Monetizing Player Data using Game Analytics

Introduction

One of the primary objectives of game analytics is to improve revenue. In any analytics dashboard, we can get a considerably massive amount of player’s data. Prioritizing these metrics from the perception of improving revenue is important.

The following are some of the key metrics to track in order to increase your game’s earnings:

Increasing the DAU (Daily Active Users):

Any game would require a lot of players to even start earning revenue. Monitoring the number of users playing the game on a regular basis is the foremost thing.

If the number of active users are on the lower side, you would definitely want to improve the numbers.

Less active users indicates that the players do not find anything attractive to actively engage in the game on a regular basis.

Since this is one of the most important key performance indicators, improving this has to be the priority.

One of the ways to improve the number of active users is to reward them for daily & weekly logins.

Daily rewards & Weekly rewards would potentially make the players open the gameoften to check out the surprise your game brings in them.

These rewards could be in the form of surprise gifts, game coins & rare items which would unlock high level upgrades or unlock new playable areas in the game.

Improving Average Revenue per Daily Active User (ARPDAU):

Earning revenue through your daily active user is another important thing. Tracking this metric will help you know how much  your revenue is through your active users.

Over a certain period of time, tracking this metric will lead to important decision making such as updates, additional features, game events.

Another way to improve the revenue through active users is to offer them rare items for some actual money.

Rare items are those which would give users slightest edge over the other players who don’t spend real money for buying items.

Since active users are regularly playing the game and would want to be a dominant player in the game, they are more likely to buy these rare items.

Boosting Player Retention Rate & Reducing Churn:

Player Retention & Churn are exactly opposite to each other. One has to give attention to both metrics since one would automatically have an effect on the other metric.

Player retention is nothing but retaining your already existing players to actively engage with your game.

It is rather easier to make more revenue with your existing players than to look for a new player.

So it is necessary to check how the changes in your game affect the player’s retention rate.

Churn is simply the reverse of Retention. It is the rate at which the players stop playing the game.

This metric could also be considered as an indicator for a game’s success. If you lose more players, it would heavily dent the revenue model.

Monitoring Player Behavior:

Player Behavior is nothing but the actions being carried out by the players during the entire session of the gameplay.

It is important to track the time taken by players to complete a level, interest shown by them to check special rewards, making in-app purchases etc..,

You can also compare it with your personal expectation of how a player would engage and see the result for yourself.

This could prove to be a key in important changes in the game. For example if more players are clearing certain levels in the game, then it is likely that the players won’t find the game to be a challenging.

This could result in players losing interest in playing the game. Balancing the game difficulty could potentially improve their interest towards the game. It should neither be too easy nor too difficult.

Improving Player Lifetime Value:

This is one of the key but difficult metrics to track and improve. Lifetime value is determined by the revenue earned from each player.

This could give an overall idea about the return of investment for the developers. Players with more lifetime value need to be recognized and often rewarded in the game.

Determining the lifetime value would greatly help in optimizing the overall revenue of the game.