BEHOLD THE POWER OF DATA - Smash Census Results!

[SmashChu]

Very nice, but one big flaw in your data was your source. You got most of your results from Smashboard and Allisbrawl. As anyone knows, these have very specific players, competitive ones. So it's no surprise you see things like Melee being the favorite (I could have told you that with less work). The sample isn't representative of the population.

 

[GreatGonzales]

Very nice, but one big flaw in your data was your source. You got most of your results from Smashboard and Allisbrawl. As anyone knows, these have very specific players, competitive ones. So it's no surprise you see things like Melee being the favorite (I could have told you that with less work). The sample isn't representative of the population.

As I stated at the beginning of the report: "My goal was to poll the hardcore Smash community - those individuals who love the series the very most." I'd actually love to poll the entire universe of Smash players, but of course - that's impossible. The only data available to me are those who can A. Find my survey, and B. are willing to fill it out. That means the more hardcore folks, people who frequent Smash forums! Still, even though the population is certainly more competitive, you'll note that I attempt to isolate the different portions of the population - the competitive from the non-competitive players, for example. So, we can still draw some pretty solid conclusions from this data and extrapolate to the universe of Smash players as a whole - at least to a certain degree.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Very nice, but one big flaw in your data was your source. You got most of your results from Smashboard and Allisbrawl. As anyone knows, these have very specific players, competitive ones. So it's no surprise you see things like Melee being the favorite (I could have told you that with less work). The sample isn't representative of the population.

Of course it's representative of the population, maybe not every Smash buyer but at least the community ones, who are who he was intentionally polling. Did you even read the original post?

My goal was to poll the hardcore Smash community - those individuals who love the series the very most. My means of isolating such individuals, of course, was to post the survey on prominent online Smash communities such as Smashboards.

 

[Ulti-Bman]

Ha, if there's anything I was surprised about in this incredible collection of data, it was the amount of people who aren't buying Smash 4 at all. I mean, 20%! Jesus Christ, this game may not be as console-selling as I thought! However, at the end of the day, it isn't set in stone, plus these are the older gamers after all. Maybe they have other things to do? Sometimes you have to remind yourself that not everyone plays video games....

 

[SmashChu]

As I stated at the beginning of the report: "My goal was to poll the hardcore Smash community - those individuals who love the series the very most." I'd actually love to poll the entire universe of Smash players, but of course - that's impossible. The only data available to me are those who can A. Find my survey, and B. are willing to fill it out. That means the more hardcore folks, people who frequent Smash forums! Still, even though the population is certainly more competitive, you'll note that I attempt to isolate the different portions of the population - the competitive from the non-competitive players, for example. So, we can still draw some pretty solid conclusions from this data and extrapolate to the universe of Smash players as a whole - at least to a certain degree.

Your right. It is impossible to poll everyone. That is why you take samples and make sure your sample is large enough (bigger is better) and representative of the population. Given, your poll was for hardcore fans. Of course, why would you want to do just them? I could have given you the results without a survey. Surprise surprise. The community that loves Melee picked Melee.

If the survey is trying to capture "People who play Smash Brothers," then you need to go out farther. You'd want to go to other Smash sites (Gamefaq), Nintendo sites (GoNintendo) other gaming sites (4chan, NEOGaf, Reddit) and other social media sites (Facebook, Youtube). This would give you more meaningful results and can give you probably still isolate specific communities.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

Your right. It is impossible to poll everyone. That is why you take samples and make sure your sample is large enough (bigger is better) and representative of the population. Given, your poll was for hardcore fans. Of course, why would you want to do just them? I could have given you the results without a survey. Surprise surprise. The community that loves Melee picked Melee.

If the survey is trying to capture "People who play Smash Brothers," then you need to go out farther. You'd want to go to other Smash sites (Gamefaq), Nintendo sites (GoNintendo) other gaming sites (4chan, NEOGaf, Reddit) and other social media sites (Facebook, Youtube). This would give you more meaningful results and can give you probably still isolate specific communities.

Actually, I think the results show that although a large proportion of our community love competitive Melee (obviously, and rightly so) the side who love casual Brawl is large enough not to be considered a minority, and confirmation of that ratio alone makes the whole endeavour worthwhile.

EDIT: Also, having looked at the detailed summary, I'm surprised at the ratio of male to female submissions. Either the gender ratio of this community is more skewed than I thought, or most girls think that surveys are really dumb.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Given, your poll was for hardcore fans. Of course, why would you want to do just them? I could have given you the results without a survey. Surprise surprise. The community that loves Melee picked Melee.

Geez, SmashChu, quit trying to save face. If you could have given us the results all along, why didn't you just share your infallible wisdom with us? Sounds like you're just trying to draw the bullseye around the arrow.

If the survey is trying to capture "People who play Smash Brothers," then you need to go out farther.

Yeah, but the survey's not trying to do that.

 

[El Duderino]

Honestly the survey is far more relevant to this community as is.

 

[GreatGonzales]

Yeah, I maybe should have expanded my reach. Though, there's some question as to how much of a difference it would have made - this is a long survey, and I'm not sure the everyday smasher would have the patience to complete it. Also, almost every forum where I posted the survey, it got interest for a day or so and then was washed away by other threads. I actually did post it to GameFAQs. Considered 4chan and Reddit... My other concern was that I would attract a lot of cheesers who would corrupt the data.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Yeah, I maybe should have expanded my reach. Though, there's some question as to how much of a difference it would have made - this is a long survey, and I'm not sure the everyday smasher would have the patience to complete it. Also, almost every forum where I posted the survey, it got interest for a day or so and then was washed away by other threads. I actually did post it to GameFAQs. Considered 4chan and Reddit... My other concern was that I would attract a lot of cheesers who would corrupt the data.

Next time you can ask the taker where they took/heard about the survey.

 

[GreatGonzales]

Next time you can ask the taker where they took/heard about the survey.

This is a great idea. I wish I had thought of it when designing the survey.

 

[BaPr]

Oh god, another M vs B argument. It is going to ruin this epic thread. Anyways, the new chart makes more sense. Really makes more sense to me. It's also cool how 64 players are divided in half.

 

[link2702]

I strongly encourage everybody to ignore D-idara. It is not worth derailing the thread because of a whining flamer.

It just slightly gets on my nerves when i see posts like his, especially when they're still trying to claim that L-cancelling was a glitch despite that being debunked years ago, and being proven that it was an intentional mechanic.


eh I'll quit there, you're right don't need to derail the thread anymore, ignore listing D-idara.

 

[SmashChu]

Actually, I think the results show that although a large proportion of our community love competitive Melee (obviously, and rightly so) the side who love casual Brawl is large enough not to be considered a minority, and confirmation of that ratio alone makes the whole endeavour worthwhile.

EDIT: Also, having looked at the detailed summary, I'm surprised at the ratio of male to female submissions. Either the gender ratio of this community is more skewed than I thought, or most girls think that surveys are really dumb.

True, there are some interesting facts in their.

Geez, SmashChu, quit trying to save face. If you could have given us the results all along, why didn't you just share your infallible wisdom with us? Sounds like you're just trying to draw the bullseye around the arrow.

Let's be honest, was there really anyone here who read this and though "Geez, I didn't know the competitive players loved Melee more than Brawl." Everyone knows they perfer Melee because they have been telling us that for the past 6 years. I didn't need a survey to figure that out.

 

[El Duderino]

Thankfully not all the results are that predictable.

For instance with the the technique charts, I wasn't expecting so many players here to fall in the indifferent column. By the way those debates typically go, I thought there would be more of a clearly defined split.

Makes sense though when you think about it. There's a lot of Smash fans that, even at these boards, could care less about the gameplay intricacies so long as it's still Smash.

 

[The Real Gamer]

It's OBVIOUS that the annoying pricks who wavedash and L-cancel will want Wavedashing and L-Cancelling back, but anyone that wants to rely on actual skills and not game-exploiting glitches will be againist wavedash and L-Cancelling, because they're trying to turn SSB into Street Fighter, where the skill is defined by learning a ridiculous amount of ridiculously-complex commands to spam them over and over in chains.

This might be one of the worst posts I've ever read on this site... And I've been a member/lurking for 7 years.

PS: any competitive fighting game would KILL to achieve the amount of success that Street Fighter has.

Great thread though, OP.

 

[BaPr]

Street fighter will always be too amazingly epic. Anyways, I still can't imagine how much work was put into this. Wonderful job.

 

[GreatGonzales]

Street fighter will always be too amazingly epic. Anyways, I still can't imagine how much work was put into this. Wonderful job.

A LOT.

 

[D-idara]

This might be one of the worst posts I've ever read on this site... And I've been a member/lurking for 7 years.

PS: any competitive fighting game would KILL to achieve the amount of success that Street Fighter has.

Great thread though, OP.

Success? It's a good game, but it relies too much on learning commands over actual skill, it's like saying that passing a test makes you smarter...you just memorized stuff. SSB >>>>> SF

 

[BaPr]

Wavedashing is just like momentum cancelling. Both were probably not put in there purposely, but are very VERY useful in competitive play.

 

[FalKoopa]

D-idara, you're getting seriously off-topic here. Take those posts elsewhere please - this isn't a thread for l-cancelling and wavedashing discussion.

 

[Vkrm]

Success? It's a good game, but it relies too much on learning commands over actual skill, it's like saying that passing a test makes you smarter...you just memorized stuff. SSB >>>>> SF

Most people don't make a distinction between physical execution and skill, usually its one part of what makes top players the best. This is true for brawl also. Although you might not like street fighter, to say its unsuccessful is simply wrong. The scene for both melee and brawl combined isn't even half the size of sf, so they're probably doing something right. All smash games have been really dynamic, requiring good tech skill to make the most of all the different mobility options. When games give you the freedom of movement that's present in both melee and brawl, a learning curve just comes with the territory.

 

[El Duderino]

D-idara, you're getting seriously off-topic here. Take those posts elsewhere please - this isn't a thread for l-cancelling and wavedashing discussion.

...outside of the context of this survey, correct?

(the opposite of what D-idara did)

 

[Pacack]

I will happily point Pac-Man haters who say that he is not popular to this thread. I love it.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

I will happily point Pac-Man haters who say that he is not popular to this thread. I love it.

Maybe, but only moderately so. You have to consider it seems just ~14% of Smashers consider him a priority GreatGonzales did also admit it was a relatively insufficient part of the post. A lot of people used the other: option which isn't graphed. I would liked to have seen him group them all together.

 

[Pacack]

Maybe, but only moderately so. You have to consider it seems just ~14% of Smashers consider him a priority GreatGonzales did also admit it was a relatively insufficient part of the post. A lot of people used the other: option which isn't graphed. I would liked to have seen him group them all together.

Being the number-one wanted character by ~14% of competitive(ish)/dedicated players is no small feat. The majority of Pac-Man's love is outside of the hardcore community, so it says something.

 

[GreatGonzales]

A lot of people used the other: option which isn't graphed. I would liked to have seen him group them all together.

Just to be clear, I did do this. I went through all the "other" answer choices and coded them. For example, Isaac was not an explicit answer choice. What I meant was that people are generally more likely to make some selection rather than "other", so it's too bad I wasn't more thorough in including newcomer characters.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Being the number-one wanted character by ~14% of competitive(ish)/dedicated players is no small feat. The majority of Pac-Man's love is outside of the hardcore community, so it says something.

I guess you only read my first sentence. He's among 6 characters within percent error margin; People want him, sure, but the list is insufficient by admission and he's a popular vote just by being on the ballot. Consider that Pac-Man only takes up 2% of the "What unannounced character are you most hopeful for?" in the results whereas Other takes up 17% (and this graph included veterans!) I bet even Ridley wouldn't take up a near majority of votes if you added a few select characters to the list.

In competition with veterans and newcomers, he's acceptable, but not much more than any other character and that's in an insufficient ballot.

 

[BaPr]

I like the favorite game by age. It shows that the younger group is more into older games. Maybe, one day Brawl and the previous installments will have as much favoritism as the 64 version.

 

[grizby2]

I love how, according to the info, marth was chosen as a main mostly because of how hes "interesting" and "fun" to play as.

Spoiler

its just my opinion, but I think the rest of the swordsmen (aside from the clones) in the games have a much more flavorful moveset than marth...

 

[XStarWarriorX]

Nice Job GG, can't believe is missed this.

Also Can't believe that marth was one of the most used, thought it would be faux, cause everyone seems to have a pocket fox.

 

[GreatGonzales]

Hi everyone. Glad to see Smashboards is back online.

Let's bump this thread for newcomers who missed this a few months ago!

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Why is Mewtwo so popular though? I never understood that aspect of the Smash community.

It's the idea that he has the potential to be a great character and he was cut without being given a chance to buff. And you know the saying about always wanting what you can't have.