The “Tableau” of PC gaming

OK, so admittedly this little viz isn’t really providing a significant data insight or discovery.  It’s really more about playing with shapes, storyboarding, and web linking in Tableau…something I don’t normally get a chance to do much of in my day job.  However, I do think an interesting parallel emerges in the story.

Note: please pardon the slow loads on some of the images

I chose the PC game Minecraft to be the focus of this viz-for-fun because I wanted something that was just a fun way to share what I do with my kids.  My three boys and I are big fans of this game and have been for years.  I think that’s partially because the possibilities are bound only by the imagination and so the game never seems old hat.  I’ve even used Minecraft redstone techniques to teach my kids about electronics and digital logic.  I’m regularly amazed at the creative genius that comes out of the Minecraft community.  It then occurred to me that this little sandbox PC game, with its humble beginnings, has a lot in common with Tableau:

• Uncontested market leaders
• Highly engaged global community of enthusiasts
• Creative awesomeness within the community

Software that inspires such creative magic is pretty rare, whether it’s a BI tool or a video game.  But I suspect some contributing factors are likely to be:

• Super intuitive interface that enables quick mastery of the fundamentals
• Highly accessible (both technically and financially)
• Flexible and scalable enough to enable doing things that even the developers never imagined
• Vibrant and generous community that keeps the magic fresh

Both Tableau and Minecraft nail all those factors and more in a big way making them industry leaders.  It takes some real gifted design and development teams to so precisely anticipate what their user base wants and then develop a product that meets or exceeds those wants with such accuracy and timeliness.

I found it fascinating that the popularity of Minecraft is entirely viral.  No marketing dollars were spent getting the word out on this game and the word "minecraft" has more Google searches than the Bible, Harry Pottter, and Justin Bieber according to this article in forbes.  Tableau, although it does have a significant marketing and sales budget I'm sure, has no doubt also benefited greatly from word-of-mouth and social media and has a pretty large hit number of it's own on Google (over 100 million hits!).

And here’s another notable similarity.  Many Tableau enthusiasts use the tool for a hobby as well as work, and many Minecraft hobbyists have made a lucrative living of the game as well (YouTube channels, etc). 

Lessons Learned:

1. Working with shapes can be kind of buggy in Tableau.  Reloading shapes after adding new ones can cause the images you've already assigned to change and you'll need to assign them again.  Best to get all your shapes in the folder first, then load them only once.
2. Large images are slooooooow to render from the Tableau public server.  You'll notice my dirt background is the last to load on each of the pages and it's only 246KB
3. Even though images and shapes can make for a fun viz, they can also take a long time to get just right. 

Are you a gamer?  What are your thoughts?