Player Count for worlds that appear in the Games category show inconsistent player counts
mahu
When a world appears in the Games category it sometimes shows the Public player count and sometimes shows the Total Public + Private player count.
The number that appears depends on where the value was last cached by the client:
- When a world is first loaded in most other categories, the Total Public + Private player count gets cached in the client as the displayed player count in world lists.
- However, the results that are first loaded into the Games category show just the Public player count.
Any previously cached player count is not invalidated, and the Total Public + Private count for some worlds is now displayed alongside just the Public count for other worlds in all the world lists.
This means that worlds that appear in the front page of the popular category often times get their Total Public + Private count cached before the user clicks on the Games tab. This leaves other worlds looking like they have nobody in them by comparison.
The end result is an even heavier bias that favors user attention towards the very most popular worlds when browsing the Games category, since the difference can be orders of magnitude.
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BoatFloater
I do think it's better to use the total (public+private) count for the games list instead of just public count. I understand the appeal of pushing games with public lobbies to the top but some game worlds are better enjoyed in a friends+ and people looking for that sort of experience still still look in the games tab. Discoverability of games with a much higher private than public count is not good.
mahu
Also, assuming this bug were fixed and the player count was correct, I think it's counter productive to show users a categorically lower number on one list than on other lists.
In every single other list in the world browser you see the total player count. You're conditioned to seeing 50 players in a world and knowing that means that far fewer players are in the public lobbies. Probably only 5 or so in publics.
Then you look at the Games list and see 50 players in a world. In reality, there are 50 players in public lobbies! The total number for that world is probably closer to 500. Had you been browsing another category, you would have seen a much higher number!