Session Name: | The Dangers of Metrics: How Suits Can Ruin Your Game |
Speaker(s): | Christoph Safferling |
Company Name(s): | Ubisoft Blue Byte |
Track / Format: | Business, Marketing and Management |
Overview: | Metrics have many dangers. We will explain the problem of self-selection and use statistical methods on data from Ubisoft games to show the "pure" effects of in-game actions. For instance, we show how -- controlling for self-selection -- the net effect of guild membership is positive for retention, but negative for monetization: guilds increase game participation, but decrease the need for micro-transactions. In monetization metrics, guild members are frequently the best-performing players. But this ignores the problem of self-selection: more engaged players join guilds as a voluntary action, resulting in a self-selected group of most active players, who have high KPIs. |