PIXEL TIMEOUT: THE PIXEL EMPIRE'S 1ST BIRTHDAY
The writers: Tom Clare
Posted: 19th May 2013
Posted: 19th May 2013
Doesn’t time fly! Well, it does if you’re editing The Pixel Empire. A year ago today I founded a rather rickety game review site built on some optimistic but rather improbable principals; namely to cover nigh-on every game there’s ever been and treat each and every title fairly and in the context of its own release. No rash criticisms, no judgement-clouding hype, and as much time as our writers need to form a clear and fair opinion.
Fortunately, along the way, the site has been extremely lucky, with the number of writers having quadrupled and the aforementioned goals now looking a shade more reasonable, I decided to celebrate The Pixel Empire’s first birthday by doing a bit of number crunching. Achievements, quirks and general cold-hard facts, I’ve assembled what I feel are some of the more interesting and telling figures to have emerged from our first 365 days in existence. Which writer is the hardest to please? What review has been read the most? Which format averages the highest? All shall be revealed…
110 The number of different countries people have visited The Pixel Empire from. The UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Brazil are our five most popular hunting grounds, but we’ve also strong followings in Gibraltar, Malaysia, Mexico and beyond!
6.86 The average review score our writers have meted out over the first year. Perhaps reflecting that we’ve enjoyed covering a few favourites, it’s also indicative of gaming as a whole having, generally speaking, a greater quantity of really good games than really bad (or maybe we’re just too shrewd to go for the worst stuff!). Interestingly, the average for second opinions is considerably higher at 7.67, although it’s likely we’ve been more inspired to write extra on titles we’ve liked than ones that haven’t lived long in the memory.
957 The number of followers the four of us have currently amassed on twitter. If you’re not following, then why the heck not? Incidentally, if your answer to that is “I prefer facebook over twitter”, then that’s no excuse either, as you can follow our page here.
6.86 The average review score our writers have meted out over the first year. Perhaps reflecting that we’ve enjoyed covering a few favourites, it’s also indicative of gaming as a whole having, generally speaking, a greater quantity of really good games than really bad (or maybe we’re just too shrewd to go for the worst stuff!). Interestingly, the average for second opinions is considerably higher at 7.67, although it’s likely we’ve been more inspired to write extra on titles we’ve liked than ones that haven’t lived long in the memory.
957 The number of followers the four of us have currently amassed on twitter. If you’re not following, then why the heck not? Incidentally, if your answer to that is “I prefer facebook over twitter”, then that’s no excuse either, as you can follow our page here.
11.3% Are we worshiped in London? No, I'm guessing probably not. But England’s capital is by far our most popular city, accounting for comfortably more than one in ten visits to the site.
21 That’s the number of formats we’ve covered so far (minis not taken as a format in its own right), which isn’t bad for four guys just starting out. We know there are few rather big (and rather obscure) ones we haven’t got around to yet, but here’s hoping that over the next twelve months we may get some Spectrum, N64 and PlayStation VITA titles reviewed (never thought I’d see those three in a sentence together).
21 That’s the number of formats we’ve covered so far (minis not taken as a format in its own right), which isn’t bad for four guys just starting out. We know there are few rather big (and rather obscure) ones we haven’t got around to yet, but here’s hoping that over the next twelve months we may get some Spectrum, N64 and PlayStation VITA titles reviewed (never thought I’d see those three in a sentence together).
Game rubbernecking. You should all be thoroughly ashamed.
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1/10 In an act of sheer perversity,
the Pixel masses have been inexplicably drawn to my review of The Sniper 2 for PlayStation 2, which holds the polarising
distinctions of being both the lowest-scoring game in The Pixel Empire’s
history, and also its most frequented review. Other popular choices aren’t much
better, with Road Trip Adventure (4/10)
and Jak II: Renegade (6/10) our
second and third most popular review destinations. Turns out you all just love
a good moan, and as often as not, in conjunction with obscure PS2 software.
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152 The precise number of games we've reviewed, including the three titles that made up The Excellent Dizzy Collection and our first minis round-up. Thanks to the constant and tireless contributions of Shane, Chris and Alan, my initially-bonkers hope of amassing one hundred reviews over the course of the first year now seem like a distant memory. We're happy as ever to deliver reviews by-request (such as From Russia With Love and Prince of Persia from last year), and we'll be happy to cover pretty much anything we can get our hands (or emulators) on. But not Radiant Silvergun; we could work here a lifetime and not have earned enough cash to splash on that.
If you don't recognise any of these, you've some good gaming ahead
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8 The number of games to have (so far) received our coveted perfect score of 10/10. Interested in reading about them, or indeed discovering what they are? Well, you can always head on over to the Pixel Archive – that’s where every review we’ve ever written is listed in alphabetical order. Titles deemed the most worthy (those that have scored 9/10 or higher) are emboldened, so you can't miss the good stuff! Coincidentally, 8/10 is also the most common review score over the past year of The Pixel Empire, adding further weight to the suggestion we like reviewing stuff that we erm, like.
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3 Our trinity of game
industry interviewees: we talked to Paul Rustchynsky about MotorStorm RC, waxed lyrical about Mark of the Ninja with Nels Anderson, and reminisced about the good
ol’ days of Dizzy with The Oliver
Twins! We can’t thank these guys enough for taking the time to talk to us.
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27 Twenty-seven years separate our most up-to-date game review BioShock Infinite (2013) from our most venerable and elderly, Dizzy (1986). Well, we did say we’d cover ‘all eras’, and it’s quite possible the gap will widen even further in future! In case you were wondering, 2012 was the most-represented year for games on the site. We reviewed 17 PS3, Xbox 360, and PC titles from the period, suggesting that, despite our retro leanings, there’s no time like the now.
Average Review Score
Perfect 10s Formats Covered Primary Reviews Second Opinions Most popular review piece |
TOP PERFORMING FORMATS FROM OUR 1ST YEAR (MIN 5 REVIEWS)
Top formats by average:
1. PS (7.5 from 13 reviews) 2. PC (7.2 from 6 reviews) =. GX4K (7.2 from 6 reviews) 4. SNES (7.1 from 9 reviews) 5. PS3 (7.0 from 26 reviews) |
Most reviewed formats:
1. X360 (27 reviews at 6.8) 2. PS3 (26 reviews at 7.0) 3. PS2 (18 reviews at 6.0) 4. PS (13 reviews at 7.5) 5. PSP (12 reviews at 6.1) |
AND FINALLY...
...So that's the story of The Pixel Empire's first year in numbers. But perhaps the most important figure of all is 51,842 - the total number of times our pages have been visited. We'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to look at our site over the past twelve months, and those who've left us comments, sent us suggestions, and conversed with us on twitter and facebook. The Pixel Empire becomes a little more useful as an archive with every passing post, and though there's a heck of a long way still to go and we've had some hair-raising technical hitches along the way, it's been great fun. And there's plenty more to come; ideas we dreamed up in our first year such as the Hi-Score Duels (in loving homage of the challenges that used to light up the pages of game magazines) and Landmark Levels (a means of singling out great one-off locations and levels) will soon be making a return, whilst we have many more new ideas on the horizon and, of course, lots more reviews. Exciting times, and we're looking forward to finding out what the next twelve months have in store!
...So that's the story of The Pixel Empire's first year in numbers. But perhaps the most important figure of all is 51,842 - the total number of times our pages have been visited. We'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to look at our site over the past twelve months, and those who've left us comments, sent us suggestions, and conversed with us on twitter and facebook. The Pixel Empire becomes a little more useful as an archive with every passing post, and though there's a heck of a long way still to go and we've had some hair-raising technical hitches along the way, it's been great fun. And there's plenty more to come; ideas we dreamed up in our first year such as the Hi-Score Duels (in loving homage of the challenges that used to light up the pages of game magazines) and Landmark Levels (a means of singling out great one-off locations and levels) will soon be making a return, whilst we have many more new ideas on the horizon and, of course, lots more reviews. Exciting times, and we're looking forward to finding out what the next twelve months have in store!