a little, but not enough to justify it really. So, 3, 5 and 9 are the most statistically significant groupings.
Now, this is a clustering of gamers, but for convenience, I'm going to talk a lot about which cluster a game belongs to or leans toward. What this really means is that gamers who like that game tend to be in that cluster. So "ASL" isn't in a particular cluster, but the gamers who like ASL are. Hence, it's more compact to say "ASL is in this cluster", even though that's not quite right. Deal.
In the previous iteration, I named all of the clusters with descriptive names, and that was somewhat controversial. I'm giving the clusters less controversial names here and folks can discuss what, if any, label is appropriate for a cluster.
So, there are 3 partitionings: 3-cluster, 5-cluster, and 9-cluster groups. I picked generic-ish names for each of the clusters within those partitionings. The percentages are of the roughly 3500 people who have completed top 10 lists.
3-cluster
Core Eurogamers (62%)
Family Eurogamers (27%)
Amerigamers (11%)
5-cluster
Eurogamers-1 (52%)
Eurogamers-2 (19%)
Eurogamers-3 (13%)
Amerigamers-1 (10%)
Amerigamers-2 (6%)
9-cluster
Euro Alpha (30%)
Euro Beta (20%)
Euro Gamma (16%)
Euro Delta (9%)
Euro Epsilon (6%)
Euro Zeta (6%)
Ameri Alpha (7%)
Ameri Beta (4%)
Misc (4%)
The game listed for each cluster is the single game that is most likely to be in the top 10 of members of that cluster. The "Other Games" are other games most likely to appear in the top 10 lists of members of that cluster
I'll try to get the tool up where you can classify yourself according to each partitioning sometime soon. Personally, I'm Core Eurogamer/Eurogamer-1/Euro Alpha
Feel free to add new games to the list, and I'll post info about which clusters they make prominent appearances. I may also delete some entries, or not post about some if it gets too voluminous, or the particular entries don't make any prominent appearances in the clusters.
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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[b]Core Eurogamers[b]
Other games: E&T, Power Grid, El Grande, Princes of Florence, Settlers of Catan
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Family Eurogamers
Other games: Settlers of Catan, Ticket To Ride, Memoir '44, Lost Cities, Citadels
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Amerigamers
Other games: Twilight Imperium 3e, Paths of Glory, ASL, Arkham Horror, Twilight Struggle, Hannibal: Rome v. Carthage
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Eurogamers-1
Other games: Power Grid, Caylus, Settlers of Catan, E&T, Princes of Florence
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Eurogamers-2
Other games: Settlers of Catan, Ticekt To Ride, Lost Cities, Citadels
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Eurogamers-3
Other games: Ra, El Grande, Age of Steam, Die Macher, Power Grid
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Amerigamers-1
Other games: Memoir '44, TI3e, Arkham Horror, Descent
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Amerigamers-2
Other games: Hannibal RvC, Paths of Glory, Up Front
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Alpha
Other games: Caylus, E&T, Princes of Florence, El Grande, Power Grid
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Beta
Other games: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Gamma
Other games: Puerto Rico, Power Grid, E&T
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Delta
Other games: E&T, Memoir '44, Age of Steam
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Epsilon
Other games: Memoir '44, Lost Cities, Shadows over Camelot
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Euro Zeta
Other games: Samurai, Through the Desert, Ra
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Ameri Alpha
Other games: TI3e, Twilight Struggle, Hannibal RvC
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Ameri Beta
Other games: Paths of Glory, Squad Leader, Diplomacy
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17.
Board Game: Chess
[Average Rating:7.09 Overall Rank:245]
Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Misc
Other games: Heroscape, Munchkin, HeroQuest
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18.
Board Game: Zendo
[Average Rating:7.31 Overall Rank:282]
Timothy Hunt
United States
St Louis
Missouri
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where does Zendo come?
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Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Above, it was pointed out that this game seems oddly clustered. I can see what people are saying, but I'm not sure I agree. It is often clustered with the "family games" and is is a somewhat heavier game than most of those. But, my feeling is what defines the family games is more their approachability, not their weight. Maybe?
In the 5-cluster, here's the percentage of people who love (ie, top 10) Memoir '44:
Amerigamers-1 25%
Eurogamers-2 15%
Eurogamers-1 11%
Eurogamers-3 6%
Amerigamers-2 1%
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20.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.60 Overall Rank:48]
Matthew Gray
United States
Reading
Massachusetts
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Another one commented on as odd.
Mostly, Eurogamers like Ra. The Eurogamers-3, who seem to like heavier games more so than others. Maybe Ra is a heavy game in light-game clothes? Or maybe it just bolsters my earlier mentioned "approachability" theory. Ra feels very unapproachable to many non-gamers I've introduced it to.
By cluster, percentage who love Ra:
Eurogamer-3 25%
Eurogamer-1 18%
Eurogamer-2 5%
Amerigamer-1 1%
Amerigamer-2 0%
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Quincy
Massachusetts
Reading
Massachusetts
No.
You don't match any of the clusters well, but you match all of them nearly equally poorly (well, except Ameri-1).
Because the other 9 don't line up with that one. You actually come very close to matching all 5 clusters equally, just all quite poorly. That is to say, none of the games you've listed are especially frequent on other people's top 10 lists.
Oh, the self qualification tool generates cool graphs now. I'll post a new list about those. They're fun.
Reading
Massachusetts
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/146623
Linköping
100 Eurogamer (Type 3) (42 118)
47 Eurogamer (Type 1) (42 118)
19 Amerigamer (Type 2) (240 84)
14 Eurogamer (Type 2) (42 118)
10 Amerigamer (Type 1) (240)
I was sorta expecting Ameri-2, but apparently none of the miniatures games on my Top 10 is common enough on people's Top 10s to matter.
I'm also somewhat surprised that Modern Art aligns me strongly with Euro-3. It's surely a light euro!
Brisbane
Queensland