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Game Analytics. Interactive Digital Entertainment. Digital storytelling, online behavior. Persuasion, value, learning. User behavior, data mining. Development, game economics . Communication in games. Play experience, design. Personal background. MSc. In Natural Sciences - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Game Analytics
User
INTERACTIVE DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT
Development, game economics
Persuasion, value, learning
Communication in games
Play experience, design
User behavior,data mining
Digital storytelling, online behavior
Personal background MSc. In Natural Sciences
Large-scale trends and evolutions in time/space, Geographic Information Systems
PhD in Computer Science Empirical evaluation of games, HCI, user testing, game telemetry
Post doc. At the Center for Computer Games Research, IT University Copenhagen Play experience, biometrics, game data mining, game development
RA/project lead, Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business School Game piracy, behavioral economics, co-creation – more game telemetry
data mining
Assistant Prof., Department of Communication, Aalborg University Yet more game data mining, more game development, more innovation
Co-Founder & Lead Game Analyst, GameAnalytics Tools and consulting on application of game telemetry to development
Research breakdown
90% applied research
10% theory (play experience, play personas)
Collaboration with industry – real needs
Collaboration with international colleagues 1 single-authored publication ...
Game user research
Game User Research
Focus: How users interact with IDE applications and each other + the business side
Game User Research – answering e.g.: Who are the users of interactive digital
entertainment products? What do they do and where, with whom and
why? How do we develop products for different users?
Game User Research
Multi-disciplinary ”field” Researchers from CS, HCI, communication,
design, media, psychology, AI, art, economics, development ...
Emergent field – lack of established theory
Exponential growth in research publications
Backed by a growing industry where users are central
Game User Research
Four main lines of investigation in GUR:
Usability: Can the user operate the controls?
Playability: Is the user having a good experience?
Behavior: What is the user doing while playing?
Development: Integrating GUR in business practices
Game User Research
Why interesting? New field of research Emerging methodologies + theories Plenty of tough problems
Collaboration Broad relevance Multi-disciplinary
Affects millions of people Industry interest Latest technologies
New field
Multi-disciplinary
Impact
User
INTERACTIVE DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT
Development, game economics
Persuasion, value, learning
Communication in games
Play experience, design
User behavior,data mining
Digital storytelling, online behavior
Understanding games and playersImproving development & testing
User behavior
Patterns in play behavior
Play personas
Spatial user behavior
Behavior correlations with PX/PsyPys/design
Game metrics
What are game metrics?
Metrics = Business Intelligence [BI]
BI is derived from computer-based methods for identifying, extracting and analyzing business data for strategic or operational purposes Across market-, geographic- and temporal
distance
Supports decision making (Decision Support Systems)
What are game metrics?
Quantitative measures about any aspect of games Players: gameplay, customers, monetization, Production: team size, pipeline, milestones,
markets Technical performance: servers, infrastructure
Any other relevant quantitative measure
(e.g. management)
Analysis of game metrics = game analytics
[No accepted definition (working on a standard)]
What are game metrics?
Metrics are measures, e.g.: Average playtime per player Number of ”Swords of Mayhem +5” sold Daily Active Users
% server uptime/stability Avg. network latency
Bugs reported/bugs resolved /day Customer support call avg. length
Players
Performance
Process
Players
Players
Performance
Process
Process
Why game metrics analysis? Big data: populations not samples
Understanding all players Research/development out of the lab and into
the real world
Big depth: Detailed recording of all aspects of play Includes communication, navigation, cross-
games ... Combining GUR data sources for in-depth
research
Challenges
Behavioral telemetry inform what players are doing, only by inference why
Finding the right features to track is not obvious
Managing the allure of numbers
Game Data Mining
Game data mining
Game data mining = data mining of game metrics
Gartner Group: “the process of discovering meaningful new correlations, patterns and trends by sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories, using pattern recognition technologies as well as statistical and mathematical techniques”
Game Data Mining: approachesCommon approaches in game data
mining:
Description Characterization
DiscriminationClassificationEstimationPredictionClusteringAssociation
Description
Simple description of patterns in data
Accomplished using Explorative Data Analysis
Example: how rapidly does the ”warrior” class advance through levels?
Answers many questions from designers and producers
Description
Drill down/across
Prediction Using a large number of known values to predict
possible future values
How many players will an MMORPG have in 3 months?
When will a F2P break the 1 million player threshold?
When will people stop playing?
One of the most widely used data mining methods in game analytics Persistent world games MMOs F2P
Clustering
Orders data into classes, but the class labels are unknown (unsupervised)
Groups formed according to internal similarity vs. across-group dissimilarity
Subjective element
Problems applying algorithms to game metrics
Player Behavior in Tomb Raider: Underworld
w/ Alessandro Canossa, Georgios Yannakakis, Julian Togelius, Hector
Perez, Tobias Mahlman
Behavior in TRU
Goal: Using gameplay (behavior) metrics to classify the behavior of users
Uses:
1. Comparing behavior with design intent2. Optimization of game design 3. Debugging of playing experience 4. Adaptation: Real-time dynamic adaptation to
player type
Behavior in TRU
Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008) AAA-level commercial title Data from 1.5 million users via Square
Enix Hundreds of variables
Metrics should fit purpose Selected variables fitting key game
mechanics Jumping, completion time, causes of
death …
Behavior in TRUAnalysis:
Clustering algorithms (PCA, k-means) Self-Organizing Map (unsupervised)
Revealed a 4 distinct behaviors (94% users)
Players use the entire design space
Behaviors translated into design terms
Behavior in TRU 8.68% (Veterans): Very few death events
(environment). Fast completion times. Generally perform very well in the game.
22.12% (Solvers): Die rarely, very rarely use
the help system. Slow completion. Slow pace of play.
46.18% (Pacifists): Largest group of players, dies from enemies. Fast completion time, minimal help requests. Good navigation skills, not experienced with FPS-elements in TRU.
16.56% (Runners): Die often (enemies, environment), uses the help system, very fast completion time
Behavior in TRU
Towards big data:1st study: 1365 players2nd study: 30,000 players3rd study: 203,000 players4th study (in prep): 1.6 million
players5th study (in prep): across
games
From dozens to hundreds of variables
Behavior in TRU
Can we predict when people stop playing?
Use: uncovering design problems; engagement
Approach TRU: 7 levels + prologue 10,000 randomly selected players 7 groups of metrics (400+ variables) Training data: lvl 1
Simple logistic regression best fit: 77.3% (base: 39)
Behavior in TRU Decision trees (prediction)
Use: predicting player behavior; transparent models – ideal for communicating across stakeholders
Level-2 rewards Rewards > 10 ▪ Level-3 playtime▪ -> playtime > 43 minutes : 4 ▪ -> playtime < 43 minutes : 7
Rewards < 10 : 2
Lvl 2 rewards and playtime lvl 3 predictors of quitting
Fun Facts aboutCharacter Names
w/ Christian Thurau
Do paladins always have names like ”Healbot”?
Do Warlocks always have names like ”Ûberslayer?”
Are mages always called ”Gandalf”?
Are there any kind of ?
Character names
Character names7,938,335 WOW characters (5 years
logging)
Name, Race, Class, Playtime, Guild, Server Type, Domain, etc. ...
Some findings
3,803,819
unique names(a surprising lot)
More diverse than real-world names - despite naming constrictions
Looks like naming is important to players – only unique feature you have
RP-characters most diverse (83% unique – rest ~58%)
Any relationships between name and game features?
Class
Any relationships between name and game features?
Race
Races
”Pretty” ”Bestial”
2D-isomap projection (dimensionality reduction technique) ”pretty” races named differently than
”bestial” races Not due to differences in m/f character
ratios
Gnomes and dwarfs named as ”bestial” races?
==
RP vs. PvP/PvE servers
Names on US servers different from EU servers
Except for RP realms (larger overlap btw. EU/US)
Can we predict names?
What is the chance that ”Gimli” will be a dwarf?
Estimated conditional propabilities of a given class/race/server type given a particular character name
Class and Race best predictors, but server type and faction also hints at naming decisions
Some names are very good predictors, others are not -> so yes, Gimli will likely be a dwarf
Sources of inspiration
Sources of inspiration
1000 most common names
128,058
(not a lot, but still 100* bigger than any other study)
38 coding categories foundSome names multiple categories/hard to classify (e.g. ”Raziel”)
Sources of inspiration Regular vanilla real-world names most
common (Sara, Mia, etc.) [186]
Mythology – notably Greek [164] Anubis, Odin, Ares, Loki, Nemesis
Popular culture – games, cartoons, film ... [174] Naruto, Sakura, Tidus, Valeria, Revan, Zelda
Fantasy literature (Tolkien rules supreme) [39] Earendil, Sonea, Morgoth, Aragorn
A lot of names in breach of ToU
Sources of inspiration
697 of 1000 names categorizedRest: Nouns, verbs of unspecified
nature
Semantic nature to categorize:
”Negative”: Nightmare, Sin, Fear, Requiem
”Positive”: Hope, Love, Pure ”Neutral”: Who, Moonlight, Magic, Snow
Sources of inspiration
Names with negative semantic meaning 6 times more common than positive semantic
Are gamers depressed?
Or do ”dark” names just sound cooler?
Perspectives
Lots of ”why”´s unanswered:
Why are certain names more popular than others?
Why do the Mage class exhibit a greater variety of names than other classes?
Why do some players pick names of characters from the same game they are playing?
Need to talk to the players ...
Future
Future
Demand in the IDE industry Unique openness to research-
industry collaboration
Attractive research challenges Complex, mixed-methods, multi-
disciplinary, big data
Future Better methods and algorithms (all forms of
metrics)
Correlating behavior, PX and design Spatial game analytics
User profiling: behavior, personality, motivations ...
Decoding and predicting behavior
Maturing development practices (from joint warehousing to GUR)
”Guerrilla metrics”-methods
Playtime and power laws w/Fraunhofer IAIS
6+ games 5+ game ”types”
Same patterns? 90%+ prediction
Power law: When the frequency of an event varies as a power of
some attribute of that event (session length)
Does all playtime behavior follow a power law?
Thank you
Want to know more? Blog.gameanalytics.com
andersdrachen.wordpress.com [slide deck available here]
IGDA GUR SIG – LinkedIn group, 350+ members
The GUR SIG Mendeley Library – mixed industry/research
GDC archives – industry SOTA
Research publications – ACM, IEEE, Springer digital libraries + new book on game telemetry out 2012
Recommended