careers in computer games: game analytics
TRANSCRIPT
“Careers in Computer Games“University of Edinburgh / 1st of February 2017
Thomas HulvershornOperations and Analytics Manager
Outplay Entertainment
Working in Game Analytics
Typical Tasks for Analytics:
Determine the Difficulty in Level Progression. Where do Playersget stuck, how often do they
attempt a level?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDW5Bp90z0M
Dynamic Presentation of Level Progression: Brighter Areas indicate
harder Levels. Green indicates Levels where players
have passed and won the level.
Example: Dynamic Data Visualisation
Established 2011 in Dundee
Outplay Entertainment is the largest
independent Mobile Games Developer in the UK
Sample Group A Sample Group B Control Group
Project StakeholdersReal Time Analytics
ETL Layer
AnalystsTracker
Store Data
Analytics Events
Game on
Store
Download Deploy new VersionF2P
Data Feedback Driven
Deployment Game Life cycle
Player
Lau
nch
Amazon Cloud
Game SettingsOutplay Server
Mo
dif
y Se
ttin
gs
Set
up
Exp
erim
ents
Game Settings
Producer
Feature Backlog(Jira)
TargetsDesigner
Game in Vault
Product Team
New Version
Sign off and Store Submission
Game Development
ClientUpdate
How to make sense of vastamounts of Data?
Game Design influences Performance
• Two Factors
– FUN
– Difficulty
Game Analytics• Collecting 8 Millions Data events per day
(already sampled)
• Data stored in AWS / Redshift
• Accessed with SQl
• Analysed with ‘R’
What skills are needed
to work in Analytics?
Inspired by http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram
Coder
Scientist
Designer
Typical Background for people working in Analytics*
>Examples
>MSc, BSc Mathematics and Statistics
>Ph.D. e.g. Geoscience (and other with Background in Computing, Mathematics, Science)
>MSc, BSc Physics
>MSc International Business
>MSc Artificial Intelligence
>BSc Applied Computing
>…
*(not considering technical Analytics, e.g. Database Management…)
Statistical evaluation of Experiments
Skills and Preparation
• Learn a Scripting Language, e.g. “R” or Python
• Learn / Understand SQL
• Excellent knowledge of applied Statistics and Visualisation
• Know the products of the company you’re applying at
• Passion for Games!
> Outplay.com
> Twitter @DerHUL
> Further Reading> ‘The Lean Startup’, Eric Ries
> ‘Data Analysis with Open Source Tools’, P. Janert
> ‘Data Analysis’, Phillip K. Janert
> ‘Impact Mapping’, Gojko Adzic
> ‘Freemium Economics’, Eric B. Seufert
> ‘Data Visualisation with D3.js Cookbook’, N.Q Zhu
> Coursera: Data Science, ‘R’
@DerHul