The Importance of Game Analytics!

What is Game Analytics?

Since games are made with a purpose of serving people with entertainment, it is important to keep in mind that user experience is one of the factors which could define the success of any game. 

Game Analytics is a method in which the data collected from various gamers are used to improve the game which would result in retaining the existing gamers thus improving the longevity of the game.

To put it simply, it is a way of understanding the behavior of gamers with the help of Analytics.

Those data could be anything which is related to the activities being carried out by the players for the entire time they spend during the course of a gameplay.

These data which are used for analytics are called “Metrics”

Evolution of Game Analytics

However, Game Analytics is not a new thing. You can date it back to 1999 when you talk about the first game which got benefitted with the help of Analytics – EverQuest. However, the method used was a bit different.

They used to store data in the form of Log files locally to analyze the user’s behavior. Initially games like EverQuest used this type of recorded data to track player’s behavior. Since then, the landscape of the Game Analytics kept changing completely.

Since 2009, it started gaining more importance among the gaming studios. It became so inevitable that it made Georg Zoeller of Bioware build a system for collecting the metrics during development itself.

Shortly after that studios like EA, Ubisoft, Activision etc.., have actively started collecting Game Metrics.

Why Game Analytics?

As the need for improvement grows, Game Analytics plays a clinical role in letting the designer know what area needs to be improved.

Since the games are only going to get bigger and better, it is important to keep improving your game to retain the gamers & compete at a higher level in the gaming industry for a long time.

Even though the revenue and gameplay experience plays as a critical success factor, analytics serves as a key accelerator to stay long standing in this competitive gaming world.

How to use Game Analytics?

It is quite simple. You develop a game and players will play your game. The player’s behaviors are monitored and collected in the form of metrics so that you can analyze the data and find out what your players feel about your game.

Based on the opinion you get out of the analysis, you would make changes to your game. Collection of data and analytics of data are two different processes.

The below flow could explain how this works,

Now, getting these metrics might sound like something which would take a herculean effort.

Thankfully, it’s not the case these days. There are quite a good number of open source analytics services which would help you in gathering these metrics.

These open source analytics services will help you gather the data with a simple integration of the Game and the Service through API.

Game Analytics using Metrics

Since the metrics could be anything, it is important to prioritize the metrics. For example, if you need to improve revenue you need to prioritize the metrics which could improve the game. Some basic metrics are,

• Time spent during a single session of Gameplay
• Time taken for players to complete levels
• Wins and Losses of players
• Number of Active users per day
• Average revenue per Active user

These are some of the common metrics which needs to be tracked to figure out if the game is going well with the players.

These metrics are common across platforms such as Playstation, Xbox, iOS, Android etc..,

How Game Analytics helps in Maximizing Revenue

With any analytics dashboard, you may find yourself becoming besieged with vital information. Prioritizing the metrics is the key to improve revenue.

Metric tends to change over the time. It is important to keep the game updated with necessary improvements through which the game could be expected to fetch remarkable success thus resulting in maximum revenue.