Mining the mindset of a player base can be a massive undertaking, but when it’s done carefully, the data collected can bring about a wealth of opportunities as valuable as gold. We recently sat down with Mark Robinson of Games Analytics for an enlightening discussion on creating a personalized experience for the individual player, improving player satisfaction, and increasing revenue across the board.
Games Analytics was founded in order to bring a focus on player behavior into the Online Games Industry for the first time. Mark Robinson tells us that at Games Analytics they personalize the gameplay experience based on the unique playing style of the individual. This industry is a well overflowing with useful information, and the deeper we pull from that well, the better the results are for everyone involved.
Prior to working in the games industry, Robinson ran a Marketing Services Agency focused on delivering customer insights and defining contact strategies to improve revenue and retention. He was introduced to the games industry by Chris Wright, the co-founder of Games Analytics. Robinson calls this the most exciting phase of his career, with a real sense of community (including the global community) and a great networking environment.
We asked Robinson about the challenges and difficulties they faced when launching this new operation. He told us that there really is no rule book on effective game design for the online free-to-play model. What they do know is that the right combination of analytics-based game design recommendations and targeted in-game messages can significantly boost engagement and revenue in games. He feels the main difficulty was that ‘analytics’ could be a confusing term, but the industry is waking up to the fact that deeper analytics are required to solve issues that are commonly reported in dashboards. And of course with the more data we have, the more powerful it all becomes.
Robinson had already developed robust processes for customer segmentation and predictive modeling in the financial and retail sector, so he was well prepared to apply these techniques to player behaviors. Game Analytics has been able to build upon this work and augment their techniques in order to understand the complexities of player behaviors and react to them.
Personaliztion is a key component of their analysis of player behavior. Robinson reminded us that no two players are alike. Because of this, it can be a difficult task for the designer and developer to tailor the gameplay experience towards an individual player’s point of view. “Analytics help to give us perspective on players who are struggling, players who are confident, players who are combatitive, players who are social - It’s like focus testing on steroids - And ultimately we can create a game environment that reacts to these various playing styles while delivering appropriate communication to enhance that experience.”
Robinson emphasized the importance of understanding user behavior for game creation. He says, “When a developer has spent their hard-earned cash on acquiring players, it is absolutely heart breaking to see 70 percent of those players leave the game without engaging, and only 1 percent paying to play. We work with developers from beta through launch to ensure that game design is optimized for as many players as possible. We balance the difficulty. We make sure that monetization is appropriate. We ensure that the tutorial is as clear as day and that the game encourages positive behaviors in the early levels. By enabling the analytics to drive some of the decision making it is possible to increase engagement significantly. We’ve been known to double retention rates.”
There are common mistakes developers make when gathering and applying this information. It is easy to fall into the trap of collecting too much data, or the wrong kind of data.
With the result that insight, particularly actionable insight, isn’t forthcoming. Too many charts can also create decision paralysis. Robinson asserts that it is a rather delicate balancing act. The approach at Games Analytics is to help developers make sense of that complexity and give clear design recommendations so that the game appeals to the widest possible audience.
His advice to developers attempting to engage their audience are to be generous in the early stages and encourage positive behaviours. Be patient when it comes to monetization — it is all too easy to chase conversion and, in the process, create a retention problem.
When we asked Robinson what he would predict for the future of analytics, he responded, “Ha — that’s a good question to ask a statistician! When I look into my crystal ball I see a world where games are responsive to players, not only in the targeting of in-game messages, but also in how the game plays and what features and difficulty are presented to the player. Our technology can literally ‘Change the Game’ and backed up by our analytics consultancy, we are working hard with our clients to deliver this vision to gamers.”
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