Another throwaway stats post.
To date, Three Moves Ahead has been listened to over 147,000 times across 76 episodes. The peak month was June’s 15,775 downloads after some very nice recommendations from people with more fans than we do.
There are about 1000 iTunes subscribers – but only 69 reviews or ratings. So step up people. More people listen to the show through their browser than on a Zune.
It’s interesting to track which shows are most popular. Episodes 2 and 3 have the most downloads, but that’s probably because that’s where people start when they want to listen. I doubt that is a reliable indicator of their popularity.
The Top Ten Episodes So Far are:
1. Episode 21 (Soren Johnson’s first appearance, the future of strategy games)
2. Episode 25 (World War 2 games)
3. Episode 29 (Getting started in strategy games)
4. Episode 11 (Tower Defense games)
5. Episode 15 (Paradox at E3 2009)
6. Episode 9 (Brad Wardell, Demigod, some Elemental)
7. Episode 41 (Solium Infernum)
8. Episode 28 (Naval combat)
9. Episode 6 (Demigod episode)
10. Episode 31 (Majesty 2)
In general, listeners are more likely to stumble upon our show when it is dedicated to a particular game. This is because there is a good chance that fans of the show and the game will link it on a community board. I like our theme shows because we get to cover a lot of different games and how they are distinct, but we haven’t done one in a while.
For a few extra bucks, Libsyn lets you track where your audience is coming from. The top ten nations that listen to TMA are:
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Australia
Sweden
Germany
Norway
Denmark
China
Switzerland
The top North American states or provinces are:
Texas
California
Illinois
New York
Washington
Maryland
Ontario
Virginia
Ohio
British Columbia
I’m doing my best to bring in more CA listeners…
That top ten list of states is weird. How is Maryland at #6? For comparison, MD is ranked #19 in overall population, and has less than half as many people as several states that aren’t on the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
Troy, are you spamming downloads of your own podcast, are there TMA billboards on the highways, or are you going door to door evangelizing for TMA? Maybe Firaxis requires all their employees to listen to TMA, every episode, 10 times.
Virginia is in the top 10, too. That makes me hope that Washington on the list is D.C., which would be amazing. Proximity to national government = strategy game fan? If it is just Washington state, that’s still strange.
My friends are certainly part of it.
But Maryland also has Firaxis, Bethesda and some smaller game dev studios, and I know from speaking to colleagues that a lot of developers like our show because we talk about mechanics in serious ways .
Also, it is the Metro DC area, so even though the state is small population wise, it is not impossible that a lot of downloads end up happening in the Maryland area.
As a government and military area, there are also many strategy and wargame players. This also explains Virginia.
I am surprised Massachusetts isn’t on the top ten list – it is 13 trailing Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Texas #1?? How about a TMA meet-up in Austin?? :-)
Next time I am in Austin, would love to do one. Not that you guys need me. Or any of us.
Woo hoo! If: Illinois > New York Then: Chicago > NYC.
Therefore: Kanye > Jay Z.
Anyway, I showed up for the Solium Infernum show and decided to stick around. You guys must be doing something right.