Five & Dime 2007: Decay Rates

This is a new way for me to analyze some of these numbers - I'm not sure my work here is statistically sound but it's interesting. (That's your cue to smile & grin knowingly.)

Anyway, what I did was to take the top 350 games (percentage of plays-wise) from the last ten years - the cut-off number ended up being an average of 2.0% or better over time. (You'll see this subset of games for the next 2 or 3 Five & Dime reports. It allows me to work with games that really registered statistically and lessens the workload at the same time.)

For this particular exercise in determining decay rates of games, I then set aside games with 4 or less years on the list... leaving me with 230 games. To do the decay calculation, I:

1. Took the largest percentage played number from each game.
2. Compared it to the current (2007) percentage played number for each game.
3. Divided that amount by the number of years since it had first appeared on the Five & Dime Lists.

Only three games showed no rate of decay whatsoever - they have appeared on the list for 5+ years (weirdly enough, all three of them showed up 6 years ago) and their highest percentage played is in 2007:

• Downfall of Pompeii
• Hive
• Uno

Now that's what I call "strange bedfellows". (Connect 4, btw, was very close to joining this illustrious group - 0.06% decay over time.)

Here's the chart with the rest of the top 20 games... that is, the games that showed the least decay over 5+ years time. (There's actually 22 games on this chart, as the final 3 games were very close in percentage.)

Game	years on list	percentage decay
Cloud 9	8	-0.20%
Hamsterrolle	7	-0.30%
Gang of Four	7	-0.31%
Wizard	10	-0.33%
Cafe Internationa	9	-0.34%
Midnight Party	7	-0.35%
Loot/Korsar/Pirat	6	-0.37%
Set	8	-0.39%
Rummikub	8	-0.46%
RoboRally	10	-0.47%
Viva Pamplona	9	-0.47%
Meuterer	7	-0.48%
Shark	7	-0.48%
Quoridor	9	-0.50%
Amazing Labyrinth	10	-0.50%
Magic: The Gathering	10	-0.52%
Time's Up/Celebrities	10	-0.52%
Rage	7	-0.53%

And here's a chart with the 20 games who've shown the highest rates of decay. (Note - to show a high rate of decay, you have to start from a high position.)

Game	years on list	percentage decay
Puerto Rico	7	-10.12%
Attika	7	-8.48%
Euphrat & Tigris	10	-6.30%
Balloon Cup	7	-6.23%
Bohnanza	10	-6.01%
Carcassonne	7	-5.58%
Mamma Mia!/Sole Mio	8	-5.55%
King's Breakfast	7	-5.55%
Lost Cities	9	-5.44%
Battle Cry (AH)	8	-5.13%
Settlers of Catan	10	-5.08%
Wyatt Earp	7	-5.05%
Transamerica/europa	10	-4.94%
Through the Desert	10	-4.89%
Coloretto	7	-4.69%
Guillotine	10	-4.67%
Web of Power/China	8	-4.51%
Clans	6	-4.49%
Amun-Re	7	-4.43%
Paris Paris	7	-4.41%

I'm not sure I'm really qualified to comment beyond the statistics... you need to know that the average decay rate of these games was 6.91% over their lifespan (1.94% per year) and that the average lifespan was just over 8 years. Make of that what you will.