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PGC Digital: Looking at live ops from an analytics perspective

Small Giant Games lead data analyst Peitsa Hynninen

PGC Digital: Looking at live ops from an analytics perspective

At Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #1, Small Giant Games' lead data analyst Peitsa Hynninen gave a talk on analytics from a live ops perspective.

He started by looking at what the game team needs from live ops analytics, stating that data provided needs to be timely and correct, accounting for fraudulent players especially - as Hynninen put it, you don't want your marketing and finance teams making decisions based on faulty data.

You can also simulate data for the design team, allowing you to set a benchmark for a new feature that you can compare against when the feature actually goes live, though simulated data can also be used for progression analysis and more.

Feedback and biases

Hynninen also suggested using player feedback to reduce the number of iterations designers need to make, such as tracking the win rate of certain heroes in a game and seeing which change when changes are made to them.

He also looked at price point bias, and recommended designing around biases and leaning on preferences - for example, in Japan, four and nine are considered unlucky numbers, so a 490 yen price point performed worse in the country compared to others.

PG Connects Digital #1 is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from April 6th to the 10th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place through the week here.


Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.