Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Finding the Perfect Family Game

Posted by michael on from the hungry-hungry-hippos dept.

kowalski1971 writes "Some poor soul with far too much time on his hands has decided - in an attempt to increase sales at his toyshop - to calculate the formula for the perfect family game. Apparently it is, 0.22a + 0.17f + 0.153n + (0.12c - 0.1g) + 0.1s + 0.09e + 0.06d + 0.054l + 0.05m + 0.011c = pfg ...and which game came out top? Cards. So much for the increased sales then."

11 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Aces! by eaglebtc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is interesting to me because there are a bazillion board games out there, and most of them are overpriced and have limited playability. Card games and their variants are countless.

    Go cards!

    --
    Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
  2. Simpler formula by C17GMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I notice that most of those factors are vaguely defined at best... "Fun factor?" Get real! As long as we're pulling qualitative numbers out of the air, why not design a simpler system? Perfect Family Game = 1.0g, where "g" is the "goodness level." Practical, huh?

  3. cards by gotem · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Cards" is not a game
    a game is poker, bridge, blackjack etc.
    which card game are they talking about?

  4. Best selling by Tet · · Score: 4, Insightful
    So much for the increased sales then

    Best selling game != best game. Admittedly, the point of this exercise was probably to increase sales, so on that front, it's failed... Also note that his formula reuses symbols ("C" is both competitive factor, and complexity), and he parenthesizes items for no apparently good reason when the operators are commutative. Is he just trying to come up with an impressive looking formula to get a newsworthy story and bring his store some publicity? On that front, he's succeeded...

    --
    "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
  5. An old truth by gxv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good for everybody and therefore probably good for nobody. And if anybody hopes complicated equations will help him pick the best Christmas gift for his nephew he's mistaken. It will be easier to ask.

  6. 2 Cs by Huge+Pi+Removal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Silly bugger's gone and used 'C' twice - first for competitiveness, the second for complexity. And what's with the superfluous brackets anyway? Load of cobblers.

    --
    - Oliver

    The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
    1. Re:2 Cs by hurtstotouchfire · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You are correct. He also doesn't seem to have provided any kind of list as to how many different games they tested. Is the the top ten or did they test ten?

      Also, this formula should really include variables for different people. I know monopoly with my grandfather is a blast, because he's old and cheap and sits on all his money and kicks butt at the end, but monopoly with my youngest cousins can be hellish, because they cry when anyone plays rough.

      This should really be more of a function, where you supply 5 or 10 bits of information, and the top 10 list is customized to you.

  7. Not surprising by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My family always played a lot of games while we were growing up, and they were almost exclusively card games. The rules tend to be simple, which is a big plus if you're trying to hold the interest of people covering a big age range (60 year old granny along with 8 year old younger bro'). We burned a lot of hours with Uno, Spades, Pit!, and others.

    Board games had a narrower appeal. If it was just "us kids" we'd play those, since it seemed the adults weren't interested in the same ones we were. Once we'd grown into teenagers we did find a few everyone enjoyed - Pictionary immediately comes to mind.

    Ah, memories...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  8. Toy stores do not sell "games" by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Cards" is not a game

    But it is game equipment. Toy stores do not deal in "games" as such but rather game equipment. A pair of decks of 52 cards can be used for 100 plus well-known games, which may figure into the decision that cards are nearly optimal game equipment.

  9. No news here, move on please! by heironymouscoward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is just a puff of smoke intended to stimulate Christmas toy sales. The formula is ridiculously over-complex and loaded with unexplained constants. How on earth did this make Slashdot when perfectly good stories (like the one about SCO violations being found on the Moon) get refused?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature
  10. Re:mathematicians! Bah! by Coryoth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is why in addition to mathematician we have experimental physicists who whack the mathematician on the snout, take their formulations, and subject the equations to a rigorous dose of reality.

    Interestingly it goes the other way too sometimes. The physicists posit a nice theory, then some mathematician comes along and says "sorry, the math just doesn't work that way - it ought to really go like this...". The physicists say "but that's just bloody stupid, reality wouldn't work that way", then go away and test it and find that, oddly enough, it does.

    Jedidiah

    --
    Craft Beer Programming T-shirts