Age Distribution of the Top 100 Super Smash Bros. Melee Players (2019)

ssbm.R

##########################################################
# Get Ages of Top 100 Super Smash Brothers Melee Players #
##########################################################

# Tutorial ----------------------------------------------------------------

# https://www.r-bloggers.com/2020/05/intro-to-polite-web-scraping-of-soccer-data-with-r/

# Library -----------------------------------------------------------------

library(tidyverse)
library(rvest)
library(httr)
library(polite)
library(lubridate)
library(ggdark)
library(showtext)

# Fonts --------------------------------------------------------------------

font_add_google("Archivo Black", "archivo+black")
font_add_google("Rozha One", "rozha+one")

# Create Data -------------------------------------------------------------

url <- "https://liquipedia.net/smash/SSBMRank"
url_bow <- polite::bow(url)
  
ssbm_html <-
  polite::scrape(url_bow) %>% 
  rvest::html_nodes("table.wikitable") %>% 
  rvest::html_table(fill = TRUE) 

ssbm_tab <-
  ssbm_html %>% 
  .[[12]] %>% 
  janitor::row_to_names(1) %>% 
  janitor::clean_names() %>% 
  mutate(urls = paste0("https://liquipedia.net/smash/", player))

# Scrape Website ----------------------------------------------------------

age_get <- function(session) {
  
  polite::scrape(session) %>%
  html_nodes("[itemprop = 'birthDate']") %>%
  html_text()
  
}

name_get <- function(session) {
  
  polite::scrape(session) %>%
    html_nodes("[itemprop = 'name']") %>%
    html_text()
  
}

ages_get <- function(link, player) {
 
  player <- rlang::enquo(player)
  ## `bow()` for every URL link
  session <- bow(link)
  
  ## scrape different stats
  player_age <- age_get(session = session)
  player_name <- name_get(session = session)
  
  ## combine stats into a data frame
  results <- list(player_name, player_age)
  col_names <- c("name", "age") 
  
  player_info <- 
    results %>% 
    reduce(cbind) %>% 
    as_tibble() %>% 
    set_names(col_names) %>% 
    mutate(player = !!player)
  
  return(player_info)
   
}

safe_ages_get <- safely(ages_get)

ssbm_ages_all <- 
  map2(.x = ssbm_tab$urls, 
       .y = ssbm_tab$player,
       ~ safe_ages_get(link = .x, 
                       player = .y)) %>% 
  map("result") %>% 
  bind_rows()

# Calculate Ages ----------------------------------------------------------

ssbm_ages_pull <-
  ssbm_ages_all %>% 
  mutate(dob = case_when(player == "Ka-Master" ~ as_date("1991-04-11"), # from https://www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Ka-Master
                         TRUE ~ as_date(str_extract(age, "(?<=\\().*?(?=\\))"))),
         years_old = (unclass(today()) - unclass(dob)) / 365.25)

mean(ssbm_ages_pull$years_old)
median(ssbm_ages_pull$years_old)

# Create Plot -------------------------------------------------------------

showtext_auto()
quartz()

ssbm_ages_pull %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = years_old)) +
  geom_histogram(binwidth = 2,
                 color = "black",
                 fill = "#fc4843") +
  dark_theme_minimal(base_family = "archivo+black") +
  annotate(geom = "text", 
           x = 28.5, 
           y = 12.1, 
           size = 3,
           family = "archivo+black",
           label = "Average: 27.9", 
           hjust = "left",
           lineheight = 0.9,
           color = "white") +
  geom_vline(xintercept = mean(ssbm_ages_pull$years_old),
             linetype="dotted") +
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = seq(19, 36, by = 2)) +
  scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0, 13),
                     breaks = seq(0, 13, by = 2)) +
  labs(title = "Age Distribution of the\nTop 100 Super Smash Bros. Melee Players (2019)",
       x = "Age",
       y = "Count of Players",
       caption = "Source: Liquipedia") +
  theme(plot.title = element_text(color = "white", 
                                  family = "rozha+one",
                                  size = 16,
                                  hjust = 0.5),
        plot.caption = element_text(color = "white",
                                     family = "archivo+black",
                                     size = 8))

ggsave(here::here("ssbm.png"), dpi = "retina", width = 6, height = 4, units = "in")