How is analytics used in game development?

Are you curious about how a gamer thinks, reacts and demands certain objects, controls and environments to keep them engaged in the game for long? Keep reading to know how you can fit into this fast-evolving career path you could explore.

It’s not all fun and games!

The world of 3D game development and design has gone through some radical shifts and multiplied growth cycles over time.

Thanks to the constantly evolving technology and the AI-powered automation, games have become much more complex, way more realistic and engaging by leaps & bounds than even a decade prior.

Analytics is the backbone of gaming

Today’s games are created to not only engage the user but to form a stronger connection to their ideologies, thoughts & emotions.

A game mostly acts as a dream world or a simulated environment where you can control certain things to make them happen as you want them to. The gaming industry has come a long way to capture a greater pie of the entertainment industry.

And most of this has been possible with the help of data & analytics. Anatomy of a gamer is created to figure out exactly how they interact with the game. This in turn gives a sneak peek into the key metrics that can help a developer make better games.

Here’s how analytics guide the process of game development & design:

1. Tracking players’ behavioural patterns

The essential part of game development is first of understanding your audience like in any other user-centric product.

A core understanding of how a gamer behaves in a certain simulated environment is the stepping stone to developing a high-quality game.

Most game developers focus on the following metrics that help them determine how to track and improve the engagement capacity for the user-

• Average gameplay duration
• Amount of interaction with the various game controls
• The number of times game was opened and played
• Gamer’s progress in the game
• Possibility & breadth of buyers remorse (if uninstalled quickly or after a while, reasons behind it)
• Ability to pay for premium features (cost-benefit expectations in terms of simulation & enjoyment derived from the game post payment)

This cannot be an exhaustive list by any means. With the increasing accessibility & technology across the globe, the gamer’s behaviours and personas are vast. But a deeper peek into analytics makes the picture a little clearer and easier to handle.

2. Calibrating to the right TG

Even though as a developer, you might want everyone to play your game; for any game, there’ll be a specific set of audience who enjoy it the most than anyone else. Most developers that create freemium and paid games are keen on catering to such a niche category of people.

Because they can get the highest ARPU (average revenue per user) by providing constant updates, improvements and cooler versions & levels to the game.

Game developers work for or are financed by major animation studios, media and game production houses. So this kind of data helps them make their case to get good finances for developing even more high-end games.

3. Research & direction for storytelling

When you think about numbers, data and analytics; storytelling seems to be the last thing that could come out of it. But the truth is all the user data, performance metrics, processes created are an aid to create a better game.

And you must know that all the chart-busting games have one element in common- storytelling & relatability.

After all, any gamer indulges in games to experience engagement, enjoyment and a break from the real world.

Great graphics & simulation coupled with great storytelling is what sets apart the most played games from the lot. And today’s analytics & deep learning softwares determine multiple algorithms, patterns and research to know what clicks for the user.

This data is studied, interpreted and applied to the actual game development process to craft way more engaging game-stories that keep the users at the edge of their seat.

The gaming industry has gone through a revolution in the past decade with the advent of growth analytics & technology.

And today major gaming houses like Ubisoft are setting up shops in every major country of the world including Singapore and other Asian countries with talent potential. Newzoo, a gaming research company has published a report predicting a revenue of $4.3 billion USD in the year 2019-20.

In Conclusion

Games are fast becoming the norm for an immersive entertainment experience replacing even TV in many countries. And the technology is constantly evolving which brings across more and more advanced analytics along with real-time user data. These include 3D Game Development and AR/VR Games and many more.

With the proper dissection & application of the analytics data, the potential to create gaming masterpieces is inevitable.

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