Interpreting jam statistics
As with all statistics, the data about visual novel jams on the VNDev Wiki are not completely objective, and include some amount of "wiggle room". This page describes the choices made when recording data on pages such as List of ongoing visual novel jams and Visual novel jam statistics, and provides some tips for how to interpret that data.
Factors impacting basic statistics
The VNDev Wiki collects the officially visible participant and entry counts on the itch.io jam page, immediately after the jam is completed.
Discrepancies in these statistics may be caused by the following circumstances:
- not all team members joining the jam officially
- itch page displaying a number that doesn't correspond with the amount of visible entries (usually 1-2 entries off, e.g. the page may have 3 entries visible, but the counter states 4 entries
- entries which don't follow the jam rules, but have been missed or are being tolerated by the jam hosts, which can lead to significant differences when counting "manually". For example, 105 (official) vs. 91 (manual count) entries in NaNoRenO 2020 as appeared in the article What VN statistics tell us by mikey
- jams which allow the submission of pages without a link to a playable entry, these count towards the number of entries (at a later stage after the jam period they may indeed feature a playable entry)
- over time creators may choose to delete their games and pages, leading to inaccuracies when revisiting old jams
Interpreting "Participants/Entry"
Lower numbers means for only a few participants, a significant number of games are released. Higher numbers means there was a smaller number of releases compared to people participating. In general low values can be explained by:
- Smaller teams, and more solo-developed projects.
- The jam allowing several games per participant, or encouraging participation in multiple teams.
- The jam favors easier, smaller entries, and reduces the risk of incomplete projects.
Similarly, higher numbers could be explained by:
- Many incomplete projects that aren't released by the deadline.
- A popular jam that gets a lot of interest, but a reduced number of actual participation/releases.
- A more competitive or longer jam, encouraging larger teams.
