Visualizing Steam Spy Data

SUGBOERIE

Part of my can't-sleep-side-projects has been to create an app to visualize steam spy data. The goal is to make the images aesthetically pleasing and still make sense to read meaningful data. After a few weeks of trial and error I got the first interesting image.



This is all the data from the indie tag on steam spy.

Can you guess the variables?

radius - ?
circumference - ?
alpha - ?

EvanGreenwood

It presumably starts from lowest sales at 12 O'Clock and rotates round clockwise to highest sales, which are given the highest alpha?

What I can't figure out is what produces those rings though? And if it's from low sales to high, it seems like there are too many games with high alpha starting at 9 O'Clock, I'd expect them to be bunched up from 10 O'clock or 11 O'clock.

I also cannot account for the two satellites at 4 O'clock and 5 O'clock.

Is it maybe all the releases over time giving it it the angle clockwise from 2004 to 2016, number of sales determining the alpha? And the rating determining the distance from the centre?

blacksheepZA

Maybe those concentric rings are caused by price? Though they do look a bit too evenly spaced...

Also this is a cool project and cannot wait to see more :D

SUGBOERIE

@EvanGreenwood Your last guess was correct. From 12 O'Clock going clockwise is the releases over time from 2005 -> Most recently.The brightness (alpha) of each star (game) is the number of owners. Everything over 500 000 owners is opaque.

@blacksheepZA You're right about the price. I thought that was the most interesting. You can see how their are certain tiers. You might as well price them at those tiers. Not too sure what each tier price is though.

@EvanGreenwood the stars at 4O'Clock and 5 O'Clock are Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter and The Second Encounter both priced at $99.99

EvanGreenwood

lol about Serious Sam games :)

I would imagine then the scattering of stars outside the tiers is due to discounts?