User:EventHorizon/ambition findings

Recent Development: Against what I believe to be my better advice, Ambition (cards) was recreated by User:Ludocrat on March 1, 2005.

The game has been VfD'd three times, with results of Keep (Dec. 2003), Keep (May 2004), and Delete (Aug. 2004). Mike Church, the game's inventor, nominated it for deletion at the second round, and voted for its deletion on the third.

Undoubtedly, it will be exposed to a fourth deletion debate. (It has.) I voted to delete the article. I predict a result of weak keep (about 60%) with much controversy and at least some sockitry from both sides, especially the "against" side.

Case to keep: Notable, growing card game by driven, talented designer. Case against: We have no idea who User:Ludocrat is. We have no idea who might re-emerge should the article be created. Church is observed to have been overzealous, but has a number of politically-motivated enemies. We could get swamped from both sides. EventHorizon talk 08:49, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A card game played mainly by American college students, and the center of a minor scandal: falsely believing the game was written for political purposes (to unite international socialists) a group of right-wing Interneters mounted a campaign to supress and defame the game. The political motives behind the game have been debunked, though the game occasionally shows up in some tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. -- Ambition, as defined by "23 skidoo" on Urbandictionary.com

I became aware of the minor debacle known as the "Ambition controversy" shortly after my return to Wikipedia, and was even suspected of being party to the controversy, but those suspicions waned. In fact, I was unaware of the whole story until it was told to me by other Wikipedia users. A number of different users, some of whom may have been sock-puppets (from both sides) posted large amounts of information to my file on the controversy.

Quietly, I began researching the Ambition story in mid-December. I did not announce that I had begun this project, because I did not want to address the matter based on incomplete knowledge, nor implicate myself should I not have any findings.

I will update these items as my findings become more complete. There is still much I do not know.

Sources and methodology

I have been able to trace a fairly accurate history of Ambition, both the game itself and Ambition as a social phenomenon. I've reviewed the deletion debates and the history of some remaining controversies. I've used lingering Ambition (card game)'s on other Wikipedia clones to estimate the evolution and history of the Ambition article itself.

I admit that my results were not scientific. I did not do formal surveys or controlled experiments. I did this research to satisfy my own curiosity about the supposed "Ambition phenomenon", and offer my results for the benefit of the Wikipedia community.

In my pursuits, I was able to find 30 people have played Ambition; this required considerable effort. I asked for their opinions on the matter in a survey, and found they were quite frank about the game. 25 of 30 responded to my survey. While my sample size of 25 is quite small, if you can easily find a large number of people who have played this game (excluding Mike and his associates, from whom you can expect biased ratings) and survey them, I will be impressed.

In all, I probably spent 70 hours on this research, quite a bit of time considering the job I work.

I am not a game-designer or ludologist; a college friend of mine (who I will call K.; just as I do not identify myself, I do not identify my associates) special-majored in ludology. He advised my research and I am dependent on him for my technical game-design knowledge, as well as remarks on the social properties of games.

Findings on notability

The "notability" question is, by far, the best determinant of inclusion-worthiness. The finding of my research is that Ambition, if its inclusion or deletion were to be judged according to notability alone, would be inclusion-worthy on grounds of notability.

Ambition is not a "household name", but is provably played independently of Mike Church. Of the 30 people I could find who had played it, 7 were from foreign countries; the others were dispersed throughout the continental U.S.

Mike's claim of approximately 2000 players seems sound; nothing in my research called that into doubt. From a hobby game-designer's or ludologist's standpoint, this is apparently quite an accomplishment for an invented card game.

Mike claims that about 2% of Americans have heard of Ambition; however, he admits that his "research" is conducted on card-game fora and online poker sites. He also sometimes uses Ambition-related handles, for free advertising, in online poker sites, skewing his results. Therefore, his finding of "two percent" should be taken with an extreme grain of salt-- likely, it's about a quarter of that.

Here is what we can objectively and surely say about Ambition and its notability:

It is played independently of Mike Church and his first- and second-degree associates.
It has been published in a Japanese magazine called Nikoli, and mentioned on both Japanese and English websites. Many of these mentions appear to be independent of any effort by Mike.

The "audience of 5000" test is often used as a notability threshold. According to my findings and K's models of the game's popularity, we can safely conclude that:

More than 5000 people have heard of Ambition. We can include, in this group, most of Carleton College, the 2000-student liberal arts college where Mike is a student. Ambition events have been heavily advertised on that campus, according to a student there.
Probably less than 5000 English-speakers regularly play Ambition. Japan is a wild card (I could not find much information on it) the strong gaming culture of Japan indicates probable popularity of the game, which has been discussed on websites independent of Nikoli.
Ambition will have more than 5000 English-speaking players at some point, according to K.'s models; the question is of when.

The questions that we must then ask are:

Does marginal notability, plus assured decisive notability in the future, make grounds for present inclusion?
If we're going to use an "audience of 5000"-type criterion, we've got to define "audience" in this case. Is someone who's heard about Ambition from Urbandictionary.com in the "audience"? What about the college students I surveyed who said, "I've never played it, but would like to learn"? By definition, they're not in the "Ambition-playing community", but if we counted all the people who've heard of Ambition and want to play it, we'd probably have 5000 scattered about the country.
Does Ambition's present notability, which at present is only marginal, and some of which is the result of Mike's own publicity efforts, justify inclusion of an article already involved in a controversy?

My belief, based on the evidence I have found, is that Ambition, in terms of strict notability, would deserve inclusion in Wikipedia.

Findings on practicality

Practical issues with the inclusion of an Ambition article, Ambition (card game), also exist. In May, Mike Church nominated Ambition (card game) for deletion, declaring an intent to leave Wikipedia, and the article was kept on notability grounds. In August, User:Isomorphic nominated it for deletion on practicality grounds, and it was deleted.

I could not survey the Wikipedia community on these matters without arousing suspicions as to my motives. I could not get a psychological profile on Mike.

I believe that practicality concerns arouse serious concerns about the inclusion of an article on Ambition. With what he views as a valuable repuation at stake, Mike's return (pseudonymous or in the clear) is likely. Furthermore, if his claims of "political attack" against him are accurate, this issue will also re-emerge. There is no evidence, either, that even Mike would desire an Ambition article in Wikipedia. He has not attempted to re-create one. Since neither he nor the Wikipedia community desires inclusion of the article at present, on wholly pragmatic grounds related to the controversy, why bother?

On practical grounds, I am very doubtful on including "Ambition" in Wikipedia.

Findings on quality

(All the statistical interpretations provided here are at the advice of another person, who I refer to, thoroughout, as "K.")

I have read the rules of Ambition, but have not played Ambition yet. From the text, I cannot get a good feel for the quality of the game. I would like to play it, in order to satisfy my curiosity, but I work 65 hours per week and card games are not big among most of my associates. Finding 30 people in the world who've played an obscure card game was tough enough; finding 3 in my city who want to learn has been impossible. Frankly, it would be interesting, but it's also not a big priority of mine.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I desired to investigate Ambition's repuation for "quality"; how good a game is it? The question's not really relevant to the inclusionary debate, per se. We would include a low-quality game if it were widespread or faddish, we would exclude an obscure work of unpublished genius.

The quality issue is, however, of interest because it dictates the probable future of Ambition's notability and cultural presence. Mike clearly shows a very high opinion of his creation, and if others share this high opinion, it's likely to develop a community. What I doubt (with K. concurring) is that it will occur on the optimistic time scale that Mike expects. Traditionally, the great card games took more than twenty years to catch on; the Internet may speed up this process, but it's not clear how much.

At K's advice, I asked people familiar with Ambition to rate it on the following scale:

0 represents the absolute worst game, ever.
2 represents a clearly-broken game.
3 represents a poor, unplayable game.
5 represents a game that one would play with friends, but not for its own sake.
7 represents a game that one would play enthusiastically.
8 represents a game that one would initiate, and even teach newcomers.
9 represents a game that one would willingly make moderate economic sacrifices (a weekend afternoon, $20-40/mo) to play.
10 represents a game that one believes should be canonized, like Go, Bridge, or Chess, as one of the "greats".
11 represents the absolute best game, ever.

K. argues that this is the best scale for charting not only a game's reputation but its likelihood of "catching on". If a lot of people like the game at a "7" level but no one likes it at the "8" level, it will never spread because people won't be willing to teach newcomers, though those same people might give it very high ratings on an more amorphous "10-point scale" to "be nice". If more than 30% of a game's players rate it at the "8" level, it's considered to be very good, at least among its core, and likely to spread.

The results (N = 25) were:

<3: 0

3: 2

4: 1

5: 2

6: 2

7: 3

8: 6

9: 4

10: 4

11: 1

Mean: 7.52

StdDev: 2.21

C-Mean: 8.75

Sat. Rate: 80%

The "C-Mean" is the "community mean" or "community opinion"; weighted according to the person's self-identification as an "expert" on the game (10), "frequent player" (5), "player" (3), "played once" (1), "played less than a full game" (0). People who left that item blank, and for whom it could not be inferred, were given a weight of 0.5. Only one person identified as an expert.

The "Sat. Rate" is simply the proportion of people who rate a game at 6 or higher, what proportion are "satisfied" with gameplay. These two indices measure markedly different things; the first measures how able a game is to attract "core" players who will analyze the game, form clubs, and be lifelong players, while the Sat. Rate measures how able it is to satisfy the majority of players in a social occasion.

In general, there is a tension between C-Mean and Sat Rate. Complicated, strategically-deep games rank higher on the former index but are weaker at the latter. For example, Chess and Go have C-Means well into the 8's, but Sat Rates around 60 to 75%.

Interpretation

An average C-Mean is not 5.5, since the C-Mean is loaded in the sense of "this restaurant is well-regarded by its frequent customers". People would not become frequent or expert players if they did not enjoy a game. Therefore, a C-Mean in the 6-range is mediocre, low-7 is respectable but unremarkable, and high-7 indicates a strong game. A C-Mean above 8 indicates that it is likely to show longevity (will be played for at least 20 years) and community (development of own subculture). Because of Ambition's obscurity and "cult" status, I would hesitate to read its C-Mean so optimistically, but 8.75 is a clear sign of strength. K. estimates that Ambition's C-Mean will drop by "a quarter of a point" if Ambition becomes better-known and is exposed to more people.

A broken game will usually have a Sat Rate below 50%; adequate games usually perform above that, "average" being in the low 60s but the standard of a truly good game is much higher. Sat Rate drops significantly as a game becomes better-known and is exposed to more players. K. estimates that Ambition's Sat Rate will drop to about 75-80% if it becomes better-known. This is unimpressive, since to be marketed as a "family" or "social" game, at least 85% (and preferably 90) is required.

Other questions asked during the informal survey indicated that Ambition was most popular among people who described themselves as "serious card players" and less popular among those who described themselves as "social players". Diversity of play also correlated positively with opinion of Ambition; the more card games a person had played, and played regularly, the higher likelihood there was of a high rating of Ambition.

According to K's interpretation, this should not be surprising: gamers with high "ludodiversity" tend to be more open to new and invented games than social players with low ludodiversity. Furthermore, high-ludodiversity gamers tend themselves to be hobby or professional designers and, therefore, more likely to align with Mike Church's theoretical and ideological approach to game design.

Ideology of Ambition

Ambition was designed in accordance with an idiosyncratic game-design ideology. The inventor sought to develop a trick-taking game wherein the role played by chance in the draw, or "hand-luck", was minimal. This was his primary design objective, and his motivation for the rules changes during 2004 and 2005. In private correspondence with the inventor, dated January 26, 2005:

To answer that, I would consider my game broken if hand-luck played a seriously decisive role. My research, and I'm writing an essay on the topic this Feb., indicates that a contrived, but reasonably possible, "terrible" hand only strikes [undesirable round outcome] about 40 percent of the time, about 10 over the baseline. That's not so much for a hand that's 2-3 standard deviations of bad. Among players of roughly equal, intermediate skill, hand-luck contributes a standard dev. of about 5-7 points per game for each player, and game-end scores are usually around 70-150, so that's not much.

To get the game this way, you've got to understand that I had to fine-tune it just right. I had to balance all the strategies and objectives, and it wasn't easy. I had to make every card add something to the game, every hand have at least one working strategy, preferably several. So when people complain that the game's "complicated", I say of course but in my opinion, it's pretty simple for the gameplay I've been able to get out of it. Most people I've played with agree.

Criticisms of Ambition

Because it was rated poorly (5 or lower) by five individuals, I desired their qualitative comments (in fact, I asked all respondents for their criticisms of the game). K. advised me to do this. A game might receive high ratings early in its existence, yet be broken in a way that only a minority contingent detect, at that early stage. If this occurs, it will exhibit optimistic early results, then tank as people discover that it is broken.

The most common criticism was that the game was "too complicated". Even people who rated the game highly agreed that Ambition was more complicated than other trick-taking games, with a lot of rules, exceptions, and bonuses to remember. A Usenet poster from May 2004 described it as "fairly intense and strategically non-trivial" [1] and advised against using the game for purely social occasions.

Some Ambition players have also criticized Mike for not providing regular updates on rules changes, leaving different versions around the Internet: Official Rules as listed at Pagat.com are dated March 23, 2004, yet recent Usenet postings indicate that he has made substantial changes since then. Mike runs a blog for Ambition, listed below in the "External links" section.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that Wikipedia should not include an article on this card game. While it enjoys a strong reputation among its "play community", that community is small and the game itself is relatively obscure. It borderline-passes the inclusion criteria according to notability, but logistic problems with the previous article represent cause not to include it.

Standard policy is that a deletion vote holds for 6 months. If Ambition (card game) was deleted in August on practical and administrative matters, and there is no evidence to indicate that those have changed, then an article should not be included until the end of February 2005. I propose, further, that pending any further increase in Ambition's notability, the practical matters represent cause not to include Ambition (card game) even further, perhaps until August 2005, which would be one year after the last deletion vote.

External links

Pagat.com's entry on Ambition - May 23, 2005.
Ambition blog, run by Mike Church - Updated frequently, contains most current rules.
Funny Usenet item - January 27-30, 2005. Started out as a troll posting on Usenet, and using this page (which I consider neutral) to bash Ambition. The game was defended by several. One contributor today wrote a long, involved history of the Ambition controversy in the context of the larger American "culture war". I'm not sure I buy the argument, but it's a compelling read.
BoardGameGeek: Ambition (2003) - BoardGameGeek entry on Ambition.