Playmaker Forum
PlayMaker News => General Discussion => Topic started by: escpodgames on April 27, 2014, 12:51:32 AM
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Hey Jean,
Just setting up Game analytics in my game using the inbuilt actions but noticed there is a task in Trello for Game analytics which you are currently 'doing'. What are the fixes? and should I stop setting up my analytics with the old actions (only using Design and Business events)
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Hi,
I would wait indeed. It's a matter of few days and coordination before we get a release it seems.
It's not really just about "fixes", but more to come to par with the latest GA api and tools, as well as a tigther integration of PlayMaker and GA.
Bye,
Jean
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The newest version of game analytics is up on the asset store with the new playmaker integration for any of you who are looking at using it. Now to see what's new. Thx Jean!
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Hi,
You are welcomed :) don't hesitate to give us feedback on this as you progress in your implementation of GameAnalytics in your projects.
Bye,
Jean
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I've just started implementing GameAnalytics into my project.
What is actually required in order to start seeing data on the dashboard on my game's page on the GameAnalytics.com site?
I signed up for my new account from within Unity, so all of my IDs and secret strings match my project on the website.
- I've got a GA_SystemTracker on my first screen, and it's marked as subsequent levels.
I've got a Send Design Event on my level results screen
When playing my game in Unity, with the GA_StatusWindow open, I can see that it's submitted my Design event successfully.
I've also built and played my windows standalone and Android builds and played them through to the end of the first level.
Should this be enough to see *something* logged on my dashboard?
Annoyingly, they're having server problems at the moment (have been all day!), so I don't know whether my data was received and just not processed, or whether something isn't set up correctly and it's never going to appear.
Should my 2 steps be enough to see something?
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Anyone?
My dashboard info still says no data, but the Unity window shows that info was successfully sent. (Half of those events were sent 16 hours ago, the others, about 30mins ago).
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Most analytics services take 48hrs to update, this could be the case?
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They say some elements take 24 hours, like custom events. But from what I read, standard data should be much, much quicker.
I guess I'll leave it until tomorrow.
From what I've listed about what I've done, that should be enough, right? I haven't missed any steps in order to be able to get data to GA systems?
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Hi,
You would get errors and feedback in the Unity console if things where not set up properly.
Bye,
Jean
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Great.
And it's all working now.
They had (possibly still) some massive problems this week - e.g data from Friday not being processed until Monday afternoon! They say they've caught up with the backlog now, but the realtime data is still delayed a bit.
Now it's time to think about how to structure my custom events :)
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Looking at the GA site and their examples of custom Design Events
(http://support.gameanalytics.com/hc/en-us/articles/200841636-Creating-meaningful-custom-events)
In their example here:
An actual event sent to the server might look something like this:
{
"user_id" : "8f64a3b5-84c9-4932-9715-48e9456654b1",
"session_id" : "f81fc6bd-0d70-44f3-a3d2-9a3056d6d66f",
"build" : "DesignTest",
"event_id" : "Death:Weapon:Shotgun",
"value" : 15,
"area" : "Level 1",
"x" : 13.7,
"y" : 172.6,
"z" : 76.1
}
How would this be possible when the PlayMaker action 'Send Design Event' doesn't contain a field for 'Area'. ?
Should the PM action have this field?
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Hi,
as it says, this is how it looks "on the server".
"area" is defined by default as your level name, but you can use "Set custom area"
"user_id" is defined internally by default, but you can override it using "Set Custom User ID"
"session_id" is internal only.
"build" is a property within the GamAnalytics settings ( where you put the key and secret key).
Bye,
Jean
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Thanks, I'll experiment with that :)
Next question : To get all of my events into the GA system, do I have to manually play through my build so it submits each metric? Or is there a way of submitting everything automatically? I want to set up my filters and reports on the GA website, but obviously it doesn't list my custom events yet... It's only showing the handful that I unlocked accidentally when testing my game.
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The 'Set Custom Area' action, how should it be used?
In the same state as the Send Design Event? Above it and set as an Action Sequence?
Is it cleared the next time I send a different Design Event? (e.g. defaulting back to the default)
From a user's point of view, it would have been more user-friendly to have this field as an optional field on the Send Design Event field rather than a seperate action.
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Bump.
Some guidance on how/where to use Set Custom Area would be much appreciated. I understand what it does from the documentation and what Jean has written here, but how/when/how often to use the action is not clear and is not documented.
Thanks.
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Hi,
"area" is a way to filter your data, it's by default the scene you are in, but on complex project, scenes may not reflect anything valuable ( like compositing several scenes to form a complex levek, and so you define your area is you want.
it could be like "Level 1", Level 2" typically.
and so once you set a custom area, ALL events logged will belong to this area.
In your dashboard, you will then be able to filter by area, and create widgets where area is part of the equation to pull data in a meaningfull way for your specific game.
only set a custom area once, don't force the value again and again, set it when the user click on "play" or "next level" typically.
Bye,
Jean
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So does it reset on level load?
If I'm setting it up for each of my levels, I just need to use the action once just after loading? Then when the next scene is loaded it defaults back to the GA default of using the scene name?
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Hi,
I would enquire with them directly. I am not sure about the behavior of their datas and if it reverts if you load a scene and don't set a custom area then.
Bye,
Jean
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I just had a reply from GA.
The Custom Area is carried over across different scenes that are loaded, so if you want to set it back to the default area (scene name), you need to set a blank entry.
The PlayMaker action should therefore probably accept an empty field - at the moment it gives an error if left blank.
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Hi,
Good, thanks for the headsup. I wasn't aware of the reverting option.
My guess is that as soon as you start using custom areas, it's because Unity scenes dont' relate anymore, so it's unlikely that you would revert in the middle of the game to the default behavior, but for the sake of completness I'll update that action.
Bye,
Jean
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Great, thanks.
In my case, I use 1 scene per 10 levels of my game - so use custom area for reporting accurately, I also want to use the same info on my results screen, and then I revert to the default for my menus and other screens.
I think Set Custom Area will be used quite a lot by others too.
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Hi,
Fair enough.
the fix currently is to create an empty string variable, let's say "empty string", and feed that into the custom area action, then the error will be gone and you will have your way to use default area.
Bye,
Jean