: Uh, just to expand a little more: if people who had achieved 50 kept playing
: and DIDN'T drop out, that proportion of players wouldn't be able to reach
: 50 - they would lose enough to keep them at 49. But since (some) of the
: better players stopped playing, 49ers would eventually beat enough other
: 49s to get to 50 themselves.

: Bleed out.

I'm wondering how much one month and 24-48 hour accounts skew some of the stats, especially in the area of 2009-2010 before Reach. Granted, this was GDC 2008, and I wonder how much these numbers may have changed considering this was all looked at within a year of the game's launch. But back to one months and such, people making those accounts just to see how quickly they could get 50s, and how many 50s they could get to try and sell to people must have had some effect, too. The bleed out still would appear to apply regardless, but I wonder if the inflation of 50s that mostly just sit around and never decline due to sooooo many secondary/third/etc accounts is statistically significant.

The other question I wonder about is the significance of the 50. Some people would get the 50 and keep playing even if they lost it because they already had their General showing up. That can't be lost or taken away. Also does it take into consideration how many 50s they got? Did they keep grinding away at other playlists and eventually max out somewhere else? Maybe I'm super awesome at Slayer but absolutely terrible at Snipers, you know? 50 in one, maybe 20 in the other, hypothetically. I wish I had more detail with this stuff, but I'm really enjoying it.