Top Free Games by Player Registration Era per IFDB

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Another interesting chart obtained by poking around in IFDB data: Top free games as rated by members according to the time period in which they registered their accounts.

Ranking is based on the Top 100 algorithm without limiting results to works with at least 14 actual ratings (though I think that every title shown meets this minimum). Titles marked with an asterisk are found only on that cohort’s top 20 list.

Note that the first cohort, labeled “to 2010,” is smaller than the others because IFDB only went live in late 2007. Also, to reiterate, cohorts are based on the year that the members in question registered their accounts, not members’ ages or the publication year of the games in question (though there is most likely some correlation).

#	to 2010 (N=2124)			2011-2015 (N=5042)				2016-2020 (N=6611)			2021 to 2025 (N=5685)
--	-------------------------	-----------------------------	-------------------------	---------------------------------------
1	Anchorhead					Counterfeit Monkey				Counterfeit Monkey			Counterfeit Monkey
2	Counterfeit Monkey			Anchorhead						Anchorhead					Type Help
3	Lost Pig					Blue Lacuna						Superluminal Vagrant Twin	Anchorhead
4	Photopia					Lost Pig						The Wizard Sniffer			The Wizard Sniffer
5	Violet						Superluminal Vagrant Twin		Lost Pig					Eat Me
6	Slouching Towards Bedlam*	Spider and Web					Will Not Let Me Go*			The Den*
7	Savoir-Faire				Violet							Violet						Social Democracy: An Alternate History*
8	Spider and Web				Bronze							Birdland*					According to Cain*
9	Worlds Apart				Photopia						Spider and Web				The Gostak
10	Bronze						Eat Me							Worldsmith*					Superluminal Vagrant Twin
11	City of Secrets				Savoir-Faire					Eat Me						Lost Pig
12	The Mulldoon Legacy*		Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!*	Toby's Nose					Toby's Nose
13	Suveh Nux*					Toby's Nose						Coloratura					Dr Ludwig and the Devil*
14	Make It Good*				Endless, Nameless*				The Impossible Bottle*		A Beauty Cold and Austere*
15	Blue Lacuna					Worlds Apart					The Bat*					Alias 'The Magpie'*
16	Superluminal Vagrant Twin	Coloratura						Savoir-Faire				Never Gives Up Her Dead*
17	Metamorphoses				City of Secrets					Junior Arithmancer*			Spider and Web
18	Curses*						The Gostak						Bronze						Stay?*
19	To Hell in a Hamper*		The Wizard Sniffer				The Gostak					Coloratura
20	Babel*						Metamorphoses					Type Help					Midnight. Swordfight.*

EDIT: Charts updated to remove a commercial game that was not properly categorized.

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An addendum: a closer look at the data shows the following ties…

For the “to 2010” list:

  • Curses and To Hell in a Hamper are tied at #18

For the “2011 to 2015” list:

  • Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! and Toby’s Nose are tied at #12
  • The Gostak and The Wizard Sniffer are tied at #18

For the “2021 to 2025” list:

  • Coloratura and Midnight. Swordfight. are tied at #19