November 07, 2016 · 5 min read

6 Game Analytics Questions: Answered by Data Scientists

We've responded to more than 6000 questions from your inquiring minds. Hats off to our fantastic support team. In this post, we've answered 6 questions that are most often sent our way. Hopefully you find this useful!

GameAnalytics

#Data & Analytics

November 07, 2016 · 5 min read

1. Can I use the same pair of keys for all of the platforms that I am targeting?

Short answer: This is possible but we don’t recommend it.

Long answer: We suggest that all users create a unique game entity for every platform that they target. Each entity will have a separate key. Here’s an example of the recommended account structure…

GameAnalytics Account — A well-structured GameAnalytics account

Setting up your account this way offers at least 4 advantages. These benefits far outweigh not having all the data in a single report, as you’ll see below.

More detailed filtering options for your data
Understanding cross-platform behavior and trends
Better and quicker error reporting
Seamless Unity integration

2. What common KPIs should I track using design events?

Short answer: Almost anything that can be easily quantified.

Long answer: Here are a few of the most common metrics that our users track. We recommend using the below to help understand what you can achieve:

First-time user experience (FTUE) in your game
Interaction with elements of the user interface
Tutorial engagement (from start to finish)
Granular progression throughout the content of the game
Length of time watching advertisements
Usage of in-game resources

Important note: always make sure that you generate “controlled” design events. This means that you should avoid programmatic dynamic generation using numbers inside the event’s name.

3. I have sent events but I cannot see them in the tool. Where are they?

Short answer: Minutes away…

Long answer: All events get aggregated and processed by our servers before you can view them on your dashboard. This takes a little time (minutes rather than hours). The real-time dashboards update live data in under 10 minutes. This is assuming that there aren’t any technical issues causing delays in processing.

All other dashboards display data after a wait of 24 hours. When this data has processed you’ll then be able to view your events. You can view events by using the ‘Explore Tool’. Alternatively, you can create custom widgets and organize these within your custom dashboards.

4. I’ve setup IAP validation but all my monetization data is still invalid. Why?

Short answer: The format of the receipt in the business event is wrong.

Long answer: More often than not an incorrect receipt format is the cause of this issue. It’s a relatively simple fix, but the solution differs depending on the platform.

Below you’ll see a sample of correctly formatted code for Android and iOS.

Android:

{
 "json": "{\"packageName\":\"com.company.game\",\"productId\":\"com.company.game.product\",\"purchaseTime\":1451511226660,\"purchaseState\":0,\"purchaseToken\":\"ihidppjnefbnncdcjacmpbio.AO-J1Ow-NBkPkukgVK5XnxVVGwBy7pESKlUUXtnbuLKj8FbJcJdEQ01Ja8B7LCUZD7D8P53gRBNzl65OM86mn9DQQtVj4-f7UF0SEm2MwAi-8KwsSDg7Wtyqtu8cffVZzM2xU5SUnJK_nrGdmD4n3avcJn2UI-bPc1V0N36wvka3q2BM9Q5Bf54\",\"autoRenewing\":true}",
 "developerPayload": "",
 "signature": "Pd04zWPXnXJPo0+x\/tpJbO1\/vm2HjQwybQ\/tmuTzaqGg3d2\/NDINOhZnnwlfqony\/ReYmKfehksq6mb+Xq4O+lpqdbSGjFNcrfSMicFbf4TBlncLu5i20Sl2jlIfQJD4uVA2D2dOALtSbL+Co7dgyaYEYvSXJBD4J5XUTbJOPa0L7AwjSLXYI\/3BE8ubuJ5zetVjkm3pz7mGXooVqs24YwFLE4UP4dCebOoSnFNJO\/ZmDIjogBF+ARcolzaGaEsffqrFD73NDghkaARylpcxZzWPfeeIbBXZQ79364UQaMrTQNH5KFg9R2IY4DEQJl8f7euxgjmbgaz7uppxwCE5Ng=="
 }

Only the value under “json” should be added in the receipt field. For more information, please refer to the Android developer documentation.

iOS:

{\"Store\":\"AppleAppStore\",\"TransactionID\":\"1000000245238955\",\"Payload\":\"MIITyQYJKoZIhvcNAQcCoI......Ku11p8=\"}

Only the value under “Payload” should be sent. That said, the ‘autofetch receipt’ call method is a viable alternative. For more information, please refer to the Apple developer documentation.

5. Can I automate the data export feature?

Short answer: This is possible but NOT recommended.

Long answer: We definitely advise against doing this. This kind of automation is not supported by our engineers and could expose your data to theft. Our team cannot guarantee the safety of something we did not craft.

The manually generated download URLs or the Linux terminal widget commands are the safe, preferred method of export.

6. Why did my funnel fail to process?

This usually happens due to the following reasons:

a. The date range selected includes dates within the last two days. It takes at least two days for data to become available in funnels.

b. One day in the selected date range may not able to retrieve a certain string of information from the database. This could be due to a temporary issue our end.

You can check whether this is the case quite easily. Just switch from the funnels report to the export tool and select the same date ranges, as shown below.

Exporting to test your data — Using the export tool to test your data

Generating the download URLs allows you to learn the cause of the issue. The number of .json URLs should equal the number of days selected in the report x 48.

Using this example:

CORRECT: 6 (days) * 48 (.json URLs) = 288 URLs

WRONG: 6 (days) * 48 (.json URLs) <= 240 URLs

(one entire day’s worth of URLs are missing)

If an incorrect number gets returned you should contact our support team. We can normally resolve this issue within a few hours.

We hope you find this post helpful. If we failed to answer any of your questions be sure to contact our team at support@gameanalytics.com