Let’s take the number of dungeons of the game (we’ll call them levels here). There are two key metrics we want to have here: time spent on the level and number of death. If the player spends too much time on one level it may mean a lot of things: the level is very long, it’s too complicated, it’s very good place to explore or to farm mobs.

Yet, if the player does spend a lot of time on one level and also keeps dying there, it means that the level is too difficult for an average player (or too easy, if the number of death is below average). Again, thanks to data, developers can easily check it all in a couple of clicks.

This isn’t some voodoo secret knowledge here. Mobile developers have been using these techniques for years, but seems like very few indies invest time in doing this small research. While this may not be an obligatory thing to do, it may give you a unique opportunity to find some hidden problems, ultimately making a better, more fluid game.

Monetisation

This is one of those areas, where data is used most often. Big companies are constantly monitoring their sales, average revenue per user, average check and of course – revenue. Money is hard to get, and having all transactions under control is a great way to assess the general performance of the project.

Plus you can easily check the markets and figure out where the game is really booming. For example, you could have a large presence in China but have very little revenue in this country. This might mean a couple of things. There’s the piracy factor, or you could have forgotten to activate the local payment methods in your interface.

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Data is not a thing of legends, it’s not a mystical beast only companies like Sega or Crytek really know how to use. Working with data is basically a way to make a better game. If you can share any other way you can use data to build better projects, please share them in the comments section.

Source: slemma.com

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