Data analysis in seconds rather than hours

Wooga made its name in the field of mobile gaming

with games like Diamond Dash and Jelly Splash.

With data accrued through the activities of more than

Building blockbuster games using your database

50 million players every month, the company knows

that it has large volumes of valuable information that it

can use to improve its games. Long before new games

go to market, game developers analyse this data to

successfully design each new game.

“Even during the design phase, we make our decisions

In-memory databases and video game design don’t often come to mind at the same time. But in the

increasingly popular mobile gaming industry, it’s a winning combination.

Large numbers of users log into gaming sites several times a week to play. The games are usually

free, and manufacturers earn their revenue through optional in-game purchases – the better known

and more successful a game is, the more game developers can earn. But developers face a major

challenge: to generate revenue over a long period, they need to sustain a player’s interest – people

need to keep enjoying the game. This can be achieved through sophisticated statistical analysis of

various performance and user-behaviour metrics. Wooga, a Berlin-based game developer, uses

EXASolution, an in-memory database, to do just that.

EXASOL is a registered trademark. All mentioned trademarks are protected and are the property of their respective owners. © 2014, EXASOL AG | All rights reserved.

EXASOL AG | Fon: +49 911.23 99 10 | info@exasol.com | www.exasol.com

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based on fact-oriented evaluation,” explains Markus

Steinkamp, head of business intelligence at Wooga.

“With EXASOL’s analytical database, we can perform

design analysis and evaluate data starting at the

prototyping and development phases.”

And it’s not just in Wooga’s development phase that

EXASolution – which can be deployed in the cloud or as

a pre-configured software and hardware appliance –

is involved. After go-live, teams need to evaluate the

extensive, time-critical user data that is vital to long-

term success.

“If you have the choice between waiting several hours

for analysis or obtaining results immediately, the

decision is easy. Using EXASolution has accelerated

our analysis, depending on its nature and scope, by a

factor of 80 to 100,” said Steinkamp.

But speed was not the only important selection criteria –

so was the ability for various teams to work at the

same time. At Wooga, each development team

works completely independently and has its own

data containers and associated analysts. During their

daily work, different teams submit numerous queries

simultaneously without individual teams noticing

performance dips in the query speed.

With EXASolution, queries can be made at any time

and are carried out independent of a central controlling

department. The results then flow immediately into the

development of games.

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complex analytics

competitive advantage

Knowing what mattersOverall, the full-service solution offers Wooga a holistic

and agile option to analyse and store all accumulated

data – for each game and across teams from the

marketing department.

Individual analysts and the developer groups evaluate

billions of records daily. And only now has it become

possible for them to analyse several months of data

at once. With this information, the teams can develop

blockbuster games based on the wishes of the target

audience, promising all players longer-lasting fun.

“If you have the choice between waiting several hours for analysis or obtaining results immediately, the decision is easy.”

Markus SteinkampHead of Business Intelligence at Wooga

EXASOL is a registered trademark. All mentioned trademarks are protected and are the property of their respective owners. © 2014, EXASOL AG | All rights reserved.

EXASOL AG | Fon: +49 911.23 99 10 | info@exasol.com | www.exasol.com

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