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Correlation between Wins/Popularity in NA Splatfests | An Experiment

RespawningJesus

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I don't think I understand what you mean here, DAK. If the competition were to theoretically ONLY be based on W/L, then Splatfests would be less predictable because seeing one side plastered all over Miiverse posts and Internet forums and not the other side would not influence the likelihood of that side winning. The popularity factor adds in the predictability and skews people's decision-making. I personally think it should be removed, or at least noted in the results but not part of them.
People would still post on Miiverse and forums on which team they were supporting, even if popularity wasn't scoreable. It is part of the fun of the competition.

What I believe the popularity score is there for is to give teams some lee-way, to make up for some of the losses both teams will face. Because if you make it just about W/L, splatfests are just gonna end up being more toxic than they should be.

I can easily see that a balance between wins and popularity can be possible where the end result could be more difficult to determine.
 
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Zombie Aladdin

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The first two images to the charts aren't working. They show up as dead images here.

Otherwise, there is a simple explanation on why American Splatfests are like that and the Japanese and Europeans ones are not: Children. Or rather, the way children play video games is different in American than in Japan or Europe. Japanese culture stresses to give it your all in everything you do, so even kids will play very well. Many European countries have a competitive culture (I can think of the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Norway, and the UK, and to a lesser extent, France, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden), where everyone is encouraged to win but to also take losses in stride. Also, due to the sensitivity much of Europe has about violent content, video games are more associated with teenagers and adults in Europe than children, so there are fewer children playing Splatoon than in other regions, proportionally.

In America, however, video games, when played by children, are seen as a way to pass time and to keep kids occupied while their parents go do something else. In addition, kids start playing video games at a younger age than the other regions, spurred on by mobile gaming's simple controls and low prices. Because kids are pretty much left to themselves to do as they please, you get a lot of little kids playing who might not have even developed motor skills and are not really aware they're playing against other people. There's also the predominant means of parenting in the United States and Canada, which is to cheer them on and say "good job" in everything they do--while this does have its benefits, it also means they don't really know what failure is, and there's little reason for them to try very hard at anything.
 

SwiftySquid

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The next Splatfest is coming up next week in NA! Testing the trend again!
 

Babycowland

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The first two images to the charts aren't working. They show up as dead images here.

Otherwise, there is a simple explanation on why American Splatfests are like that and the Japanese and Europeans ones are not: Children. Or rather, the way children play video games is different in American than in Japan or Europe. Japanese culture stresses to give it your all in everything you do, so even kids will play very well. Many European countries have a competitive culture (I can think of the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Norway, and the UK, and to a lesser extent, France, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden), where everyone is encouraged to win but to also take losses in stride. Also, due to the sensitivity much of Europe has about violent content, video games are more associated with teenagers and adults in Europe than children, so there are fewer children playing Splatoon than in other regions, proportionally.

In America, however, video games, when played by children, are seen as a way to pass time and to keep kids occupied while their parents go do something else. In addition, kids start playing video games at a younger age than the other regions, spurred on by mobile gaming's simple controls and low prices. Because kids are pretty much left to themselves to do as they please, you get a lot of little kids playing who might not have even developed motor skills and are not really aware they're playing against other people. There's also the predominant means of parenting in the United States and Canada, which is to cheer them on and say "good job" in everything they do--while this does have its benefits, it also means they don't really know what failure is, and there's little reason for them to try very hard at anything.
You may be right that fewer kids play Splatoon in some other regions. But I'd be wary about making generalizations about whether kids in the U.S. are softer or don't try as hard in games as kids in Japan and Europe do.

I also think not caring too much about wins and losses is a totally legit way to play a game like Splatoon (and so is being a competitive player, if you are one, good on you). Obviously, everybody wants their side to win a splatfest. But I feel like part of the fun of those things is in posting on miiverse and doing some silly good-natured trashtalking. That's a big reason why I'd rather people pick the side they like rather than the one that they think will win. I personally think it's more fun that way and I hope they decrease the wins multiplier a bit for NA splatfests to encourage that.

Anyhow, I feel like the trend of the less popular time winning in NA has a good chance of continuing so long as the multiplier stays the same and there are veteran players who are willing to pick sides strategically.
 
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Zombie Aladdin

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Same here in that I'll pick whichever side appeals to me more. I will be picking Team Nice despite me being certain they will lose the next Splatfest, for instance.

But to have a correlation in one region that isn't present in the others, consistent since the game's release, DOES strongly suggest something is up in the way North Americans play Splatoon compared to other regions though. I still think that the initial factor was the presence of kids left to their own devices when they play video games, which is less common in Europe, Australia, or Japan; however, the reason why it persists, I'd say, is that other people have picked up on the pattern and are intentionally picking teams less popular believing they will win, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's the reason why I think Art vs. Science is the only exception so far: The popularity was so close that these people couldn't figure out which team to be on.

The idea of finding patterns and accurately picking the team they predict will win, I think, is present in Japan too, only the correlation is positive rather than negative. That is, I'm sure there are a lot of Japanese players purposely picking the more popular team and carrying them to victory that way.
 

Marmalade

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Maybe Europeans and Japanese players play more matches and keep playing after they reached King/Queen.

I think a problem with the more popular teams that a lot of their matches end up at 0. For example, currently in EU, team disgusting far outweighs team delicious, this causes most match ups to be against the same team, thus no point is gained in the overall splatfest rating. While team delicious always gets to fight against team disgusting, meaning every match they have actually earns them a point (be it win or lose).

Someone in the EU splatfest thread mentioned they got all the way to King/Queen without having one match against the opposing team, therefor, they haven't contributed one point to the splatfest result.This alone means, that the more popular team will have to have way more matches, so that a) they get matched up against the opposing team and b) actually win against them to earn points.

So, if everybody in the popular team stops playing as soon as they reach King/Queen, without having many (or any) matches against the opposing team, they basically contributed nothing. Perhaps Japanese and European players keep going even long after they reached King/Queen status, which is why the scoring is closer by them or even makes the more popular team win.
 

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