The most popular list is also rather screwed sometimes.. I know that some of the top 10's don't get on there even though they ought to.

To get the real most popular list you have to select all community games and then sort them by popularity. That list shows lifetime downloads (not purchases) of all games.

The other one normally matches the major nelson top10 so its more interesting.. But as I said its not always correct.

Not normally, it always matches the top 10. And that's why it's pretty much useless because it's not the list of currently popular games but the list of last weeks most popular games. I hope they will change it to reflect in realtime which games are currently selling best.

Pandapadawan:

To get the real most popular list you have to select all community games and then sort them by popularity. That list shows lifetime downloads (not purchases) of all games.

Ah, so that's what this list is!  Are you positive it's based on lifetime downloads (trials)?

Every new game starts at the bottom of that list. And since there are games in the top 10 that have never been in the sales top 10 I think it's a safe assumption.

Pandapadawan:

Every new game starts at the bottom of that list.

That's not true. I watched plenty of games start on that list higher than Bloc. The "most popular" algorithm, from my observations over the last month or so, is some sort of combination of sales+downloads (including trials)+release date. I'm guessing that they used the same system from XBLA where the can really spur more sales of new games by calling them more popular because they are recent, but unfortunately I feel that model is not only not fitting to community games, but is actually detrimental.

I haven't seen a single game not start at the bottom since I first checked that page 2 weeks ago.

Pandapadawan:

I haven't seen a single game not start at the bottom since I first checked that page 2 weeks ago.

Perhaps they fixed that, then. I was watching it back in November around launch and the couple of weeks after and saw a number of games start higher than mine was. I haven't watched it in the last couple of weeks so maybe that problem has been fixed.

I may be missing something here, but exactly what link is everyone discussing regarding lifetime popularity? Best I can find is this list but I don't believe it represents lifetime popularity.

It is the list when you sign on to your Xbox and go to all Community Games and then sort by popularity.

I think the closest list to lifetime popularity is on the Xbox 360 marketplace.

Off the top of my head, go into the market place.  Choose community game.  Choose browse all.  Then I think there is another option like show all or something like that.  Select the first option on the left column...the right column should show genres.  Then select the popularity tab.

Pandapadawan:

Every new game starts at the bottom of that list. And since there are games in the top 10 that have never been in the sales top 10 I think it's a safe assumption.

Well if you are right about every new game starting at the bottom, then you are probably right.  How do you know it's based on trial downloads instead of sales, though?

Matthew Doucette:

How do you know it's based on trial downloads instead of sales, though?

The ranking of A Kitchen Sink war might be a good indication :-)