Thomas Hulvershorn

Outplay Entertainment

Established 2011 in Dundee Outplay Entertainment is a fast growing, venture-backed Developer and Publisher of social and mobile Games.

Understand Performance

Verify Assumption

Support Design

Discover Insights

Thomas Hulvershorn

Complex F2P Business Model

Understand Free to Play mechanics

Game is installed on Client site

Experiments and Dynamic changes tricky

Expect Hacking, Fraud, Bad Data

“Big Data” volume

Deal with 4-5 Mio events per day

Game can be played Offline

Anonymous Players

Challenges

Thomas Hulvershorn

Profit = - Costs Players LTV

Profit

+ Income

- Costs

Operational

Acquisition

Partner…

Players

LTV

Paid

Unpaid

Retention 1d On-boarding

7d Mid Term

30+d Long Term Customer Support

Stability and Availability

Community Management

Game Design…

Adverts…

Game Content

Payer / HVC…

Engagement…

Demographics

Products

Appeal / Ease / Value for Money

Pricing

Provider

Appeal

Type

Condition / Model

Frequency

Content

F2P

Opportunity Map Technology / Devices

Discovery

Cross Promo / Viral

Direct Acquisition…

Indirect Acquisition…

Store Ranking

Organic…

Marketplaces

Strategic Partner

Player Type

∅ Ads

∅ IAP

∅ App. Purchase Thomas Hulvershorn

“I want us to add more Levels!”

“We need to have Daily Challenges”

“The Tutorial is too long”

Impact Mapping…

…methodology helps defining our Strategy

Why do we want these features implemented?

What are the assumptions behind the choice?

How do measure the success of our selection?

Quantify Goals, validate Assumptions and measure Impact…

...Games Analytics

>What is the Goal?

>Who can help you?

>What Impact do you expect?

>How can this be done?

Thomas Hulvershorn

60%

+20%

3%

+5%

5%

95%

Thomas Hulvershorn

Sample Group A Sample Group B Control Group

Project Stakeholders Real Time Analytics

ETL Layer

Analysts Tracker

Store Data

Analytics Events

Game on Store

Download Deploy new Version

F2P Data Feedback

Driven Deployment

Game Life cycle

Player

Lau

nch

Cloud

Game Settings Outplay Server

Mo

dif

y Se

ttin

gs

Set

up

Exp

erim

ents

Game Settings

Producer

Feature Backlog

Targets Designer

Game in Vault

Product Team

New Version

Sign off and Store Submission

Game Development

Client Update

Thomas Hulvershorn

Retention 7d / 14d

Revenue 7d/14d

Control Group

Inspired by http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram

Coder

Scientist

Designer

Potential Players

Outplay Gamers

Genre Lovers

Demographics

Social Friends

Community

Invested Players

Paying Players

Loyal / Returning

Skilled Players

Absorbed

Encourage Spending

Increase Retention

Educate Players

Game is Fun

Make it worthwhile

Reward Loyalty

Balance Game

Vary Game

Players on the decline

No follow Purchase

More Infrequent

Stuck, No progress

Shorter Sessions

Loosing Interest

Lost Interest

Gam

e In

stalled

Campaign

Organic

First Laun

ch

Players on the Fence

Non Paying

Rarely Playing

Noob Player

Short Sessions

Cross Promo

Re Targeting / Engage Dormant Players

Optimise Campaign Set up

Cross Promo Other Games, Retargeting

Dormant Players (not playing)

Never got it

Active Dislike

Passive Dislike

Lost Players (uninstalled)

Unexplained / Technical

Social Players

+ Organic Growth

+ Invested Players

+ Demographics Info

Player Journey

Never Launch

Re

En

gage

No

Inte

rest

Thomas Hulvershorn

started level

2014

-07-

02

All users who started a level that day

Each row represents

one event fired by

one particular user

during that day

2014

-07-

01

2014

-07-

02

2014

-07-

03

2014

-07-

04

first launch

started level

competed level

failed level

first launch

started level

competed level

failed level

Users per event per day

Event Matrix

Use

r In

dex

Data

Technology Setup

3rd Party Tool for Data Gathering / Storage and Ad Hoc Analytics

Internal dedicated Analytics server „Daten Butler“

Multiprocessor, SSD, Linux Server

Runs all scripts (Ruby and ‚R‘)

Stores offline data

Launch Ceremony Daten Butler 08/14

>For Cohorts, by individual user, with selected

properties

>Allows to answer ALL relevant questions!

Priority is Player Satisfaction and Fun

“If your game sucks, data won’t save you”

Data Analyst

at Outplay

> Outplay.com

> Twitter @DerHUL

> Further Reading

> ‘The Lean Startup’, Eric Ries

> ‘Data Analysis’, Phillip K. Janert

> ‘Impact Mapping’, Gojko Adzic

> ‘Freemium Economics’, Eric B. Seufert

> ‘Data Visualisation with D3.js Cookbook’, Nick Qi Zhu