Anyone else end up in code or spreadsheets because of a game?

[MarcusWebb47]

Been reading the Saturn and Dreamcast guides here for ages, finally made an account.

Slightly random one, but I figure that's what the off-topic board is for. This spring I built a small tennis prediction algorithm in Python as a hobby project. Plain Elo ratings at the core (same family of math as chess ratings), fed with ATP and WTA results, plus separate ratings per surface (clay, hard, grass) and a small adjustment for rest days and travel between tournaments. It barely edges the bookies' closing line, which I'm told is respectable for a hobbyist. Game totals (over/unders) look like the softest spot so far.

The silly part is where the interest came from: I sank stupid hours into Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast back in the day, and years later got curious how real matchups would actually play out across different surfaces. One CSV of match results later and the rabbit hole opened.

So, anyone else here ended up coding or deep in spreadsheets because of a game? High score tracking, randomizer seed stats, frame data tables, collection databases, whatever counts. Curious what people built.

[marurun]

I feel like this is the sort of thing the speedrun community might do to track different routing options and such. I could see a Google sheet for that where people put in data as they find it.