New Years Stats Time!

Do you like numbers?  Well, if you do (Like I do) you're going to love this post!  This year, much like last year, I'm going to share some specific numbers about Kupowered, if just because I -can-.  I certainly don't know if anyone's interested, but I think it's fun to do and it's my blog after all, so I'll do it if I like.  And I do.  So I do it.  It's been a trying year to say the least, so actually sitting down and looking at these numbers will be something that I'm doing for the first time as I write this, which I think makes it partly more fun for me since this is all new to me.  I get to look at the numbers and then figure out a way with which to express them in a way that isn't just A, B, C.  Or at least a little -more- entertaining a version of A, B, C like the last years post was.

The first glaring number that stands out is 2012's post count total - 307.  A full year's posts would have been 365 and my post count last year was 349, a whole 42 posts more.  Still going by the "Every other day" rule of 183 posts (which I fell on a lot this year), I'm still up by 124 posts which, hey, I think is pretty respectable.  It's not 165 like last yeah, but the fact that I actually have two years to compare to one another is a miracle unto itself, I should say.  This is the part where I start wishing I could break down views by year but that's simply not offered in Blogger's overview (or if it is, I'm struggling to find it), so I'll just have to update the All-Time views which will account for, you know....All-Time.  Last year and the year before.  (I'm just realizing that it is technically 2013 so Whoops)  Still, that'll be neat because it'll still give me numbers to compare it to since I guess I just filter out the differences and that'll be the year not accounted for.  You know, with math.

Coming in at the top of the All Time posts is once again "Really Tired", which if you missed me explaining it last year, was simply me being silly and doing a silly post about dragons.  Silly posts are fun, but I don't intend to do them all the time even though that one ended up being rather popular because of a particular picture used in it.  Its post count currently sits at 5,071, up from 4,069 from last year's review meaning it's only been viewed 1,002 times last year.  Only.  "Guilty Pleasures - Yakuza 4's Hostess Maker" is still second with 739 views, up from 290 last year, meaning it's been viewed 449 times in 2012 - not bad at all.  Third place is where 2012 shone, though, with "Zone of the Enders 3 is a Thing in Development" coming in at 590 views for 2012 alone, simply because it was -in- 2012 only.  I believe I can safely say that means it was the highest viewed post of 2012.  Second to receive that honor was "Kupowered's 501st Post" which came in at 248 views for some reason!  Overall, that post came in 7th, however, behind "inFamous 2 - My Thoughts on the Story and Endings (Spoilers)" at 547 views, "What Went Wrong - Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon" at 414 views and "The Regular Show is Pretty Great" at 399 views.  Because 400 views would just be too easy.

Trying to use the Page View Graph this year is just as unfeasible as last year, perhaps even more so, so unfortunately, I won't be doing a month-by-month thing since, well, I have no idea when those are properly updated.  Trying to navigate the graph takes me from January 2011 to February 2012 which....isn't correct, so, yeah, it's a bit silly.  Raw numbers will suffice.  My "Pageviews Last Month" figure comes up as 2,457 views, which I suppose might be for the full month of December, or like half of November and half of December or something.  I bring that up solely because that figure is higher than any single month presented in last years figures (the highest being 2,297 views) which means it's about in line with things so I'm keeping steady.  Or, rather, perhaps 'last month' was a low month because my All-Time Pageview History number now sits at 46,580, a full 29,751 views more than last year and, in fact 12,922 views more than last years All Time History of 16,829.  This is where I wish I knew how to do percents so I could figure what percentage growth that is, but looking at the numbers just says "a lot" which is pretty cool nonetheless.

Clicking on the Audience tab brings up something rather surprising in the sense that things have sort of shifted via countries that view Kupowered.  Like, dramatically.  America is still at the top with a whopping 19,799 views (up from 7,987 last year or an increase of 11,812 views), but Russia came out of friggin' nowhere at second place with 5,589 views (up from 485 last year for a 5,104 view increase) which...should I be worried about that?  I don't know.  The United Kingdom pulls up third with 2,210 views (up from 892 last year for a 1,318 view increase) and it's not until we get to fourth place that Canada finally shows up at 2,155 views (up from 1,123 views for a 1,032 increase).  If you're interested in the rest, the full list is as follows:  (Country - Pageviews - Increase):  America - 19,799 - 11,812, Russia - 5,589 - 5,104, United Kingdom - 2,210 - 1,318, Canada - 2,155 - 1,032, Austalia - 1,576 - 695, Germany - 875 - 411, Indonesia - 775 - 636, Brazil - 606 - 470, Ukraine - 436 - 302, and France - 430 - N/A.  All this only adds up to 34,451 Views, so the rest of the  12,129 views is smattered across other nations in smaller numbers.  Firefox again is the most used browser at 19,171 (or 42%) of views, with Chrome and Internet explorer switching places this year at 11,398 (25%) and 9,162 (20%) respectively.  Windows is still the most widespread OS to be used to view at 34,413 (75%) where Linux has bumped up a little, coming in at 6,296 (13%).  Mac at 2,133 (4%) is the only other number to brag about with Android and iPhone representing 1% each with 872 and 634 respectively and the remaining five of iPad, iPod, PSP, PS3 and BlackBerry are all <1% with 350, 260, 179, 178 and 168 in order.

I haven't really made many new 'types' of posts since last year with the notable exception being, appropriately, "Gaming By The Numbers" of which I only have two posts for - Dynasty Warriors Next and Trails in the Sky.  These posts are basically just ones in which I take a game and turn it into full-on Number Porn somehow, either talking about the hours of time needed to do something specific, or just how easy it is to do something, taking into account the most 'profitable' means with which to do it.  Or you know, whatever.  It's number porn so it's about numbers in whatever form I can take them in.  Somewhat like -this- post and the last year's review, I should say.  Most everything else has been either a stand-alone thing, or part of a 'type' I established the first year, which is just fine, I think.  I don't need to make a whole bunch of different things for my posts to fit into and I probably established the most that I'll need in the first year, though there's always the future to tell.

Compared to 2011's three reviews, I did a surprising nine in 2012, which is still a really small number, but considering the amount of work that goes into every review, it's not something that I can do all the time unfortunately.  Those reviews are, in order of post date:  Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Alpha Protocol, Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Resistance: Burning Skies, Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, Sound Shapes, Gravity Rush, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and  Final Fantasy XIII.  Obviously, I linked them in case you wanted to check them out again (or for the first time, if you've missed them) and if not then at least it's nice to keep these things together for something in the future.  That number would have been ten, but alas, I still haven't finished the likely vitriolic review for Final Fantasy XIII-2 which is unfortunate, but that's just how these things go sometimes.  Still rather impressive for me, I think.

I imagined if I tried, I could pick up a few of some posts that I really liked this year (since I can't play Favorites), but really, I'm pretty happy with them all.  If anything, I remember the Gaming by the Numbers posts more than the rest for the simple fact that they were number porn posts and those are ultimately really fun to write.  While it's still recent, I do also still remember the two posts I made for a concept I dubbed a 'MoveShock' which is a theoretical controller that would combine a DualShock with two Move wands, offering a 'best of both worlds' scenario where one could expect to use both methods of input simultaneously instead of giving up one for the other.  I've rarely been as excited at a prospect as I was with that, and while I doubt it's going to happen, it's still nice to dream.  Because honestly, it's a pretty cool concept if it would work in the scenarios I put forth.

And that's about it for 2012.  It was apparently a year of highs and lows, but while I didn't like the year, it was still a rather productive one, all-told.  Hopefully 2013 will be a better year, both in me keeping up with posts and just....you know, being a better year.  It's got a chance as it is now, but it's only two days old so, well, a little early to be wondering, I suppose.  If you've read this and enjoyed it, then I thank you and I hope you'll stick around for the posts as they come this year.  I mean, again, number porn so your mileage may vary, but I certainly had fun with it!  Here's to 2013 kicking 2012's ass in all the relevant facets!

New Year's Eve - A Year In Review

On Wednesday, January 5th, I posted my first post of this blog which more or less presented the mission statement to any who decided to read this as well as to myself to have something that I really wanted to accomplish.  I also sort of have one on the sidebar to the right, but the first post basically says "I want to write, and I want to write consistently, so I'm going to make it a 'thing'" and I would say that Kupowered is officially 'a thing'.  Though not without its hiccups in activity thanks to poor weather and computer issues, I have pretty much stuck to that goal of consistency to the best of my ability and for that I'm pretty proud of myself.  I really wrestled with whether or not I'd be able to do it, more because I worried it would become a 'chore' over time, but (mostly to my surprise) every day has been as exciting as the last, if not more, when I sit down here and actually really get into hammering out one of these posts.

I love doing this blog, doing this writing, and that's why it's going to be so easy to continue doing it into the new year.  While I don't always know what I'm going to write about until I actually start doing it (sometimes halfway through a post, I'll notice it's dramatically shifted gears and make a few changes to the title or the earlier body of it to reflect that) I always -want- to write which is likely the most important point.  That want, the desire, is more or less why this has kept going and why it's improved over time (at least, I like to think it has) as I've more or less fallen into a way about things or a style even.  With any luck, my ability will eventually match my ambition for it and I'll be able to make this a lot better than it is currently; if just by delivering on  few promises I've made throughout the year.  (Like actually explaining the Romance of the Three Kingdoms period in my own way and getting an actual logo going.)  But even if I don't, I bet if I keep at what I've been doing, it'll work out all the same.

Since this is a year in review and I really like statistics, let's have a go at the blog by the numbers.  Not including this post, I made 348 posts this year - 17 posts fewer than a full year's worth (365).  Since the stated goal was 'every other day', which would have been 183 posts (rounded up), I beat my goal by 165 posts which is quite a wide margin.  My most viewed post (according to my stats page) was my "Really Tired" post in which I was silly and decided to talk about Dragons in a fairly casual way (even by my standards) as an attempt to make myself (and hopefully others) laugh with the way it went.  At 4,069 pageviews, I'd almost wager it did....if I weren't convinced that 89% or so of those pageviews are actually links to one of the dragon pictures used in the post.  My search keyword section constantly has about four or five different entries for 'dragons' or 'cool black dragons' which more or less leads me to believe this which is a little disappointing, but hey, views are views.  This is all reinforced by the second most viewed post, "Guilty Pleasures - Yakuza 4's Hostess Maker", which came in at only 290 views All Time.

I'm almost loathe to actually use Blogger's All Time graph for pageviews per month since it's not actually by month (seems to skip every other month and some months have two entires when hovered over), but it's kind of all I can think of to use right now.  January 2011 is listed as 538 pageviews between that point (wherever it was in January, perhaps at the end?) and December of 2009 (which, of course, the blog did not exist then).  After a little dip in March('s second entry) of 338 pageviews, there was steady growth from that point on to December('s first entry) of 2,297 pageviews which is my all-time high.  The second entry for December, which I imagine isn't the solid end-point of it, is currently at 2,217.  I honestly don't know how I'm getting all these pageviews, but hell, I'll take 'em.  As long as people are reading it's all good, I guess.  The part next to the graph that says "Pageviews all time history" has a total of 16,829 currently, which is a number that I can't even figure on.  (This is all with the 'Don't track own pageviews' unticked, however I doubt my own views are skewing things that dramatically and considering I've typed all this up, I'm not going to chance turning it off and making myself look silly.)

Moving on to the Audience tab, my top-most country of viewership is, possibly unsurprisingly, the United States with 7,987 pageviews.  I don't really link-whore my blog around (which, honestly, I probably should?), but if I do, the majority of the people I link to are in the US.  Up next is Canada (thank you Chance!) with 1,123 posts.  Australia brings up fourth with 881 views (that are likely not all made by Haplo, but I'm just guessing) and the country with the least pageviews is Denmark with 113.  Beats me how Denmark is even on the list, but hey whatevs.  (For those interested, the full list is such (Country - Pageviews):  United States - 7,987, Canada - 1,123, United Kingdom - 892, Australia - 881, Russia - 485, Germany - 464, Indonesia - 139, Brazil - 136, Ukraine - 134, and Denmark - 113.  Which only adds up to 12,354 so I guess the other views are a mish-mash of a smattering of views here and there.)  The bulk of these viewings was on Firefox apparently, as it accounts for 7,461 (or 45%) of my views.  Next is Internet Explorer with 4,081 (or 24%) and coming in third is Chrome with 3,461 (or 21%).  And of those total views, 84% (14,071 views) were done on computers running Windows OS, with the remaining 16% comprising of a mishmash of different OS's.  Linux and Mac get 5 and 4 percent respectively (901 and 826, again respectively) and Playstation 3 and PSP are both in the <1% category with 165 and 123 respectively.  Something completely surprising to me was that my site was apparently viewed on iPads 124 times, iPhones 111 times and iPods 61 times.

That all might not be interesting to you and I apologize if it's not, but it's absolutely fascinating to me even though with most cases it's just "Hey, these are big numbers that involve your blog".  I just think it's a neat little look into the back-end of things, into the mechanics of it rather, and that there might be a few people out there as interested in it as I am.  And what better time to cement these numbers than tonight, the end of the year?  Though I have to admit those are probably a little dry, so I do have a few more fun numbers to go over.

Since starting this blog, I've made about 26 different 'types' of posts, including "A Look Back", "Giant Robot On", "Weekly Wrap-up in Gaming", "Why Won't They Make These", "LittleBigThings", and "Misadventures in Bargain-Shopping".  I quantify these as 'types' in that they're...well, titles for very specialized types of posts.  While most of the time my posts have been bringing up something news-worthy and offering my opinion and thoughts on it, these posts are more or less based on my personal experiences and opinions on things, like presenting a specific game or type of game, describing it, and wondering aloud about how difficult it would be to make more of them, wherein the answer is usually 'Not very, but it won't sell well either'.  (Why Won't They Make These)  Or like talking about anything and everything involving LittleBigPlanet regarding news, my own personal excitement, or my adventures in the wonderful world of LittleBigPlanet.  (LittleBigThings)  There might be a few others I could include and likewise a few included that might not need to be in there, which is why I said 'about', since it's just a rough gauging.

One of those types of posts was the 'Review', which my first one was made on Monday, July 25th for Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.  The game was so galvanizing that I couldn't help but be inspired to do with it what I hadn't done before and what I indeed told myself I wouldn't do in actually presenting something that was not just my opinions, but my overall judgment of the game (which are two very slightly different things).  Since then, I've only reviewed two other games (Yakuza 4 and Star Ocean: First Departure) because they've both struck similar chords as Ghost Trick, albeit in widely different ways.  It's probably a safe bet to make that I'll review more games in 2012, but that my focus will remain on relating my opinions on the games I play rather than rendering my judgments.  Again, they are different things, albeit barely, and I think they're both important enough to have a place here.

While I don't think I could ever pick 'favorite' posts of the year, I will point out a couple of my more memorable ones.  In recent memory, my series of two (spoiler warning!) Character Spotlight posts about Caim from the Drakengard series (again, spoilers up ins them) were probably a couple of the posts that I've got most excited about doing.  I've said it many times before, but Drakengard is a series close to my heart and Caim and his presentation are a couple of the bigger reasons as to why that is.  So getting to really elaborate on that is something that I really wanted to do and that I'm glad I got to do it.  Also memorable was (again, spoiler warning!) my two-part What Went Wrong - Chrono Trigger DS series in which I got to elaborate on how bothered I was that Squeenix took one of my favorite games (if not my absolute favorite) from my childhood and, well, really did all they could to try and screw it up.  Because they honestly did and thank god there likely won't be a third Chrono game (well, fourth) since all attempts aside from the first have been pretty abysmal.

That's about it, really.  It's been a great year and I wanted to be able to really express my achievements with this blog in both personal reasonings and raw numbers and I believe I've adequately done that.  I'm sure there's quite a few other things I could've elaborated on and pointed out here, but I covered the major points, I think.  I hope everyone who's read this far has enjoyed it and will continue to do so well into the new year while this just grows and grows.  Here's hoping for great things in 2012!