Gaming Habits

Awesome concept. The only issue I have is that while you mention large data sets, it seems like the implementation is only for people to look at their own habits. Since we're talking about data visualization here, it would be really cool to have a visualization of everyone's gaming habits in one place. There are many different ways to display this, and this could be what developers look at when they develop new games (as you mentioned above).

People self-reporting their own habits seems like not the most reliable method for data collection. People could forget how long they played which game on any given day, they could intentionally underestimate how long they spent playing, they could forget to log hours altogether. What other, perhaps more objective methods could you use to collect this information?

I think you have misunderstood Viegas's point on a “forceful point of view.” A forceful point isn't about the raw form of data, its about how that data is presented to the audience. In fact, they favor manipulation and interpretation and leverage the art as a method to creative evocative or provocative representations that challenge expectation and encourage someone to reconsider expectations of conventional, communal or cultural 'wisdom'. They definitely don't say the 'data itself is indisputable', instead they open up avenues for individual interpretation.

This is a very interesting concept- especially because I don't know that much about video games, so it would be interesting to see the data on this. The only thing that could have made the data a little bit more interesting or accessible would be to represent it in a different way. It was useful to have different colors for different types of games, but maybe something other than a bar graph would be more attention grabbing and easier to follow.

It is a really interesting idea to observe gaming habits of large amounts of people, but I agree with Naomi, and wonder if perhaps it could be presented in a way that is easier to understand. Could you clarify for me what exactly the bars represent? However, this idea for a data visualization could be incredibly interesting to not only a gamer, but also gaming companies!