Edit 2: My own thoughts: in light of additional conversation, it doesn't seem likely that the numbers provided add up. The original statistic that Logfish advocates requires the average match to last 56 seconds. That itself is only possible if each individual breakout round counted as a match, and even then, that's hard to believe given that even breakout rounds last longer than a solitary minute. Additionally, Slayer and Strongholds each lasted for several minutes, and Slayer was the only game available for awhile, so the idea that the average match time was 56 seconds is rather ludicrous. Additionally, the average playtime of 2.5 hours is also ludicrous if even at face value, as that would require thousands of players out of 1million to have logged on and practically logged off immediately.That is not adequate time for the individual to properly play the game and conclude they don't like it, which means the issue lies with the community rather than the actual game. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the numbers are wrong--personally, it seems likely the 1million player statistic is wrong as that was provided by IGN and not 343i, and IGN did not cite it. Otherwise, someone screwed up. Edit: Caboose edited his OP and has retracted his original statement. He is of the opinion, last I checked, that the stats 343i released were either incorrect, or each individual Breakout round was counted as a match. That doesn't make sense to me, but until we get an official confirmation from 343i's Josh Holmes, it appears as though the original statistic was correct. Will leave the original post as Caboose did for reference. [quote]Dunno if anyone posted this yet, so here it is. There was a huge thread a few days ago that claimed Halo 5's beta performed poorly compared to Halo 3's and this was proof that Halo 5 failed as a Halo game https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/forums/6e35355aecdf4fd0acdaee3cc4156fd4/topics/h5beta-vs-h3beta-halo-fans-do-want-to-play-h5/c3368688-aed2-4611-bd02-d348dfd20186/posts This user, I Iz Caboose, mathematically compares the Halo 3 and Halo 5 betas and confirms that the Halo 5 beta is, in fact, something people wanted to play; it [i]beat[/i] Halo 3's beta. [quote] So in this popular thread, the OP links to an image describing the per player differences in total hours played between the H3 and H5 betas. The OP kindly also provided the links to his source information in the image (for which I thank him). Unfortunately, based on the source information provided, the OP's comparison is incorrect. Per the H5 Beta data source, there were 20M matches played for a total of 2.5M gameplay hours. The OP took this number to mean hours played by player. That assumption is wrong. If there were 20M matches and the 2.5M hours meant by player, then we can calculate the average match duration: {2.5M hrs / (8 players per match * 20M matches)} * (3600 seconds / hr) = 56 seconds per match (average) The average match length for the H5 beta was certainly not only 56 seconds. So we know now that the H5 data cannot possibly mean hours by player. If, however, we assume the 2.5M hours is not by player, but rather by match, we get a much more sensible answer: {(2.5M hrs) / (20M matches)} * (60 min / hr) = 7.5 minutes per match (average) So it is quite clear that the H5 Beta data is based on hours by match - not hours by player. Looking at his provided link for the H3 Beta data source, we find Major Nelson giving 820K unique players and 12M hours of total playtime. Major Nelson further goes on to say that this is equivalent to a single player logging 1,400 continuous years of playtime. So does Major Nelson mean 12M hours by match (like H5) or 12M hours by player? We can easily find out. Let's find out what 1,400 continuous years of playtime comes out to in terms of hours by player: 1,400 yrs * (365 days / year) * (24 hrs / day) = 12.26M hours Major Nelson does, indeed, mean hours by player. This is also consistent with his statistic for downloaded data, which was a total cumulative by player statistic. Thus, in order to compare the H5 and H3 betas, we must either convert the H3 numbers into hours by match or convert the H5 numbers into hours by player. Let's do that and see where we come out: Using H5 "hours by match" statistics: H5 Guardians: 1M players with 2.5M total match hours H3 Beta: 0.82M players with 1.5M total match hours - or - Using H3 "hours by player" statistics: H5 Guardians: 1M players with an average of 20.0 hrs played per player H3 Beta: 0.82M players with an average of 14.6 hrs played per player In other words, the two betas had comparable statistics for matches and total hours played on a per-player basis, with the H5 beta actually beating H3 in both categories. Wild theorizing about why the H5 beta had so much less replay value need no longer apply. One question remains: Will the OP of the other thread generate and post a corrected infographic? [/quote] He later clarifies what this means [quote] If the 2.5M hours are by player (so that a match of 10 minutes with 8 players accumulates 10 * 8 = 80 minutes of total playtime) then you have to divide that 2.5M hours by the number of players in the match to get the match length. If the 2.5M hours are by match (so that a match of 10 minutes accumulates 10 minutes of total playtime regardless of the number of players in the match), then you do not include the number of players in the divisor. [/quote][/quote]