Games Played # Counter

It doesn’t appear that Kong does any validation on the Games Played Counter.

I know that Youtube does a lot to validate if views are intentional. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI)

I wonder if Kong would be better served to take a similar approach. It would reduce any artificial inflation (eg: user refreshes) and lead to a more correct status of how many times a game has been played.

What’s wrong with refreshing the game and it counting as a new play? As long as it’s not in rapid succession (to inflate plays for developer’s gain – badges) I don’t see the issue.

Perhaps a unique plays counter? You can let the silly kiddies do their refreshing to spam game plays but they’ll still only count as 1 person.

Originally posted by MachuPichu:

Perhaps a unique plays counter? You can let the silly kiddies do their refreshing to spam game plays but they’ll still only count as 1 person.

Adding this, as a replacement for the old counter or as a separate one, would be great.

Originally posted by Blizzard2000:

Originally posted by MachuPichu:

Perhaps a unique plays counter? You can let the silly kiddies do their refreshing to spam game plays but they’ll still only count as 1 person.

Adding this, as a replacement for the old counter or as a separate one, would be great.

If a developer is going to write a script to increase views, what’s to stop them from making alts?

Originally posted by adv0catus:

If a developer is going to write a script to increase views, what’s to stop them from making alts?

They can get into trouble for it, as was found out a while ago with the Mushroom Revolution/Mastermind weekly/monthly contest controversy. In this case, many alts were made to downrate another game, so it’s a similar concept that if you create alts to simply benefit yourself or to harm another person/game, you’ll get into trouble.

Originally posted by adv0catus:

What’s wrong with refreshing the game and it counting as a new play? As long as it’s not in rapid succession (to inflate plays for developer’s gain – badges) I don’t see the issue.

The question becomes, why are you refreshing a game you’re already playing?

1) The game has a bug which is solved by refreshing.
2) The game only allows you to play once and they you have to refresh to play again.
3) The game has a memory leak and if you don’t refresh you run out of memory.
4) You accidentally clicked “refresh”.
5) You want to increase the games played counter.

Why should any of these count as an additional play? It’s either bad design, an accident, or manipulation.

Now, from a technical standpoint things may be more difficult, and it’s probably too much trouble to filter out the refreshes.

If you install the ReloadCommands add-on you can refresh the game without refreshing the page, so it can cut down on those issues that Ceasar brought up.

I just used ‘refreshes’ (for whatever reason) as one example of how # of Game Plays might not be accurate.

If you watch the youtube video, they indicate they want to remove counterfeit views – did the user get what they want (I understand this is mostly for validating searches or links, but still applicable to Kong). If a kong player just goes to a page for just a few seconds and quickly discards the game without actually playing, I wouldn’t count that as a play.

Youtube also counts Views as a form of currency. In Kong’s case, I would say the # of plays is still a form of currency, but probably less meaningful here than on youtube (is your game legitimately driving play sessions).

You’re looking too much into this. It shows how many times the game has been “played”, and just having the game loaded is fine. Someone can play the same game a lot (if it’s a good game), and that would contribute more plays, which a good game would deserve.

It’s a measure of how much the game is played, not how many individuals have played it. It’s better as it currently is.

Originally posted by ElBandito81:

You’re looking too much into this. It shows how many times the game has been “played”, and just having the game loaded is fine. Someone can play the same game a lot (if it’s a good game), and that would contribute more plays, which a good game would deserve.

It’s a measure of how much the game is played, not how many individuals have played it. It’s better as it currently is.

I agree that a total plays counter is better than a unique plays counter… but I also like what Wattro is saying about the plays being intentional. For example, there is a game called “Search for games and more” which is clearly an attempt to get accidental clicks from people trying to search for games. There was another game called “Rune’s Cape” which was attempting to trick people looking for RuneScape. If someone clicks on a game like this and then clicks away within 10 seconds (for example) that should not count as a “play” and get the developer money, because clearly, if you’re clicking away that fast, the game was not actually played.

If it’s feasible then I support it.

Originally posted by ElBandito81:

You’re looking too much into this. It shows how many times the game has been “played”, and just having the game loaded is fine. Someone can play the same game a lot (if it’s a good game), and that would contribute more plays, which a good game would deserve.

It’s a measure of how much the game is played, not how many individuals have played it. It’s better as it currently is.

You missed the point entirely, and you’re way out in left field somewhere. :) In no way did i state that I think it should be unique plays (or as you said “how many individuals have played”). I do think the counter should do a better job of reflecting meaningful plays, and not just page loads. In that sense, it doesn’t at all show how many times the game has been played.