Week 7

Metrics derives from measurements; analytics derives from analysis and means the systematic analysis of data and statistics, and the information that arises from it.

Hard data is undeniable fact that is most useful, e.g. "this level took 15 seconds specifically", whereas soft data is opinion that is least useful, e.g. "this took you 15 seconds, do you think it was easy?"

Heatmaps are a good method for collecting data on a lot of things, such as where players are in your game at points in time.

One of the dangers in collecting data is collecting too much, for example in a kills throughout a month heatmap in de_dust 2 in CS:GO where a lot of areas are solid red, and there's too much data to make any solid observations.

Collecting data is important for:

• Game balance

• Pain points

• User retention

• Tracking and driving monetisation

• Bug detection

• Educational effectiveness

• Trend detection

Metrics may include:

• How many daily/monthly active users

• How many times players log in per day/month

• How long players play per day/month

• What percentage of players from the previous month not log back on in this month

Godwin's Law: Eventually any online argument will result in a comparison to Nazism or Hitler.

Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

• Variant: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, but eventually, they become the same thing.

Occam's razor: If you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.

Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

• Variant - Finagle's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong... at the worst possible time.

Poe's Law: without a clear indicator of author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views could be misinterpreted to be a sincere expression of such views.

When contracting, put aside 5-10% of the value of the contract for tax.