game analytics

Game Analytics
Magy Seif El-Nasr
Anders Drachen
Alessandro Canossa
Editors
Maximizing the Value
of Player Data
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Game Analytics
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Magy Seif El-Nasr • Anders Drachen
Alessandro Canossa
Editors
Game Analytics
Maximizing the Value of Player Data
www.it-ebooks.info
Editors
Magy Seif El-Nasr
College of Computer and Information Science
College of Arts, Media and Design
Northeastern University
Boston, MA, USA
Alessandro Canossa
College of Arts, Media and Design
& Center for Computer Games Research
Northeastern University
& IT University of Copenhagen
Boston, MA, USA & Copenhagen, Denmark
Anders Drachen

College of Arts, Media and Design
Northeastern University
Boston, MA, USA
Institute of Communication and Psychology
Aalborg University
Copenhagen, Denmark
Game Analytics
Copenhagen, Denmark
Chapter 6 was created within the capacity of an US governmental employment.
US copyright protection does not apply.
Chapter 26 is published with kind permission of Her Majesty the Queen Right of Canada.
ISBN 978-1-4471-4768-8 ISBN 978-1-4471-4769-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4769-5
Springer London Heidelberg New York Dordrecht
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013933305
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Cover Image: Grete Edland Westerlund
Cover stock images © iStockphoto.com, used with permission
Where stated, images are © Ubisoft Entertainment.
© 2006-2010 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell
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v
Over the years, I have spent a fair amount of time teaching game production and
design. The most common point of concern has been designers wondering how to
gain some degree of self-determination. The greatest points of concern for producers
are how to tell if their designer is any good. They usually whisper these questions to
me, so the other guy can’t hear them.
I tell them the same thing: Designers are in the business of telling the future. Ask
them to put their predictions in writing and track how it works out. The results are
obvious.
The problem in the past was you could only really track the progress of a designer
on a product-by-product basis. That meant measuring them based on each product’s
success. That isn’t really often enough to make much progress as a producer or

designer, let alone a game player.
The world had changed. Designers can create new ideas, predict their effect,
develop and introduce them to a customer, and measure their results, all in a day.
Producers get to see lots of little decisions, and lots of examples of the designers’
creativity commercially deployed, for better or worse.
For some designers, this has been scary. That is good. If you can’t prove you are
right, does it matter? On the other hand, if you can change a product’s feature set
and improve its fi nancial effectiveness in a repeatable, measurable and meaningful
way, won’t most Producers leave you alone? After all, they don’t know how to do it.
At the end of the day, the truth will set you free. If you can anticipate the behavior
of a player and craft that experience to ful fi ll their expectations, aren’t you actually
in charge? What game analytics provides, and what this book describes in exhaustive
detail, is an understanding that will set you free to concentrate on the parts of the
game you can’t measure: art – and to make it great. Generally, the numbers we work
Foreword
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vi
Foreword
in have short return on investment, but the stories and memories we leave behind
have the same deep impact that all art has: It changes lives. The numbers are the fi rst
tool to get to that opportunity. They unlock the door.
So take the fi rst step and unlock it. Make us believe in you.
42 65 6C 69 65 76 65
Chief Creative Director of Electronic Arts Rich Hilleman
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vii
Acknowledgments
This book took a large amount of time and effort to put together. This involved
many people. We would fi rst like to thank the authors who made this book possible:
Tim Fields, Sree Santhosh, Mark Vaden, Georg Zoeller, Andre Gagné, Simon

McCallum, Jayson Mackie, Christian Thurau, Julian Togelius, Georgios Yannakakis,
Christian Bauckhauge, Janus Rau Møller Sørensen, Matthias Schubert, Pietro
Guardini, Paolo Mannetti, Ben Medler, Dinara Moura, Bardia Aghabeigi, Eric
Hazan, Jordan Lynn, Ben Weedon, Veronica Sundstedt, Matthias Bernhard,
Efstathios Stavrakis, Erik Reinhard, Michael Wimmer, Lennart Nacke, Graham
McAllister, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, Jason Avent, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Nick Yee,
Edward Castranova, Travis L. Ross, Isaac Knowles, Jan L. Plass, Bruse D. Homer,
Charles K. Kinzer, Yoo Kyung Chang, Jonathan Frye, Walter Kaczetow, Katherine
Isbister, Ken Perlin, Carrie Heeter, Yu-Hao Lee, Brian Magerko, and Cameron
Brown. All the authors have done more than two revisions of their chapters and have
been very open to our consistent nagging for more re fi nement and changes. Their
efforts is what made this book what it is.
We would also like to thank all the people who have allowed us to interview them,
sometimes more than once, to revise the information and get more contribution for
the book. This includes Jim Baer and Daniel McCaffrey from Zynga, Nicholas
Francis and Thomas Hagen from Unity, Darius Kazemi, Aki Järvinen from Digital
Chocolate, Nicklas Nygren and Simon Møller from Kiloo, Ola Holmdahl and Ivan
Garde from Junebud, and Simon Egenfeldt Nielsen from Serious Games Interactive.
We would also like to thank Alex Kirschner, Brian T. Schnieder, and Bryan Pope
from Zynga who have been a fantastic help getting the interview with Jim and Dan
scheduled and passing the interview review stage through the communication
department. This was a great collaborative effort.
We also thank the people at Game Analytics, notably Christian Thurau and
Matthias Flügge, for ongoing feedback on ideas, chapters, and reviews.
We would also like to thank Rich Hilleman for writing the foreword for us. This
was a great honor, and Karen Morris for helping set this up and getting everything
done on time.
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viii
We would also like to thank our reviewers who had to review the chapters, some-

times several chapters and multiple times, to make sure the quality is up to standard.
In particular, we thank Bardia Aghabeigi, David Milam, Mark Sivak, Robert Mac
Auslan, Mariya Shiyko, Ben Weber, Andre Gagné, Lennart Nacke, Hector Larios,
Adam M. Smith, Julian Togelius, Carrie Heeter, Eric Hazan, Georgios Yannakakis,
Ian Livingston, Andrea Bonanno, David Tisserand, Ben Medler, Kenneth Hullet,
Rasmus Harr, So fi e Mann Harr, Joerg Niesenhaus, Tobias Mahlmann, Christian
Thurau, Bill Shribman, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, Tim Marsh, Ben Weedon, Larry
Mellon, John Hopson, Brian Meidell, Ben Lile, Bruce Phillips, Andrew Stapleton,
Dinara Moura, Tim Ward, Jim Blackhurst, Kristian Kersting, Rafet Sifa, and Heather
Desurvire .
We also thank the many companies who kindly permitted their data visualizations,
graphs, tables, and other work to be reproduced in the book.
We also thank our respective employers, Northeastern University, Aalborg
University, and the IT University of Copenhagen, and GRAND-NCE for funding
the cover image for the book .
We are also grateful to Grete Edland Westerlund for her creative input on the
cover artwork.
Finally, we direct a heartfelt thanks to our families for their continued and
unwavering support throughout the two-year long process of developing the book.
Acknowledgments
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ix
Part I An Introduction to Game Analytics
1 Introduction 3
Magy Seif El-Nasr, Anders Drachen, and Alessandro Canossa
2 Game Analytics – The Basics 13
Anders Drachen, Magy Seif El-Nasr, and Alessandro Canossa
3 Benefits of Game Analytics: Stakeholders,
Contexts and Domains 41
Alessandro Canossa, Magy Seif El-Nasr, and Anders Drachen

4 Game Industry Metrics Terminology and Analytics Case Study 53
Timothy Victor Fields
5 Interview with Jim Baer and Daniel McCaffrey from Zynga 73
Magy Seif El-Nasr and Alessandro Canossa
Part II Telemetry Collection and Tools
6 Telemetry and Analytics Best Practices and Lessons Learned 85
Sreelata Santhosh and Mark Vaden
7 Game Development Telemetry in Production 111
Georg Zoeller
8 Interview with Nicholas Francis and Thomas
Hagen from Unity Technologies 137
Alessandro Canossa
9 Sampling for Game User Research 143
Anders Drachen, André Gagné, and Magy Seif El-Nasr
Contents
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x
Contents
10 WebTics: A Web Based Telemetry and Metrics
System for Small and Medium Games 169
Simon McCallum and Jayson Mackie
11 Interview with Darius Kazemi 195
Magy Seif El-Nasr
Part III Game Data Analysis
12 Game Data Mining 205
Anders Drachen, Christian Thurau, Julian Togelius,
Georgios N. Yannakakis, and Christian Bauckhage
13 Meaning in Gameplay: Filtering Variables, Defining Metrics,
Extracting Features and Creating Models
for Gameplay Analysis 255

Alessandro Canossa
14 Gameplay Metrics in Game User Research:
Examples from the Trenches 285
Anders Drachen, Alessandro Canossa, and Janus Rau Møller Sørensen
15 Interview with Aki Järvinen from Digital Chocolate 321
Alessandro Canossa
16 Better Game Experience Through Game Metrics:
A Rally Videogame Case Study 325
Pietro Guardini and Paolo Maninetti
Part IV Metrics Visualization
17 Spatial Game Analytics 365
Anders Drachen and Matthias Schubert
18 Visual Game Analytics 403
Ben Medler
19 Visual Analytics Tools – A Lens into Player’s
Temporal Progression and Behavior 435
Magy Seif El-Nasr, André Gagné, Dinara Moura, and Bardia Aghabeigi
20 Interview with Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren 471
Alessandro Canossa
Part V Mixed Methods for Game Evaluation
21 Contextualizing Data 477
Eric Hazan
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xi
Contents
22 Combining Back-End Telemetry Data with Established
User Testing Protocols: A Love Story 497
Jordan Lynn
23 Game Metrics Through Questionnaires 515
Ben Weedon

24 Interview with Simon Møller from Kiloo 539
Alessandro Canossa
25 Visual Attention and Gaze Behavior in Games:
An Object-Based Approach 543
Veronica Sundstedt, Matthias Bernhard, Efstathios Stavrakis,
Erik Reinhard, and Michael Wimmer
26 An Introduction to Physiological Player Metrics
for Evaluating Games 585
Lennart E. Nacke
27 Improving Gameplay with Game Metrics
and Player Metrics 621
Graham McAllister, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, and Jason Avent
Part VI Analytics and Player Communities
28 Data Collection in Massively Multiplayer Online Games:
Methods, Analytic Obstacles, and Case Studies 641
Nicolas Ducheneaut and Nick Yee
29 Designer, Analyst, Tinker: How Game Analytics
Will Contribute to Science 665
Edward Castronova, Travis L. Ross, and Isaac Knowles
30 Interview with Ola Holmdahl and Ivan Garde from Junebud 689
Alessandro Canossa
Part VII Metrics and Learning
31 Metrics in Simulations and Games for Learning 697
Jan L. Plass, Bruce D. Homer, Charles K. Kinzer,
Yoo Kyung Chang, Jonathan Frye, Walter Kaczetow,
Katherine Isbister, and Ken Perlin
32 Conceptually Meaningful Metrics: Inferring Optimal
Challenge and Mindset from Gameplay 731
Carrie Heeter, Yu-Hao Lee, Ben Medler, and Brian Magerko
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Contents
33 Interview with Simon Egenfeldt Nielsen
from Serious Games Interactive 763
Alessandro Canossa
Part VIII Metrics and Content Generation
34 Metrics for Better Puzzles 769
Cameron Browne
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Contributors
Bardia Aghabeigi Northeastern University , Boston , MA , USA
Jason Avent Disney Interactive Studios , Glendale , CA , USA
Christian Bauckhage Fraunhofer IAIS and the University of Bonn , Bonn ,
Germany
Matthias Bernhard Vienna University of Technology , Vienna , Austria
Cameron Browne Imperial College London , London , UK
Alessandro Canossa College of Arts, Media and Design , Northeastern University ,
Boston , MA , USA
Center for Computer Games Research, IT University , Copenhagen , Denmark
Edward Castronova Department of Telecommunications , Indiana University ,
Bloomington , IN , USA
Yoo Kyung Chang Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , Teachers College
Columbia University , New York , NY , USA
Anders Drachen PLAIT Lab, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark
Game Analytics, Copenhagen , Denmark
Nicolas Ducheneaut
Palo Alto Research Center , Palo Alto , CA , USA

Jonathan Frye Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , New York University ,
New York , NY , USA
André Gagné THQ , Agoura Hills , CA , USA
Pietro Guardini Milestone S.r.l , Milan , Italy
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xiv
Contributors
Eric Hazan Ubisoft , Montreal , France
Carrie Heeter Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and
Media , Michigan State University , Lansing , MI , USA
Bruce D. Homer
Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , CUNY Graduate Center ,
New York , NY , USA
Katherine Isbister
Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , New York University ,
New York , NY , USA
Walter Kaczetow Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , CUNY Graduate Center ,
New York , NY , USA
Charles K. Kinzer Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , Teachers College
Columbia University , New York , NY , USA
Isaac Knowles Department of Telecommunications , Indiana University ,
Bloomington , IN , USA
Yu-Hao Lee Media & Information Studies , Michigan State University , Lansing ,
MI , USA
Jordan Lynn Volition , Champaign , IL , USA
Jayson Mackie Gjøvik University College , Gjøvik , Norway
Brian Magerko Digital Media in the School of Literature, Communication, and
Culture , Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta , GA , USA
Paolo Maninetti Milestone S.r.l , Milan , Italy
PopCap Games International, The Academy , Dublin 2 , Ireland

Graham McAllister Player Research , Hove, East Sussex , UK
Simon McCallum Gjøvik University College , Gjøvik , Norway
Ben Medler Georgia Tech University , Atlanta , GA , USA Georgia Institute of
Technology , Atlanta , GA , USA
Pejman Mirza-Babaei University of Sussex , Brighton , UK
Dinara Moura School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University,
Surrey , BC , Canada
Lennart E. Nacke
HCI and Game Science Group, Faculty of Business and
Information Technology , University of Ontario Institute of Technology , Oshawa , ON ,
Canada
Ken Perlin Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , New York University , New York ,
NY , USA
Jan L. Plass Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) , New York University , New York ,
NY , USA
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Contributors
Erik Reinhard Max Planck Institute for Informatics , Saarbrücken , Germany
Travis L. Ross Department of Telecommunications , Indiana University ,
Bloomington , IN , USA
Sreelata Santhosh
Online Technology Group , Sony Computer Entertainment
America , San Diego , CA , USA
Matthias Schubert
Institute for Informatics , Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität ,
Munich , Germany
Magy Seif El-Nasr PLAIT Lab, College of Computer and Information Science,
College of Arts, Media and Design , Northeastern University , Boston , MA , USA
College of Computer and Information Science , Northeastern University , Boston ,

MA , USA
Janus Rau Møller Sørensen Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix, Redwood City,
CA , USA
Efstathios Stavrakis Department of Computer Science , University of Cyprus ,
Lefkosia , Cyprus
Veronica Sundstedt Blekinge Institute of Technology , Karlskrona , Sweden
Christian Thurau Game Analytics , Ballerup , Denmark
Julian Togelius Center for Computer Games Research , IT University of
Copenhagen , Copenhagen , Denmark
Mark Vaden Online Technology Group , Sony Computer Entertainment America ,
San Diego , CA , USA
Timothy Victor Fields Capcom , Chuo-ku , Osaka , Japan
Ben Weedon PlayableGames , London , UK
Michael Wimmer Institute for Computer Graphics and Algorithms , Vienna
University of Technology , Vienna , Austria
Georgios N. Yannakakis Center for Computer Games Research , IT University of
Copenhagen , Copenhagen , Denmark
Nick Yee Palo Alto Research Center , Palo Alto , CA , USA
Georg Zoeller Ubisoft Singapore , Singapore
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Part I
An Introduction to Game Analytics
Game analytics is not an altogether new or independent fi eld. It has roots in and
borrows largely from many existing fi elds, such as usability inspection methods,
business intelligence, statistics and data mining, amongst others. It is therefore
necessary to provide a panoramic view on the key disciplines and concepts that are
at the core of game analytics.
This part has the following take-aways:
Show the recent history of game analytics and introduce this fascinating area •
Introduce key concepts and disciplines •

Discuss bene fi ts for the different stakeholders in the game industry •
De fi ne reoccurring terms and concepts used as measures in social games. •
The part will consist of fi ve chapters:
Chapter • 1 provides an introduction of the book outlining the different parts and
the chapters of the book.
Chapter • 2 provides the basics of telemetry, de fi nitions, uses, and concepts.
Chapter • 3 outlines the bene fi ts of the telemetry data and analytics to the different
stakeholders within the industry.
Chapter • 4 : Game Industry Metrics Terminology and Analytics Case Study is a
contribution from Tim Fields, a veteran producer, game designer, team leader
and business developer, who has been building games professionally since 1994.
In his chapter, Tim introduces the terminologies used within the social game
industry to outline major metrics used currently within the industry with a case
study to supplement the discussion.
Chapter • 5 : Interview with Jim Baer and Daniel McCaffrey from Zynga is an
interview with Jim Baer, Senior Director of Analytics, and Daneil McCaffery,
Senior Director of Platform and Analytics Engineering, from Zynga outlining
Zynga’s use of game analytics and their view and future as they expand on this
fi eld.
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3
M. Seif El-Nasr et al. (eds.), Game Analytics: Maximizing the Value of Player Data,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4769-5_1, © Springer-Verlag London 2013
1.1 Changing the Game
Game Analytics has gained a tremendous amount of attention in game development and
game research in recent years. The widespread adoption of data-driven business intel-
ligence practices at operational, tactical and strategic levels in the game industry, com-
bined with the integration of quantitative measures in user-oriented game research, has
caused a paradigm shift. Historically, game development has not been data-driven, but
this is changing as the bene fi ts of adopting and adapting analytics to inform decision

making across all levels of the industry are becoming generally known and accepted.
M. Seif El-Nasr , Ph.D. (*)
PLAIT Lab, College of Computer and Information Science,
College of Arts, Media and Design , Northeastern University ,
Boston , MA , USA
e-mail: ;
A. Drachen , Ph.D.
PLAIT Lab , Northeastern University , Boston , MA , USA
Department of Communication and Psychology , Aalborg University , Aalborg , Denmark
Game Analytics , Copenhagen , Denmark
e-mail:
A. Canossa , Ph.D.
College of Arts, Media and Design , Northeastern University ,
Boston, MA , USA
Center for Computer Games Research , IT University of Copenhagen,
Copenhagen , Denmark
e-mail:
Chapter 1
Introduction
Magy Seif El-Nasr, Anders Drachen, and Alessandro Canossa
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4
M. Seif El-Nasr et al.
While analytics practices play a role across all aspects of a company, the
introduction of analytics in game development has, to a signi fi cant extent, been
driven by the need to gain better knowledge about the users – the players. This
need has been emphasized with the rapid emergence of social online games and
the Free-to-Play business model which, heavily inspired by web- and mobile
analytics, relies on analysis of comprehensive user behavior data to drive reve-
nue. Outside of the online game sector, users have become steadily more deeply

integrated into the development process thanks to widespread adoption of user
research methods. Where testing used to be all about browbeating friends and
colleagues into fi nding bugs, user testing and research today relies on sophisti-
cated methods to provide feedback directly on the design.
Operating in the background of these effects is the steady increase in the size of
the target audience for games, as well as its increasing diversi fi cation. This has
brought an opportunity for the industry to innovate on different forms of play allowing
different types of interactions and contexts, and the accommodation of different
types of users of all ages, intellectual abilities, and motivations. Now, more than
ever, it is necessary for designers to develop an understanding of the users and the
experiences they obtain from interacting with games. This has marked the birth of
Games User Research (GUR) – a still emerging fi eld but an important area of invest-
ment and development for the game industry, and one of the primary drivers in
establishing analytics as a key resource in game development.
Game analytics is, thus, becoming an increasingly important area of business
intelligence for the industry. Quantitative data obtained via telemetry, market
reports, QA systems, benchmark tests, and numerous other sources all feed into
business intelligence management, informing decision-making. Measures of pro-
cesses, performance and not the least user behaviors collected and analyzed over the
complete life cycle of a game – from cradle to grave – provides stakeholders with
detailed information on every aspect of their business. From detailed feedback on
design, snapshots of player experience, production performance and the state of the
market. Focusing on user-focused analytics, there are multiple uses in the develop-
ment pipeline, including the tracking and elimination of software bugs, user prefer-
ences, design issues, behavior anomalies, and monetization data, to mention a few.
1.2 About This Book
This book is about game analytics . It is meant for anybody to pick up – novice or
expert, professional or researcher. The book has content for everyone interested in
game analytics.
The book covers a wide range of topics under the game analytics umbrella, but

has a running focus on the users . Not only is ‘user-oriented analytics’ one of the
main drivers in the development of game analytics, but users are, after all, the
people games are made for. Additionally, the contributions in this book – written by
experts in their respective domains – focus on telemetry as a data source for analytics.
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5
1 Introduction
While not the only source of game business intelligence, telemetry is one of the
most important ones when it comes to user-oriented analytics, and has in the past
decade brought unprecedented power to Game User Research.
The book is composed of chapters authored by professionals in the industry as
well as researchers, and in several cases in collaboration. These are augmented with
a string of interviews with industry experts and top researchers in game analytics.
This brings together the strengths of both worlds (the industry and academic) and
provides a book with a broad selection of in-depth examples of the application of
user-oriented game analytics. It also means the book presents a coherent picture
of how game analytics can be used to analyze user behavior in the service of stake-
holders in both the industry and academia, including: designers who want to know
how to change games for building ultimate experiences and boosting retention,
business VPs hoping to increase their product sales, psychologists interested in
understanding human behavior, computer scientists working on data mining of
complex datasets, learning scientists who are interested in developing games that
are effective learning tools, game user research methodologists who are interested
in developing valid methods to tackle the question of game user experience mea-
surement and evaluation.
Chapters in this book provide a wealth of experiences and knowledge; the urging
purpose behind the book is to share knowledge and experiences of the pros and cons
of various techniques and strategies in game analytics – including different collec-
tion, analysis, visualization and reporting techniques – the building blocks of game
analytics systems. In addition, the book also serves to inform practitioners and

researchers of the variety of uses and the value of analytics across the game lifecycle,
and about the current open problems. It is our ultimate goal to stimulate the existing
relations between industry and research, and take the fi rst step towards building a
methodological and theoretical foundation for game analytics.
1.3 Game Analytics, Metrics and Telemetry: What Are They?
In this book you will see the following words often repeated: game metrics , game
telemetry and game analytics . These terms are today often used interchangeably,
primarily due the relative recent adoption of the terms analytics, telemetry and
metrics in game development. To clear away any confusion, let us quickly de fi ne
them. Game analytics is the application of analytics to game development and
research. The goal of game analytics is to support decision making, at operational,
tactical and strategic levels and within all levels of an organization – design, art,
programming, marketing, user research, etc. Game analytics forms a key source of
business intelligence in game development, and considers both games as products,
and the business of developing and maintaining these products. In recent years,
many game companies – from indie to AAA – have started to collect game telemetry .
Telemetry is data obtained over a distance. This can, for example, be quantitative
data about how a user plays a game, tracked from the game client and transmitted to
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6
M. Seif El-Nasr et al.
a collection server. Game metrics are interpretable measures of something related
to games. More speci fi cally, they are quantitative measures of attributes of objects.
A common source of game metrics is telemetry data of player behavior. This raw
data can be transformed into metrics, such as “total playtime” or “daily active users” –
i.e. measures that describe an attribute or property of the players. Metrics are more
than just measures of player behavior, however; the term covers any source of busi-
ness intelligence that operates in the context of games. Chap ter
2 delves deeper to
outline the de fi nitions of the terms and concepts used within the different chapters

in the book.
1.4 User-Oriented Game Analytics
The game industry is inherently diverse. Companies have established their own
processes for game analytics, which tend to be both similar and different across
companies, depending on the chosen business model, core design features and the
intended target audience.
To start with the sector of the industry that relies directly and heavily on user-
oriented analytics, social online game companies produce games that are played
within a social context, either synchronously or asynchronously between a small or
large number of players over a server. Many games supporting large-scale multi-
player interaction feature a persistent world that users interact within. For these
types of games, and social online games in general, companies can release patches
at any time and most of the time they add or adjust the game during the lifecycle of
the product. Due to this fl exibility, companies that produce these types of games
usually release the product early and then utilize massive amounts of game telem-
etry analysis to adjust the game and release new content based on what players are
doing. Companies that produce these types of games include Zynga Inc. and Blizzard
Entertainment, to mention a few. Chapter 4 delves a bit deeper on the process
involved in creating these types of games.
In addition to social game companies, the traditional one-shot retail game model
comprises the majority of the industry, today. In this category we fi nd the big fran-
chises like Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft), Tomb Raider (Square Enix) and NBA
(Electronic Arts). Most of the time these games do not feature persistent worlds,
and thus do not have the same degree of opportunity to adjust products after launch
on a running basis, although this may be changing due to the presence of online
distribution networks like Valve’s Steam. However, during production, user-oriented
analytics can be used for a large variety of purposes, not the least to help user
research departments assist designers in between iterations. This book includes
multiple examples of this kind of analytics work, including Eric Hazan’s chapter
(Chap. 21 ) describing the methodologies used at Ubisoft to measure the user expe-

rience, Drachen et al. (Chap. 14 ) describing user research at Crystal Dynamics and
IO Interactive, and Jordan Lynn’s chapter (Chap. 22 ) describing the methods of
value to Volition, Inc. Another interesting example of the use of analytics within
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7
1 Introduction
the production cycle at Bioware is discussed at length by Georg Zoeller (Chap. 7 ).
Sree Santhosh and Mark Vaden describe their work at Sony Online Entertainment
(Chap. 6 ) and Tim Fields provides an overview of metrics for social online games
(Chap.
4 ).
Of course, recently there has been a mix of AAA titles that also have social or
casual components played online. These include Electronic Arts (EA) Sport’s FIFA
game, which includes an online component with a persistent world. For these games,
a mix of approaches and processes are applicable.
1.5 User-Oriented Game Research
As discussed above, Game User Research is a fi eld that studies user behavior. The
fi eld is dependent on the methodologies that have been developed in academia, such
as quantitative and qualitative methods used within human-computer interaction,
social science, psychology, communications and media studies. Digital games
present an interesting challenge as they are interactive, computational systems,
where engagement is an important factor. For such systems, academics within the
user research area have been working hard to adopt and extend the methodologies
from other fi elds to develop appropriate tools for games.
Looking at game analytics speci fi cally, industry professionals and researchers
have collaborated to push the frontier for game analytics and analytics tools. Some
of this work is covered in Drachen et al.’s work on spatial analysis (Chap. 17 )
and game data mining (Chap. 12 ), showing examples of analysis work in games
developed and published by Square Enix studios. Also, Medler’s work with
Electronic Arts (Chap. 18 ) where he explored the use of different visualization

techniques to serve different stakeholders, and Seif El-Nasr et al.’s work with Pixel
Ante and Electronic Arts (Chap. 19 ) where they explored the development of novel
visual analytics systems that allow designers to make sense of spatial and temporal
behavioral data.
Researchers in the game user research area have been pushing the frontier of
methods and techniques in several directions. Some researchers have started to
explore triangulation of data from several sources, including metrics and analytics
with other qualitative techniques. Examples of these innovative methodologies can
be seen in this book. For example, Sundstedt et al.’s chapter (Chap. 25 ) discusses
eye tracking metrics as a behavioral data source, and McAllister et al.’s chapter
(Chap.
27 ), which follows Nacke’s chapter (Chap. 26 ) introduction to physiological
measures with a presentation of a novel method triangulating game telemetry with
physiological measures.
In addition to innovation in tools and techniques that can be used in industry and
research, experts in social sciences, communication, and media studies have also
been exploring the use of analytics to further our understanding of human behavior
within virtual environments, and, thus, producing insights for game design. In addition,
the utility of games for learning has been explored. Examples of this work are included
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8
M. Seif El-Nasr et al.
in the chapters by Ducheneaut and Yee (Chap. 28 ), Castranova et al. (Chap. 29 ),
Heeter et al. (Chap. 32 ) and Plass et al. (Chap. 31 ).
1.6 Structure of This Book
The book is divided into several parts, each highlighting a particular aspect of game
analytics for development and research, as follows:
Part I: An Introduction to Game Analytics introduces the book, its aims and structure.
This part will contain four chapters. The fi rst chapter ( Introduction ), which you are
reading now, is a general introduction of the book outlining the different parts and

chapters of the book. Chapter 2 ( Game Analytics – The Basics ) forms the foundation
for the book’s chapters, outlining the basics of game analytics, introducing key termi-
nology, outlines fundamental considerations on attribute selection and the role of
analytics in game development and the knowledge discovery process. Chapter 3
( The Bene fi ts of Game Analytics: Stakeholders, Contexts and Domains) discusses the
bene fi ts of metrics and analytics to the different stakeholders in industry and research.
Chapter 4 ( Game Industry Metrics Terminology and Analytics Case Study ) is a con-
tribution from Tim Fields, a veteran producer, game designer, team leader and busi-
ness developer, who has been building games professionally since 1994. In his
chapter, Tim introduces the terminologies used within the social game industry to
outline major metrics used currently within the industry with a case study to supple-
ment the discussion. Chapter 5 ( Interview with Jim Baer and Daniel McCaffrey from
Zynga ) is an interview with Zynga – a company that has been on the forefront of
game analytics and its use within social games as an important process to push the
business and design of games. This chapter will outline their use of game analytics,
the systems they developed and their view of the fi elds’ future.
Part II: Telemetry Collection and Analytics Tools is composed of six chapters, and
describes methods for telemetry collection and tools used within the industry for
that purpose. In particular, we have fi ve chapters in this part of the book. Chapter 6
( Telemetry and Analytics Best Practices and Lessons Learned ) is a contribution
from Sony Entertainment discussing a tool they have developed and used within the
company for several years to collect and analyze telemetry data within Sony’s pipe-
line. The chapter outlines best practices after iterating over this system for years.
Chapter 7 ( Game Development Telemetry in Production ) is another industry chapter
contributed by Georg Zoeller. In this chapter, he discusses a game analytics system
he developed to enable the company to collect and analyze game metrics during
production to speci fi cally aid in work fl ow, quality assurance, bug tracking, and pre-
launch design issues. Chapter 8 follows by an interview ( Interview with Nicholas
Francis and Thomas Hagen from Unity ) outlining Unity Technologies’ view of tool
development within the Unity 3D platform for telemetry collection and analysis. In

addition to how to collect game telemetry, who to collect this data from is of equal
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9
1 Introduction
importance. Chapter 9 ( Sampling for Game User Research ) addresses this issue by
discussing best practices in sampling, borrowing from social science research and
how to best apply such sampling techniques to game development. This chapter is a
contribution from Anders Drachen and Magy Seif El-Nasr in collaboration with
Andre Gagné, a user researcher at THQ. Next, Chap.
10 ( WebTics: A Web Based
Telemetry and Metrics System for Small and Medium Games ) describes an open
source middleware tool under development intended for small-medium scale devel-
opers, and discusses telemetry collection from a practical standpoint. This chapter
is a contribution from Simon McCallum and Jayson Mackie, both researchers at
Gjovik University College, Norway. The part closes with a Chap. 11 ( Interview with
Darius Kazemi ), an interview with Darius Kazemi, a game analytics veteran with
over 10 years of experience analyzing game telemetry from games as diverse as
casual and AAA titles. The interview focuses on game analytics in general, the cur-
rent state of the industry and what he sees as the future for analytics in game
development.
Part III Game Data Analysis , composed of fi ve chapters, addresses analysis methods
for the data collected. Speci fi cally, it introduces the subject of datamining as an analy-
sis method: Chapter 12 ( Game Data Mining ), a contribution from Anders Drachen
and Christian Thurau, CTO of Game Analytics, a middleware company delivering
game analytics services to the industry, Julian Togelius, Associate professor at The
IT University Copenhagen, Georgious Yannakakis, Associate professor at University
of Malta, and Christian Bauckhage, professor at the University of Bonn, Germany.
The part will also discuss data collection, metrics, telemetry and abstraction of this
data to model behavior, which is the subject of Chap. 13 ( Meaning in Gameplay:
Filtering Variables, De fi ning Metrics, Extracting Features and Creating Models for

Gameplay Analysis ), a contribution from Alessandro Canossa. Additionally, this
part will also include case studies to show analysis in action: Chapter 14 ( Gameplay
Metrics in Game User Research: Examples from the Trenches ), a contribution from
Anders Drachen and Alessandro Canossa with Janus Rau Møller Sørensen, a user
research manager at Crystal Dynamics and IO Interactive, worked on titles includ-
ing Hitman Absolution, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and
Chap. 16 ( Better Game Experience through Game Metrics: A Rally Videogame
Case Study ), a contribution from Pietro Guardini, games user researcher at Milestone,
who has contributed to several titles, including MotoGP 08 and the Superbike World
Championship (SBK), and Paolo Maninetti, senior game programmer at Milestone,
who has worked on titles such as MotoGP 08 and the Superbike World Championship
(SBK). This part of the book also includes an interview with Aki Järvinen, creative
director and competence manager at Digital Chocolate (Chap. 15 : Interview with Aki
Järvinen from Digital Chocolate ), discussing the use of analytics at Digital Chocolate
and its role and importance within the company.
Part IV: Metrics Visualization deals with visualization methods of game metrics as a
way of analyzing data or showing the data to stakeholders. This part has four chap-
ters. The part starts with an introduction to the area of spatial and temporal game
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10
M. Seif El-Nasr et al.
analytics which is the subject of Chap. 17 ( Spatial Game Analytics) . The chapter
is a contribution from Anders Drachen with Matthias Shubert who is a professor at
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. The following two chapters delve deeper into case
studies with visualization tools for game telemetry analysis. In particular, Chap.
18
( Visual Game Analytics ) discusses visual analytics tools developed for Electronic
Arts’ Dead Space team, a contribution from Ben Medler, a PhD student at Georgia
Tech who worked in collaboration with Electronic Arts as a graduate researcher.
Chapter 19 ( Visual Analytics tools – A Lens into Player’s Temporal Progression and

Behavior ) a contribution from Magy Seif El-Nasr, Andre Gagné, a user researcher at
THQ, Dinara Moura, PhD student at Simon Fraser University, Bardia Aghabeigi,
PhD student at Northeastern University and a game analytics researcher at Blackbird
Interactive. The chapter discusses two case studies of visual analytics tools devel-
oped for two different games and companies: an RTS game developed by Pixel Ante
as a free to play single player game and an RPG game developed by Bioware. The
part concludes with Chap. 20 ( Interview with Nicklas “Nif fl as” Nygren ) an interview
with an independent game developer working in Sweden and Denmark, that intro-
duces his views, as an indie developer, on game analytics.
Part V: Mixed Methods for Game Evaluation , consists of seven chapters addressing
multiple methods used for game evaluation. These methods include triangulation
techniques for telemetry and qualitative data – subject of Chap. 2 1 ( Contextualizing
Data ) with case studies from Eric Hazan, a veteran user researcher at Ubisoft and
Chap. 22 ( Combining Back-End Telemetry Data with Established User Testing
Protocols: A Love Story ) with case studies from Jordan Lynn a veteran user researcher
at Volition, Inc. In addition to triangulation methods, this part also features the use of
metrics extracted from surveys as discussed in Chap. 23 ( Game Metrics Through
Questionnaires ), a contribution from Ben Weedon, consultant and manager at
PlayableGames, a games user research agency in London, UK. Chapter 25 ( Visual
Attention and Gaze Behavior in Games: An Object-Based Approach ) discusses the
use of eye tracking as metrics for game evaluation, a contribution from Veronica
Sundstedt, lecturer at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Matthias Bernhard, PhD can-
didate at Vienna University of Technology, Efstathios Stavrakis, researcher at
University of Cyprus, Erik Reinhard, researcher at Max Plank Institute of Informatics,
and Michael Wimmer, professor at Vienna University of Technology. Chapter 26 ( An
Introduction to Physiological Player Metrics for Evaluating Games ), a contribution
from Lennart Nacke, assistant professor at University of Ontario Institute of
Technology, and Chap. 27 ( Improving Gameplay with Game Metrics and Player
Metrics ), a contribution from Graham McAllister, director of Vertical Slice, a game
user research company, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, PhD candidate at the University of

Sussex, and Jason Avent, Disney Interactive Studios, both investigate the use of psy-
cho-physiological metrics for game evaluation. The part also includes an interview
with Simon Møller Chap. 24 ( Interview with Simon Møller from Kiloo) creative
director at Kiloo, a publisher and independent development company pushing a new
model for co-productions. The chapter explores’ the founders perspective on game
analytics for mobile development.
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