How a Game Performance Dashboard Can Help the Gaming Industry
www.countants.com
Overview • The Importance of Data Analytics to the Gaming Industry. - Benefits of using data analytics in the gaming domain • 5 Key Metrics that Should Be Part of Your Game Performance Analysis Dashboard • Conclusion
The Importance of Data Analytics to the Gaming Industry
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Going by the 2018 Global Games Market Report, online gamers are projected to spend nearly $152 billion in the year 2019 (up from $138 billion in the year 2018). According to Filmora, there are an estimated 2.341 billion online gamers across the globe that is projected to grow to 2.725 billion gamers by the year 2021.
Why is it important to perform data or gaming analytics? Online gaming companies who adopt gaming analytics can improve their gaming design (according to user preferences) and attract more gamers to play their games.
Here are some of the benefits of using data analytics in the gaming domain:
• Game design and development • The Profitability Factor • Personalized marketing in gaming • Online fraud prevention
Game design and development Data-Driven game design is effective in engaging any gamer at specific levels in the game.
The Profitability Factor Effective game data tracking and analytics can be used to analyze user behavior based on whether they are likely to play the game repeatedly or even pay for the services.
Personalized marketing in gaming Through insights gained from real-time game analysis dashboards, gaming companies and marketing companies can deliver the right marketing message to the targeted gamer based on their personal interests and choices.
Online fraud prevention
Gaming analytics can be used to verify player identity and detect any fraudulent activity at an early stage.
How a game performance analysis dashboard works along with the best game analytics metrics to use
Some of the common KPIs that are tracked across all games include: •The number of active players who log into the game every day, which indicates player retention. •The length or duration of the game session that indicates user engagement •The number of new players who have signed up, which indicates customer acquisition. •The overall rate of first-time game monetizers that indicates the average money that players spend through in-game purchases. •The progression of gamers through the multiple levels, that indicates if most users are advancing to higher levels and may necessitate a change in the game architecture.
5 Key Metrics that Should Be Part of Your Game Performance Analysis Dashboard
Daily Active Users (or DAU)
Daily Active Users and Monthly Active Users are both key metrics that indicate the number of active players for your game. Additionally, the ratio of DAU versus MAU indicates how well the game can retain player interest.
Retention Rate
New player acquisition is quite a challenging and expensive affair, hence it’s important that firsttime players do not churn away immediately from the game. Hence, the retention rate metric is among the most crucial metrics in a player retention dashboard.
ARPDAU
Commonly used in analytics for mobile games, ARPDAU can be an effective tool in forecasting revenues and measuring the ROI of your game.
Conversion Rate
This is another crucial gaming metric for measuring monetization. Conversion rate measures the percentage of unique players that have made a purchase to the total number of players in a specific time period.
Average Session Time
Be it for a first-time (or consequent) game session, the average session time is measured as the average time that every unique gamer spends playing a game session.
As a gaming company, how can you make use of these key metrics in your game performance dashboard to improve player retention and monetization? Here are some key action points:
• Devise actionable insights by writing customized SQL queries on your gaming data. • Understand how players are interacting with the game and devise game design improvements that can encourage higher player retention and engagement. • Build a better gaming and pricing model for new games that can work for better monetization. • Develop game features and strategies through data-powered A/B Testing, which can work towards improving user engagement. • Improve your game monetization model by targeting the right frequency of digital ads and the right online channels for social media marketing. • Perform accurate cohort analysis in gaming that can drive better strategies in player acquisition.
Conclusion The use of gaming analytics and data visualization is playing an important role in the online gaming industry. With its expertise in cloud technology and data visualization, Countants is using gaming analytics to transform the role of data for its gaming customers.