It is now time for my fifth annual analysis of roguelike game
development. I shall first present some dubious statistics and then
you shall complain that they don't accurately reflect roguelike
development.
To find the previous four studies, search for Failure inside this
newsgroup.
The data for this comes from:
http://thelist.roguelikedevelopment.org/
which I have been maintaining.
First, the meaningless bargraph.
1 #
1 #
1 ##
1 # ##
1 # ##
1 # ## #
1 # ## # #
1 # ## # # #
1 # #### ## # #
1 ###### # ### # #
1 ###### # # ### # # #
1 ###### # # #### # # ## # # #
1 ###### ############### ## ## # ## ####
1 ###################### ####### #### ######
1 000000000111111111122222222223333333333444>+49
1 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012>
This tracks the number of roguelikes by last release date. The first
column has a # for every roguelike released in the last month. I have
omitted the last column which would have all the roguelikes over 42
months old or without known release dates. There are now 49 such
roguelikes being tracked.
The peaks at 4-5, 16, 28, and 40 month marks are due to the 7DRL
challenges. Note that a large number of 7DRL entries occurred pre-
challenge this year resulting in the spread of the 7DRL effect.
Next, we will look at the cumulative totals for the last year.
Numbers: (July, 2008)
Month # Total Percent
1 11 11 6%
2 5 16 8%
3 6 22 11%
4 12 34 17%
5 14 48 24%
6 6 54 27%
7 1 55 28%
8 5 60 30%
9 2 62 31%
10 2 64 32%
11 4 68 35%
12 2 70 36%
Rest 127 197 100%
Copying from the last three year's reports and reconstructing the 2004
numbers:
Numbers: (July, 2007)
Month # Total Percent
1 10 10 6%
2 6 16 10%
3 9 25 15%
4 11 36 22%
5 9 45 28%
6 5 50 31%
7 5 55 34%
8 3 58 36%
9 3 61 37%
10 2 63 39%
11 1 64 39%
12 2 66 40%
Rest 97 163 100%
Numbers: (July, 2006)
Month # Total Percent
1 9 9 7%
2 3 12 9%
3 3 15 12%
4 11 26 20%
5 5 31 24%
6 1 32 25%
7 2 34 26%
8 3 37 29%
9 1 38 29%
10 3 41 32%
11 4 45 35%
12 2 47 36%
Rest 81 128 100%
Numbers: (July, 2005)
Month # Total Percent
1 15 15 15%
2 3 18 17%
3 10 28 27%
4 12 40 39%
5 2 42 42%
6 1 43 42%
7 5 48 47%
8 2 50 49%
9 3 53 51%
10 2 55 53%
11 3 58 56%
12 2 60 58%
Rest 43 103 100%
Numbers: (July, 2004)
Month # Total Percent
1 6 6 10%
2 5 11 19%
3 2 13 22%
4 3 16 27%
5 0 16 27%
6 0 16 27%
7 4 20 34%
8 0 20 34%
9 0 20 34%
10 1 21 36%
11 2 23 39%
12 2 25 42%
Rest 24 59 100%
The original metric I measured, Percent Actively Developing
Roguelikes, is clearly becoming meaningless as the natural churn of
roguelike development will send this number to zero. I am still
keeping it in the table for completeness. Interestingly, it is still
bouncing around the 40% mark - showing roguelikes are still in a
growing curve from the year-zero when I built the original data.
More interesting is the absolute number of touched roguelikes. 2006
seems to have been an anomaly as we've continued to see growth in this
area with 70 roguelikes updated in the last year.
This chart shows the number roguelikes touched in the last 6 months,
12 months, and the percentage the twelfth month number comprises of
the total number of roguelikes being tracked.
Year 6 12 % Total New
2004 16 25 27% 59 -
2005 43 60 42% 103 +44
2006 32 47 36% 128 +25
2007 50 66 40% 163 +35
2008 54 70 36% 197 +34
I think after five years we can start to say something meaningful
about these trends. 2008 saw similar patterns to 2007 - a lot of new
roguelikes but also a lot of old timers resurfacing to the top.
The absolute numbers are equally impressive - 70 projects saw another
point release in the last year. Of those, an astounding 54 were last
updated in the last six months. Roguelike creation, as measured by
roguelikes making it to this list, has tracked consistently at three
roguelikes per month for the last five years!
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
