Data Skeptic (gaming)

This episode discusses video game analytics with guest Anders Drachen. The way in which people get access to games and the opportunity for game designers to ask interesting questions with data has changed quite a bit in the last two decades. Anders shares his insights about the past, present, and future of game analytics. We explore not only some of the innovations and interesting ways of examining user experience in the gaming industry, but also touch on some of the exciting opportunities for innovation that are right on the horizon.

You can find more from Anders online at andersdrachen.com, and follow him on twitter @andersdrachen

Direct download: Game_Analytics_with_Anders_Dracken.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 4:51am PST

In this bonus episode, guest Louis Zocchi discusses his background in the gaming industry, specifically, how he became a manufacturer of dice designed to produce statistically uniform outcomes. 

During the show Louis mentioned a two part video listeners might enjoy: part 1 and part 2 can both be found on youtube. 

Kyle mentioned a robot capable of unnoticably cheating at Rock Paper Scissors / Ro Sham Bo. More details can be found here

Louis mentioned dice collector Kevin Cook whose website is DiceCollector.com 

While we're on the subject of table top role playing games, Kyle recommends these two related podcasts listeners might enjoy: 

The Conspiracy Skeptic podcast (on which host Kyle was recently a guest) had a great episode "Dungeons and Dragons - The Devil's Game?" which explores claims of D&Ds alleged ties to skepticism. 

Also, Kyle swears there's a great Monster Talk episode discussing claims of a satanic connection to Dungeons and Dragons, but despite mild efforts to locate it, he came up empty. Regardless, listeners of the Data Skeptic Podcast are encouraged to explore the back catalog to try and find the aforementioned episode of this great podcast. 

Last but not least, as mentioned in the outro, awesomedice.com did some great independent empirical testing that confirms Game Science dice are much closer to the desired uniform distribution over possible outcomes when compared to one leading manufacturer.

Direct download: Game_Science_Dice_with_Louis_Zocchi.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 12:27am PST

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