This document summarizes a presentation on software analytics. It discusses definitions of software analytics, types of analytics like web and game analytics, the history and various names of software analytics. It outlines key information needs for software development analytics like summarization, alerts, trends and benchmarks. Smart analytics is described as being actionable, real-time, diverse, and sharing insights, methods, models and data. An example is provided of sharing a defect prediction model and discussing challenges with cross-project prediction. Finally, an example is given of sharing insights around skill in the game Halo Reach.
53. How do patterns of play affect
players’ skill in Halo Reach?
5 Skill and Other Titles
6 Skill Changes and Retention
7 Mastery and Demographics
8 Predicting Skill
2 Play Intensity
3 Skill after Breaks
4 Skill before Breaks
1 General Statistics
54. The Cohort of Players
The mean skill value µ for each player after each Team Slayer match
µ ranges between 0 and 10, although 50% fall between 2.5 and 3.5
Initially µ = 3 for each player, stabilizing after a couple dozen matches
TrueSkill in Team Slayer
We looked at the cohort of players who started in the release week
with complete set of gameplay for those players up to 7 months later
(over 3 million players)
70 Person Survey about Player Experience
57. 2.1
2.3
2.5
2.7
2.9
3.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
mu
Games Played So Far
2 Play Intensity
Median skill typically
increases slowly over time
58. 2 Play Intensity (Games per Week)
2.1
2.3
2.5
2.7
2.9
3.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
mu
Games Played So Far
0 - 2 games / week [N=59164]
2 - 4 games / week [N=101448]
4 - 8 games / week [N=226161]
8 - 16 games / week [N=363832]
16 - 32 games / week [N=319579]
32 - 64 games / week [N=420258]
64 - 128 games / week [N=415793]
128 - 256 games / week [N=245725]
256+ games / week [N=115010]
But players who play
more overall eventually
surpass those who play
4–8 games per week
(not shown in chart)
Players who play 4–8
games per week do best
Median skill typically
increases slowly over time
59. 3 Change in Skill Following a Break
“In the most drastic scenario, you can lose
up to 80 percent of your fitness level in as
few as two weeks [of taking a break]…”
60. -0.03
-0.02
-0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Δmu
Days of Break
Next Game
2 Games Later
3 Games Later
4 Games Later
5 games later
10 games later
3 Change in Skill Following a Break
Median skill slightly
increases after each game
played without breaks
Longer breaks correlate
with larger skill drops, but
not linearly
On average, it takes 8–10
games to regain skill lost
after 30 day breaks
Breaks of 1–2 days
correlate in tiny
drops in skill
61. 6 Skill Changes and Retention
SAX (Symbolic Aggregate approXimation) discretizes
time series into a symbolic representation
62. Time-series of skill measured for first 100 games
Most common pattern is steady
improvement of skill
Next most common pattern is a
steady decline in skill
6 Skill Changes and Retention
Pattern Frequency Total Games
61791 217
45814 252
36320 257
27290 219
22759 216
22452 253
20659 260
20633 222
19858 247
19292 216
17573 219
17454 245
17389 260
15670 215
13692 236
12516 239
63. Time-series of skill measured for first 100 games
Most common pattern is steady
improvement of skill
Next most common pattern is a
steady decline in skill
Improving players actually end
up playing fewer games than
players with declining skill
Pattern Frequency Total Games
61791 217
45814 252
36320 257
27290 219
22759 216
22452 253
20659 260
20633 222
19858 247
19292 216
17573 219
17454 245
17389 260
15670 215
13692 236
12516 239
6 Skill Changes and Retention