Why Do Small and Medium-Size Freemium Game Developers Use Game Analytics?

With the continuous development of the game industry, research in the game field is also deepening. Many interdisciplinary areas of knowledge and theory have been used to promote the development of the game industry. Business intelligence technologies have been applied to game development for game design and game optimization. However, few systematic research efforts have focused on the field of game publishing, particularly with regard to independent (indie) game publishing. In this paper, we analyse data collected from a set of interviews with small indie game developers. The results indicate that most of the indie game developers have already used business intelligence for game self-publishing, although three main challenges have been identified: first, how to conduct marketing promotion and improve the return on investment (ROI); second, how to collect game publishing data; and third, how to analyse the data in order to guide game self-publishing. Our interviews also reveal that the business model applied to a game significantly impacts the role of game analytics. The study expands and advances the research on how game analytics can be used for game publishing, particularly for indie game self-publishing.

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How Do Small and Medium-Sized Game Companies Use Analytics? An Attention-Based View of Game Analytics

Information Systems Frontiers ◽

10.1007/s10796-019-09913-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (5) ◽

pp. 1163-1178 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Matti Mäntymäki ◽

Sami Hyrynsalmi ◽

Antti Koskenvoima

Keyword(s):

Sense Making ◽

Communication Tool ◽

Organizational Attention ◽

Game Industry ◽

Hygiene Factor ◽

Cost Efficient ◽

Game Developers ◽

Depth Interviews ◽

Game Analytics ◽

Analyze Data

Abstract The widespread adoption of the freemium business model together with the introduction of cost-efficient analytics tools have made the use of analytics pervasive in the game industry. While big data and analytics have drawn extensive scholarly attention, the research focusing particularly on game analytics is scant and largely descriptive. Thus, there is a need for research focusing on how game companies employ analytics. In this study, we analyze data collected through a set of in-depth interviews of small and medium-sized freemium game developers. We identify four main roles of game analytics: 1) sense-making device, 2) decision-support system, 3) communication tool, and 4) hygiene factor. We employ the attention-based view of the firm to discuss how these roles diverge and converge in terms of organizational attention. The study advances the research on the roles and business value of analytics in the game and software industry.

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Improving Citizen Science Games through Open Analytics Data

Human Computation ◽

10.15346/hc.v3i1.7 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jesse Himmelstein

Keyword(s):

Synthetic Biology ◽

Game Design ◽

Web Application ◽

Game Engine ◽

The Public ◽

Game Developers ◽

Game Analytics ◽

The Web ◽

Missed Opportunity

Game developers make heavy use of "metrics" (or "analytics") in order to understand how their games are being played by the public. Through recording players' actions within a game, designers can identify weaknesses in the game design, such as sections of the game that are too difficult, or never explored. Meanwhile, a genre of “scientific games” has emerged, in which players contribute to the advancement of science through their actions in a game, learn scientific concepts, or both. Although most scientific games incorporate metrics, the data is meant only for the developers and is rarely shared with the public. This represents a missed opportunity for the public to learn from the data that they and their fellow players are generating.Inspired by the belief that anyone can contribute to science, we have created an open source game analytics service called "RedMetrics" in which all data gathered is freely and immediately available online. RedMetrics can gather data from any platform (web, PC, console, etc.) and stores it on an open repository. The data is available via a web API as well as a web application. To ease integration, we provide interfaces for the popular game engine Unity as well as for the web browser.In this paper, we demonstrate RedMetrics through a case study of Hero.Coli, a game to learn synthetic biology. We study the progression of players through the game and use RedMetrics to identify bottlenecks in the game design that hinder learning.

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