Game Analytics – A Tale of Different Faces

We’ve all played games before, at least, in the broadest definition of the word. We all know how satisfying it can be to just get that ball in the net or to struggle through tasks that keep increasing in complexity and push you to the victorious end.

That glorious rush of dopamine!

Dominating opponents is an embodied ancestor that we must always appease. We, humans, are still who we are. Primal!

Our focus here is on digital games and the technology that goes into developing and maintaining them. For a very long time, game developers had to leave a lot to chance when building games, tedious as the process was.

Not anymore though. Technology has caught up with the game development process, and the concept of game analytics is now well-established.

In the most basic term, game analytics involves studying games to discover how people interact with them. More recently, sophisticated game analytics software like Unity Analytics has been developed for this process.

Game analytics has become widely established to great benefits, but as with any new technology, a number of other effects have come out of the technology which may not have been what it was originally intended for.

This article highlights a number of stories that show the different facets of game analytics that may be good or not so great.

Facets of Game Analytics

A. On the Good Side

1. Game analytics for gameplay enhancement:

This is probably the number one application of game analytics. In my previous article, I highlighted a number of cases where unity game analytics was applied in the development and improvement of games that came to be successful.

Game developers may apply analytics to make discoveries before even selecting a game to be developed, or they could apply it to improve certain parts of a game that has already been released to the public. Two popular games where game analytics was applied in their development to great success are discussed below.

The Salvation of Candy Crush:

Candy Crush is a very popular game released by King Studios in the early 2010s. The game managed to become a worldwide phenomenon and a lot of analysis has been done on the psychological impacts of the game, with several reviewers even warning of how addictive the game could be.

Game analytics played a huge role in the success of Candy Crush.

Built with Unity, the game makes great use of the engine’s LiveOps monitoring system to give a lot of feedback of player engagement with the game which helped the developers continuously tweak the gameplay to meet the requirements of the players and keep them hooked.

One particular incident was recorded in the early days of the game’s release that almost destroyed the game, but game analytics helped to avert such an occurrence. Players were discovered to be quitting the game en mass at level 65, even though the game had a total of 725 levels.

From an analysis of user data, however, it was discovered that that level has a particularly difficult task that most people failed to complete. Hence, after failing the task repeatedly, people just gave up on the game at that level. This spelled doom for the game.

Hence, the developers quickly went to work and made the task easier to complete. People stopped running from the game, and it came to be as successful as it is.

The iterative design of Monument Valley:

Monument Valley is a visually enchanting puzzle game that challenges players to guide a silent princess through surreal architectural landscapes and mind-bending gameplay. The creators of Monument Valley used Unity analytics to analyze player behavior and understand how players interacted with their intricately designed levels.

This data-driven approach allowed them to refine the level design, leading to a more intuitive and enjoyable gameplay experience.

About the design process, Ustwo Games lead developer, Peter Pashley, had this to say;

“As a UI/UX studio, we have very high standards for the user experience, which rubs off on the games team in a few ways. We obviously have a very high quality bar when it comes to artwork and visual design, but also we spend a lot of time user testing, observing novice players and making sure we see things through their eyes.”

2. Game analytics for sales improvement: It is only logical to infer that a game with well-adjusted gameplay from game analytics is likely to record impressive sales. And this is also the case in reality. But game analytics can also be directly applied to sales.

A prototype of a game can be released to the public and player feedback can be gotten and analyzed to predict how successful the main game could be even before it is released. One particular case where game analytics was focused directly on game sales is with Oxenfree, a game built with the Unity engine and released by night school studios in 2016.

Oxenfree was renowned for its branching narrative and dynamic dialogue. Initially marketed with a mysterious allure, the approach limited adoption. After analyzing feedback data, however, the studio shifted to a clear, explicit marketing strategy, significantly boosting sales.

This transition underscored the importance of game analytics beyond development, to influencing marketing decisions.

Game analytics for scientific research and cognitive development:

You probably remember your parents asking you to put down your game and read your science books from school. Or maybe your parents were the very strict ones who even went as far as saying that you were just wasting your time with games and that you’ll gain no benefits from them.

Well, it turns out they weren’t so correct after all.

Science and games may not be the first two things you expect to work together – you know, given how serious the former sounds and the fact that the latter basically an all-ages-play-ground – but recently, a number of games/game-like software have been developed for scientific research. Some of these are discussed below.

Sea Hero Quest for Alzheimer's Research:

Sea Hero Quest is an award-winning citizen science initiative led by Deutsche Telekom, alongside partners GLITCHERS, UCL, UEA, and Alzheimer's Research UK, aimed to explore human navigational abilities across life stages.

Through a mobile and VR game, it’s available to a diverse global player base and serves as a pioneer in cognitive scientific research with large-scale participation.

Sea Hero Quest contributes to research on dementia as the player’s navigation of the game helps researchers to understand the mental process of 3D navigation. This is one of the first skills lost in dementia. Over 2.5 million people have played the game globally.

Minecraft for cognitive, social, physical, and academic development:

Minecraft is a very popular video game released by Mojang Studio in 2019 which offers an open-world platform for players to explore, create, and interact with a vast virtual world. Players can gather resources, build structures, and craft tools/weapons in Minecraft.

Also, the game can be played n survival mode, where players have to gather resources and repel enemies, or creative mode, where players have unlimited resources to build freely.

Beyond the fun, however, Minecraft has been found to offer numerous benefits for players of all ages. The game enhances problem-solving and critical thinking skills, improves creativity, and develops spatial reasoning, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills.

B. The Not-So-Great Side

Game analytics for spying on players:

It is a popular saying that whatever has an advantage also has a disadvantage. This applies to game analytics too.

Unfortunately, the very same player data that allows developers to discover and fix gameplay difficulties for players can also be used negatively to figure out users’ characteristics and preferences which could be sold to companies for ads, exploited by hackers, or used by security agencies for profiling.

Some games that have been exploited for player data are discussed below.

NSA spies on World of Warcraft and other games:

You may have heard of the former NSA employee Edward Snowden who leaked some classified NSA documents in 2013 that exposed the intelligence agency for spying on the public. Well, a big part of the spying took place on very popular games like World of Warcraft, Second Life, and even the Microsoft Xbox platform.

In fact, officials in those companies were alleged to have been on board with the spying program. NSA agents participated in the gameplay and also accessed player data to track terrorists that may have been using the game. This breached the privacy of players.

Hackers sell stolen user data from Razer Gaming:

Razer gaming was breached by hackers, and users’ rewards wallet data were stolen. Addresses were allegedly linked to an in-game economy for user rewards, and a folder zVault containing keys controlling access to these rewards was stolen. This stolen data was sold on an online marketplace for $100,000 in crypto.

Conclusion

Game analytics has come to be an integral part of game development which could either make or mar a game. Hence, it is imperative to use the appropriate game analytics tool which will not only boost performance and sales but also ensure the security of player data at a reasonable cost.

With its anonymized data format, hacker/troll identification, side-by-side competitor comparison, and affordability, Mikros by Tatum Games is an exceptional game analytics tool that can deliver these requirements.