Video Games are not a standalone experience anymore. The industry has evolved tremendously from its humble origins, and beyond amazing realistic graphics, highly evolved Artificial Intelligence, complex gaming mechanics and impressive ergonomic interfaces there is the massive online gaming experience. Video gamers are not anymore isolated individuals hiding in their room or TV rooms. They connect to the world and other people that share their passion for gaming through their Video Game Consoles, computers and mobile devices. This opens a world of opportunities for Video Game Studios and Marketing organizations that are visionary enough to dig for the golden nuggets hidden in the Gigabytes, even Petabytes of data produced by gamers interaction. From improved gaming experience to in game marketing, real time analytics and business intelligence tools find serious application in a fun business.
Improving the gamer's experience
Massive Online Gaming is now a billionaire industry that companies like BioWare©, Blizzard© among many others are exploiting to its fullest. The opportunities are many and they start from analyzing the players’ behavior and interaction to selling “virtual” items in game.
Most games require a data store that is simple to use and manage but that it can also provide the benefits of quick response and stability. These databases store game related information and provide access to players to their profile. Additionally, servers keep activity tracking through logs. These logs make available data mostly in a sequential format and loosely or not at all structured.
By extracting gaming data and log data to a data warehouse, game companies are able to use advanced Business Intelligence applications and other sophisticated statistical analysis tools to answer questions like:
- Geographical profile of players
- Average gaming style of players (standalone, group)
- Average time players spend connected playing
- Specific game mechanics behavior
- Possible hacking and cheating activities
- Customer churn
The new trend of social gaming via social sites like Facebook and Twitter allowed companies like Zynga to find new business models by allowing players to play online video games for “free”. Players have to grant these applications access to their profiles which immediately rewards game developers with demographic data about players. This data can be used to customize adds around the game frame while the player access the application. Adding to this data, application logs will provide valuable information such as geographical information (via IP address), mobile device preferences (for mobile devices) and player behavior.
Key analytic needs for Social Gaming companies are many, but a great example of one is the analysis of data fed back from player games use. Typically, decision support tools used are not systematized and a variety of self developed tools are used for extracting data from logs and databases. Using Statistical Analysis tools like 'R' or SAS "IT experts" are able to perform scoring analysis, regression analysis and advanced statistical analysis.
Using Business Intelligence Tools for Gaming Analysis
For many years now the Casino Gaming Industry has been reaping the benefits of Business Intelligence tools to allow non IT personnel to Analyze the players'behavioral trends and improve their business processes.
Heavy dependency on the IT personnel to perform Statistical Analysis is not something Business Areas want when the core of a business is based on people that must be specialized in Marketing, the Entertainment Industry, Operations and Gaming.
Heavy dependency on the IT personnel to perform Statistical Analysis is not something Business Areas want when the core of a business is based on people that must be specialized in Marketing, the Entertainment Industry, Operations and Gaming.
A big chunk of the profits that Social Gaming companies make comes from selling "virtual goods". A costume or look for a character game currency or gifts to other players are some of the many profitable options of "free games". Being able to predict the popularity and the positive or negative reaction that players may demonstrate to the addition of these items or changes to the gaming experience is key for the success or failure of these free Social Games.
You can read here how Zynga stresses visual access to its large databases.
You can read here how Zynga stresses visual access to its large databases.
