Charting Kitely's growth over time

[Dot Matrix]

How might the growth of a grid be measured? Perhaps the two most obvious numbers to look at would be land area and number of active users.

Maria Korolov of Hypergrid Business publishes a monthly digest of basic statistics from many different grids. I've copied those numbers for Kitely into a spreadsheet and created some graphs of the results.

Here's how the numbers of regions on Kitely has grown over the period 2011–15:

You can see how the numbers of regions started increasing faster during the last 8 months of this year. The increase is holding steady at 300+ regions per month.

What about active users? Here the picture is less clear, with numbers fluctuating quite widely from month to month.

Finding the average, maximum and minimum for each year will help bring out the trends. Here are the numbers (to two decimal places):

Code: Select all

Year    Average    Max    Min
2011    171.56     392    113
2012    300.64     583    195
2013    526.17     716    274
2014    768.75     964    522
2015    982.42    1109    870

And here is the corresponding chart:

What does the chart suggest? First, the number of active users is steadily trending upwards from year to year. Second, the monthly numbers of active users are becoming more consistent -- this is shown by the narrowing gap between the maximum and minimum.

[Dot Matrix]

Another way to bring out trends is to use a rolling average. The following chart shows the 6-month rolling average of active Kitely users. It gives a better idea of shorter-term trends.

[Zuza Ritt]

Dot, thanks for all your statistics and information.
Region in Kitely means what exactly? World? Region 256x256 meters? Now we have a varregions, so varregion 4x4 is counted as 1 region or 16? With previous advanced mega regions in previous statistics, it was the same?
No flame intended, I just would like to know. I suppose everybody who is familiar with Kitely plans will ask the same question sooner or later.

[Dot Matrix]

In Maria's statistics a 4x4 varregion counts as 16 standard 256x256m regions. So the size of a Kitely World is done in standard region equivalents. It was the same when the worlds were megaregions.

[Zuza Ritt]

Hi Zuza,

Maria asked us to report land size in region equivalents so that is what we've been doing ever since we started supporting big worlds. This means that we've been reporting 4x4 worlds as 16 regions, regardless of how those worlds have been set up (i.e. regardless of whether they were multi region worlds, Advanced Megaregion worlds or VarRegion worlds).

[Zuza Ritt]

Dot, Ilan, thank you for the explanation.
I am glad it is made in this "fair" way and not in any other confusing one:)

[Dot Matrix]

Here's a chart that compares the growth in region numbers (blue line) with the growth in active users (green line). The 6-month rolling average of active users has been scaled by multiplying the averages by 10.

[Dot Matrix]

What was happening when the graphs change direction? Looking at historical Kitely blog posts might provide some clues -- but remember that the rolling average of active user numbers will be influenced by changes up to six months before, plus some seasonal variation.

Please note: This is my personal take on possible coincidences -- I'm not suggesting causation!

A March 2012: More ways to create a Kitely account, without using Facebook

B August 2012: Introduction of megaregions

C October 2012: Introduction of fixed-price worlds

D January 2013: Start of Kitely Market promotion to prospective merchants

E May 2013: Merchants start listing on Kitely Market

F December 2013: Pre-announcement of plan changes plus limited-time grandfathering option for Silver and Gold plans

G January 2014: Details of simplified plans (Regular and Premium) and new fixed-price options

H June 2014: Changes in how metered worlds work -- only Premium Account holders can create them now

I May 2015: Pre-announcement of simplified plans plus limited-time grandfathering option for Premium and Gold plans (Gold re-introduced for one month only). (These ideas were discussed in the weekly Kitely Community Meetings during April, which might explain the earlier uptick in region numbers.)

J June 2015: Fixed-price worlds only from now on (simpler for everyone to understand), and at a lot lower cost for Standard (2x2) and Advanced (up to 4x4) worlds

[Dot Matrix]

How does the number of regions per active user vary over time? Here's a chart, again using the 6-month rolling average for active users. The red lines match those in the previous post.

[Mike Vass]