11 replies to this topic

[SageOfBattle]

A little alert here, I may be accidentally starting a flame war with this little post but here goes:

While I was playing Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 yesterday on my Xbox, I was talking to some of my friends and other players. 9 times out of 10, I had to changed up the times they mentioned because they were on the East coast, and I'm on the west, which got me thinking.

Usually, later at night, more of the hardcore gamers come online (I would say about 9:30-10:00-ish). But, due to time differences, what would be the average gamer's peak hour, say 6:00, on the west coast, would be 8:00 on the east coast. Conversely, east coast gamers who would be playing at 6:00 are playing west coast people at 4:00 their time, which would be around the time most schoolkids would be online. My thought is that, when west coast gamers go on, (making several assumptions here) due to higher population on the east coast, and a two to three hour time difference going forwards, and the fact that the more hardcore gamers come online later on at night, could west coast gamers be better, even just marginally, than east coast gamers, due to the fact that they play against more hardcore people more often?

[PirateNixon]

Or you could argue that East coast players that are "truly hardcore" have more in their window (assuming they stay up later) where there is a larger player base for them to play meaning they will encounter a wider variety of players and make them more flexible.

Without some quantifiable data its all just speculation.

[SageOfBattle]

PirateNixon, on 13 June 2012 - 12:11 PM, said:

Or you could argue that East coast players that are "truly hardcore" have more in their window (assuming they stay up later) where there is a larger player base for them to play meaning they will encounter a wider variety of players and make them more flexible.

Without some quantifiable data its all just speculation.

I agree, but it would be nonetheless interesting to test. You actually have a very good point there that I never considered

[PirateNixon]

SageOfBattle, on 13 June 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

I agree, but it would be nonetheless interesting to test. You actually have a very good point there that I never considered

But how do you test it? Win percentages can be skewed by randomized teams. Prebuilt teams can lose battles to "worse" players if their strategy is more suited to the map they are playing. Accuracy is skewed by weapon types. etc...

[Adridos]

Generalisation of people by demographic, not a good way to describe them.

Both east and west coast have good and bad players. They both have pros and noobs. They have a number of mid gamers and so on...

For instance, Russians and Coreans are the most feared groups out there, but haven't you ever met a single Russian that just feeded in a game of Dota, or a Corean that went a pretty bad build at Starcraft? Well, if you played against them (region lock probably prevents that), you'd know there are many noobs and whiners, just like in the US.


And if a group with such a different culture and ideals has generally the same gaming community like Europe, for example, you can bet that a minor difference between east and west coast is mostly made up...

[CookieMonster]

this thread calls for a sub-committee at the very least to see if there is Time Zone discrimination inherent in the gaming industry, when it started, by whom...so we can sue the heck outta them.

or

keep this thought in your back pocket...it can be your dissertation! :-)

[PirateNixon]

Adridos, on 13 June 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

Coreans

Going to go ahead and point this out cause I'm sure others will, and more rudely possible: Coreans is not a word, I assume you mean Koreans.

[Sychodemus]

PirateNixon, on 13 June 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

Going to go ahead and point this out cause I'm sure others will, and more rudely possible: Coreans is not a word, I assume you mean Koreans.

Ah, but Corean is a word of note.

This is a MWO forum afterall.

[Skymech]

1) There's a three hour time difference between the US coast line time zones.

2) According to wikipedia, the west coast population is 48 million and the east is 112 million. Those each give you such a large population pool that I think everything would sort of normalize itself out.

[Dexterm]

Hmm, i wonder if people may hove thought of this in the many, Many years of people playing online games. It such a new problem that no one would ever have solved it....

[Waladil]

Adridos, on 13 June 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

Generalisation of people by demographic, not a good way to describe them.

Both east and west coast have good and bad players. They both have pros and noobs. They have a number of mid gamers and so on...

For instance, Russians and Coreans are the most feared groups out there, but haven't you ever met a single Russian that just feeded in a game of Dota, or a Corean that went a pretty bad build at Starcraft? Well, if you played against them (region lock probably prevents that), you'd know there are many noobs and whiners, just like in the US.


And if a group with such a different culture and ideals has generally the same gaming community like Europe, for example, you can bet that a minor difference between east and west coast is mostly made up...

All that is true, but the OP is speaking in generalities, claiming that as a whole the West Coast would be better, and only marginally at that.

I'd say it's a better argument to point out the vast quantities of assumptions the OP is making, including what gamers are on when. Especially right now, when all of studentdom is on summer break, their gaming times go totally whack. There's no reason that "the kiddies" wouldn't be on at noon or eight pm, now, with less restrictive bedtimes and no schooldays.

And of course, the college gamers (such as myself). For us, any sort of "regular time" just goes out the window.

The OP is also neglecting to consider non-American groups. As an East Coaster, seeing Europeans in my "normal" timeframes is not unusual. If I'm online at 3:00PM (GMT - 5), then its just hitting 8:00PM (GMT + 0) in England.

All in all, an interesting theory but I doubt there's any true correlation. I'd be interested in seeing a study done, though.

And, finally, the East Coast CAN'T have inferior gamers. I live on the East Coast, therefore the East Coast must be the best!


Statistician, out.

Edited by Waladil, 13 June 2012 - 04:12 PM.

[dezgra]

Euro's