“What custom events should I implement?” is a question we get asked a lot at Unity Analytics. Believe it or not, asking this doesn’t mark you as an analytics newb: in our jobs across the industry, we’ve collectively had this conversation on what data to track in every size of organization, from indies to big studios.

Opinions on what to track vary widely, but here at Unity Analytics we believe the answer begins by asking “what questions do I want answered?” While we can’t precisely answer that question for each and every one of you, we do know some of the most commonly-asked questions that developers have, and can use that knowledge to help you begin exploring your questions. To facilitate this, we’re introducing a new tool: Standard Events.

“Standard” Events

Our new feature quickly points you to areas of player behavior you likely want to explore. Instead of completely freeform custom events, these new standard events are normalized to help you ask some pretty sensible questions, such as “how are my players doing?”, “where are they spending money?”, and “how engaged are they in my game?” Just by using the SDK’s API, you get a built-in checklist of questions you should probably be asking.

The Standard Events – and their associated questions – are broken into the following five groups:

How well are players onboarding?

How are players progressing?

How effectively are players monetizing?

Which UI screens do they visit?

How actively are players engaging and socializing?

We’ve captured these five areas in the acronym A POEM, as explained in the short video below.



Our beta users have had some great reactions to Standard Events:

“Standard Events cover 90% of what we normally track, so that works really well. The programmers also like this approach as it’s less error prone and serves as a nice guideline of what events should get tracked.”

Karol Drzymała, Orbital Knight

“Standard Events are exactly what we need. The API gives us the exact analytics calls we’ve been using on our own, and the integration was fast and simple.”

Kyle Yamamoto, MochiBits

If you think Standard Events might help you, you can download it right away from our asset store page.

We’ll dive deep on each Standard Event in a future post, but for now let’s just list them all by category, including a quick explanation of what each event is for.

Event name Event function first_interaction The first voluntary action a player takes after install. tutorial_start The player began a tutorial. tutorial_step The player passed a key stage in a tutorial. tutorial_skip The player skipped past a tutorial. tutorial_complete The player concluded a tutorial.

Game Progress

Event name Event function level_start The player entered into a new level. level_fail The player failed to complete a level. level_quit The player quit a level before completing it. level_skip The player skipped past a level so they could carry on with the game. level_complete The player successfully completed a level. game_start The player began a game. This event is especially useful where a game has a distinct beginning and ending (e.g., arcade, endless runner). game_over The player concluded a game. This event is especially useful where a game has a distinct beginning and ending (e.g., arcade, endless runner). level_up The player leveled up, as might happen through an increase in experience (not to be confused with the completion of a game level).

Monetization

Event name Event function store_opened The player opened an in-game store. store_item_click The player selected an item within the store. iap_transaction The player spends real-world money to make an In-App Purchase. item_acquired The player acquires an item within the game. item_spent The player expends any resource within the game. ad_offer The player was given the option to watch an ad. ad_start The ad started. ad_skip The user skipped the ad. ad_complete The user finished watching the ad. post_ad_action The user completed a desired action (e.g., an install click or purchase) at the end of an ad.

Application Navigation

Event name Event function screen_visit The player navigated to a UI screen. cutscene_start A cutscene began to play. cutscene_skip The player opted to skip past a cutscene.

Engagement/Social