I’ve been sketching out more details for The Great Play Marathon concept.
Up above, I mentioned that I’m using the “IFDB Top 100 algorithm,” but that’s not exactly correct. The Top 100 formula (i.e. padding with 14 “all average” ratings) is being used, but the IFDB Top 100 further imposes a minimum number of ratings in order to qualify. In the samples above there is no minimum requirement, though to get a high enough weighted average to qualify the effective minimum seems to be three ratings (two 5-star plus one 4-star).
I said I’d look for ways to screen out games with a low number of ratings, but with further study I’m not sure that’s a good idea. A surprisingly large fraction of the games in IFDB have fewer than 5 ratings – 10,700 per the Dec 01 data. That’s 70% of all entries! If these are to be screened out, that leaves only 4,450 games in the pool, and the top 3% of those is a list just 134 games long. Picking 54 of those means including 40% of that pool on the field, and in a test sample a very large portion (maybe half) of those randomly selected had appeared in previous play events. That seems like too much.
I could change the cutoff to the top 10% (as opposed to 3%) of games with 5+ ratings. This gives a comparable pool of 445 games and helps to help open the field to more games that have not been in previous play events. Alternatively, I can just ignore the number of ratings and go with a pool like the one used for the sample field graphic above. This adds some “wildcard” games that have only a handful of high votes, which may or may not come from highly biased voters (i.e. the “friends and family” vote).
Since nobody will be required to play any particular game on the field, I’m inclined to allow the wildcards to stay in the pool. What’s your preference?
To serve as a data point for comparison, here is a list of 30 games from the “only 5+ ratings allowed” version of the pool. (Again, these will NOT be the actual games used. It’s just a sample to compare to the other list of 30 above.)
5kmm4dxw6lvhat7i Escape from Hell Nils Fagerburg 2022
032krqe6bjn5au78 Slouching Towards Bedlam Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto 2003
j1uj9pygpuw3v9pc Heroes Sean Barrett 2001
yozl86x1f1dauoi3 The Basilisk and the Banana Jasper & Darren 2024
cqwq699i9qiqdju Party Foul Brooks Reeves 2010
xfezh9wz188ihlel Dual Transform Andrew Plotkin 2010
y19sm08i51b118bq Portrait with Wolf Drew Cook 2025
77rsl9mezn5iogto The Plant Michael J. Roberts 1998
6d9dfn2akcrlq1bu To Hell in a Hamper J. J. Guest 2003
1iqmpkn009h9gbug Raising the Flag on Mount Yo Momma Juhana Leinonen 2010
ljqfvoa6dshtk8xa Yes, Another Game with a Dragon! John Kean 2000
dk4hipbb9b3c7tli Coming Out Simulator 2014 Nicky Case 2014
dgwt1773us6c8eo1 The Prairie House Chris Hay (a.k.a. Eldritch Renaissance C 2022
k6yq5koj2zjzstpt The Mulldoon Legacy Jon Ingold 1999
eerznpfv6h1mp6px Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head The Hungry Reader 2023
1f4p0kxdwofvcp3i Whitefield Academy of Witchcraft Steph Cherrywell 2014
2yj5kbs7rxgjzn3l Superstition S1 13Leagues 2019
z553bqu0a3d86rku Dr Horror's House of Terror Ade McT 2021
d93xs619qx1au1ua Moon-Shaped Jason Ermer 2006
h8lrej4fid9cd3u3 Scents & Semiosis Sam Kabo Ashwell, Cat Manning, Caleb Wil 2020
zpjzp8drlwozs0j0 The Chasing Anssi Räisänen 2001
xwedbibfksczn7eq Gun Mute C.E.J. Pacian 2008
742srswkma72f7jf Miss Gosling's Last Case Daniel M. Stelzer 2024
xi4s5ne9m6w821xd Ad Verbum Nick Montfort 2000
xkzeym50xgewwi4w DEVOTIONALIA G.C. "Grim" Baccaris (as G. Grimoire) 2018
7btsk9iqqku2t8g9 En Garde Jack Welch 2018
6dj2vguyiagrhvc2 Vespers Jason Devlin 2005
dwgm9le9d8uh2ibq the uncle who works for nintendo michael lutz 2014
sy4loun7nue19spc The Goldilocks Principle iris 2025
h3p9ae9gw92w91x JELLY Tom Lento, Chandler Groover 2020
In this case, there are only 5 (1/6) games that have previously appeared in play events.