

Show HN: A Phylogeny of Android Bubble Shooter Games - megafaunasoft
http://blog.megafaunasoft.com/2012/11/a-phylogeny-of-android-bubble-shooter.html

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etrautmann
Interesting analysis, one comment though:

PCA used in this way is not particularly helpful without understanding what
the principle components actually mean, especially when there's not much
structure in the resulting 2D plot.

This highlights a broader point, which is that similar analyses are often
performed in scientific research. The real utility of the approach is when it
is used to recover latent dimensions that help to explain the differences or
clusters in data, and then translate these into meaningful and describable
features.

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megafaunasoft
That's fair. I didn't quite get to outputting the loadings. This was really
more about MDS than PCA.

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ChuckMcM
Reading this makes me wonder where game value is these days. I suspect that a
curated source of 'decent' Android games would be more valuable for the
curation than for the actual games. Of course it would not be easy to extract
that value. The two avenues would be charge for use, or charge for entry. And
either way the authors are going to wonder if they should get a cut if you're
making money off their "free" game.

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orbitingpluto
Saw your spreadsheet. Analysis might have been easier by just ripping open the
APKs. For example, City Games LLC "Shoot Bubble Deluxe" is obviously Frozen
Bubble code with lingering unused data sprinkled about. (Also the company's
domain name was registered once upon a time to an address that was a Kentucky
Fried Chicken near Google HQ.)

