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all right I know GDC was like a month
ago for you guys but when we actually
wrote this episode we had just come back
home from it as many of you probably
know GDC or the Game Developers
Conference is probably the biggest
industry facing conference of the year
this is where the whole game industry
gets together to talk shop and figure
out how to best approach the year to
come so this week I thought we'd talk
about one of the major themes at GDC
this year a trend which is changing our
industry metrics this year everyone
seemed to be talking about metrics and
finally taking a scientific approach to
triple-a games for those of you who
aren't familiar with the term metrics
also known as telemetry both coming from
the same Greek root net run meaning to
measure are simply the tools we use to
measure player behavior in our games
most games these days contain hooks in
the code to send data back to the game
developer whenever the player performs
specific actions it can be as simple an
action as pressing the start button or
as complex as completing a specific
quest with specific gear on a specific
day often we can measure how long you
play and where you quit for
microtransaction games we can measure
when you buy and dredge up the actions
you did right before to understand why
in sports games we can track what teams
are popular in first-person shooters
what weapons any good shooter studio can
tell you exactly how many people have
been killed online with any weapon at
any given time and then give you how
that weapon compares to the other
weapons and kill ratio I could go on but
you get the idea basically today if
you're connected to a server any
developer worth their salt can learn
something about the way you play if they
care to put the time into it we're
getting better at thinking about what we
want to measure from the outset when
developing games and we're improving our
tools for examining and relating this
data which means that designers can now
look at real player data on a massive
scale rather than just conjecturing in
an office about what the players might
be doing now in many ways this is great
it lets developers tweak and improve
their games long after launch it's led
to the culture of patching and updating
games to increase their life cycle it's
allowed us to really dig into what
features resonate most with the player
base so we can focus on them when
constructing sequels but that said
sitting there this year listening to
everybody talk about metrics we started
to see a downside a downside which I
think could turn into a tragic mistake
now this is a bit of a generalization
but many of you may know that social
games are often metrics driven this
means that they simply launch a product
and what they consider to be its Minimum
Viable State and then watch the numbers
polishing it according to what the great
reams of incoming data say many of you
are also probably aware that this year
in terms of dollar-for-dollar
profitability the triple-a industry got
there
handed through them by the social games
crowd this left a lot of people
especially on the business side of the
Triple Aim world looking towards social
games and saying what did we do wrong
and the answer they seem to have latched
onto is metrics driven design the
problem with metrics is that they can
only look backwards you can only take
data about something that already exists
you know how the world of social games
is so permeated with clones and
knock-offs
this is why even though social games are
far far cheaper to make them triple-a
titles somehow there's almost a greater
degree of stagnation in the social
game's world and in the big-budget side
of the industry why because you can't
use metrics to innovate there's no way
of measuring the response to something
that no one's made or experienced yet
instead social games tend to find things
that already work and then try to use
player feedback to polish them until
hopefully they outshine the original and
that's not entirely a bad thing don't
get me wrong but as an industry-wide
trend it is kind of destructive video
games have always been a marriage of art
and science and now we're looking to use
metrics not to place them firmly as a
science but rather to relegate them to a
manufactured good data into code out and
once this culture gets established in a
company it's very hard to turn around
say you're a designer and you say guys
awesome game idea alright a game where
we give the player a gun that shoots two
interconnected wormholes that let the
player traverse space and interesting
ways with like a funny psychotic
computer antagonizing him the entire
time and then someone responds alright
would you have the data to back that up
it's very hard to argue with that
soon everything's safe and
by-the-numbers and your big company just
has too many interlocking parts that
depend on those numbers to disentangle
your ideas from them now hopefully this
will change as even the large social
games companies are coming to realize
that while metrics are a fantastic tool
for understanding your player base
metrics alone don't create fun
long-lasting games it's also important
to remember that metrics are being used
and not only the shape games but to
guide advertising and hone brand image
as well but like everything else metrics
are only as good as the people building
them very often games or brands have
turned themselves into inaccessible
niche products by listening only to the
people currently using them or relying
on a poorly constructed set of questions
used to dredge data now don't get me
wrong metrics aren't bad they're
actually very useful but they aren't the
answer either not alone anyway there's
no silver bullet to how to make the
triple-a industry compete with all the
emerging forms of games and if we cling
to some single Nostrum as a cure-all as
the answer to all the woes of the end
streeted a we're not gonna get anywhere
thanks for watching see you next week
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