Understanding Game Analytics & Behavioral Clustering for Games

Game AnalyticsUnderstanding

What is analytics?

Analytics is the process of Business Intelligence

Analytics is the process of discovering and communicating patterns in data towards solving problems in business Supporting decision management Driving action Improving performance Research & Development - Or for purely frivolous and artistic reasons!

game analytics

Game analytics = subdomain of analytics: game development and game research

The game as a product: user experience, behavior, revenue, system …

The game as a project: the process of developing the game

Evidence-driven support for decision making

Levels of application

Strategic GA: The global view on how a game should evolve based on analysis of user behavior and the business model. Defining a monetization model, scoping DLC

Tactical GA: informs game design at the short-term, A/B test of a new game feature, prediction, profiling

Operational GA: Analysis and evaluation of the immediate, current situation in the game. Removing a bug, adapting game to user behavior in real-time,

reacting to cheating/piracy

Different types of data/metrics

User

Vastly most common data source!

User

User metrics Metrics related to the users, viewing them as either customers (revenue sources) or players (behaviors)

Metrics related to the game system interacting with players (e.g. AI director)

Metrics related to artificial agents behaving as players (bots, mobs, etc.)

3* goals with user analytics

ARPU, DAU, MAU -> customer focus -> revenue goal

Avg. Playtime, Completion Rate -> player focus -> user experience goal

Navigation, strategies, responses, agent behavior -> system focus -> game optimization

Game Analytics in practiceThe Knowledge Discovery Process in GA

Attribute definition

Data acquisition

Data pre-processing

Metrics developm

entAnalysis

and evaluation

Visualization

Reporting

Knowledge deployme

nt

GA Knowledge Discovery Cycle

Answering questions

Hypothesis testing

Confirming ideas/looking for confirmation

Example: classification

Problem: require existing knowledge/theory

Explorative analysis

We do not know what is going on/want to find out what is going on

Example: clustering

Problem: “feature creep” -> resource demanding

Answering questions

In practice often …

Mixture of explorative and hypothesis-driven (and highly iterative)

Also consider:

Descriptive stats enough? (KISS)Spatial – non-spatial solution?

Sampling or not?Static vs. dynamic deliverable?

Which behaviors to track?

Making decisions

Predefined metrics (DAU, MAU…)? Useful for KPIs Cannot stand on their own Says nothing beyond themselves (no exploration) Emergent patterns: temporal dynamics

“Top-down and core out”: user experience, system, revenue Common mechanics -> genre/game specific Core mechanics -> peripheral mechanics

3* general advice

Law of Diminishing Returns

Look at players and system together

Keep an eye out for unexpected behaviors (clustering)

Profiling via cluster analysisUnexpected Behaviors

Lots of

data

Clustering

Dealing with high-dimensional, (massive) datasets

Clustering is used for reducing dimensionality and finding commonalities

Explorative: What is going on? Why? The most common questions in game analytics …

The goal

Formal: Group objects so that intra-cluster similarity is high and inter-cluster similarity is low.

Practice: Interpretable clusters that accurately encapsulate player/AI/system/X behavior

Example: k-means clustering

Applications

Compare and benchmark games

Understanding player behavior Evaluate if there is sufficient variety in gameplay Detect churn behavior and link with root causes Discover what playstyles people use Detecting extreme behaviors

Applications cont.

Develop profiles for adaptative systems Skill profiling -> then cater to them via AI Experience management/experience personalization Finding the factors most important to characterize user

behavior

Monitor development in players´ profiles to track behavior changes: target novice -> expert▪ Useful for evaluating learning curves fx.

Example: BF2BC2

SIVM: finding extreme profiles

Assassins Veterans Target dummies

Assault-Recon Medic-Engineer Driver Assault wannabee

Example: BF2BC2

Each different playstyles, and different things that keep them in the game:

”Driver”: drives, flies, sails – all the time and favors maps with vehicles

”Assassin”: kills – afar or close – no vehicles!

”Target dummies”: unskilled novices – high dropout unless they quickly transfer to another cluster

K-means example: Glitch

K-means example: Glitch

Foundations

Many algorithms tailored to different problems in different fields What a ”cluster” is varies depending on the model

Any assignment of objects to clusters can be either hard or soft.

Hard: Player belongs to the “Rainbowdash” cluster Soft: Player belongs 73% to “Rainbowdash”, 27% to “Fluttershy”

Foundations

NOT an automatic process – iterative procedure, human decisions

Same data can lead to different outcomes depending on algorithm and parameters

No “correct” algorithm

Established model can (potentially) be automated

Algorithm types

Hierarchical clustering : agglomerative methods based on proximities K-means: popular, simple, intuitive, but … Clusters represent averages and are not always

interpretable in terms of the behavior of “real” objects/players

Centroid clustering: represent clusters in terms of central vectors which do not need to be actual objects

Algorithm types

Distribution-based clustering: uses statistical distribution models such as Gaussian mixtures. Clusters reflect how likely it is that objects belong to the

same distribution.

Density clustering: determines areas of high density and applies local density estimators so that clusters (i.e. regions in data space) can have arbitrary shapes.

Finding the right algorithm

1) Are the data high-dimensional and/or sparse?

If so, consider models tailored to sparse data (AA or NMF).

Finding the right algorithm

2) What is the overall goal? To build general models of behavior or to detect extreme behaviors (e.g. cheating, gold-farming)?

For the former, consider centroid-seeking models (k-means, k-medoids)

For the latter, consider models such as AA.

Finding the right algorithm

3) Are the data numerical or relational?

For the latter, use spectral clustering or kernel methods.

Finding the right algorithm

4) Are the players tightly grouped in the data space?

If so, k-means might have difficulties distinguishing them.

If so, consider density-based approaches that do not operate on Euclidean distances.

Finding the right algorithm

5) Are the data noisy?

If so density-based methods might be appropriate as they are better tunable

(but also require more knowledge/expertise)

Key challenges in clustering

Validation: validating clusters

Interpretation: what do the clusters signify?

Time/progress-dependency: players change behavior and progress

Data type mixing: normalization generally advisable

Would you like to know more?

Handout: Reference list covering the topics of this presentation(at reception desk, also on andersdrachen.com)

Clustering Game Behavior Data – a more detailed guide (printed copies at reception, arxiv.com)

Introducing Clustering I-IV – a beginners guide (blog.gameanalytics.com; gamasutra.com)

anders@gameanalytics.com / @andersdrachen

“You cannot improve what you cannot measure”

Lord Kelvin