better analytics

[erosson]

once people start playing, make the analytics better. we have a few basics, (player count, session length, button clicks), but still missing a lot. at a minimum, to know how fast people are progressing:

• graph expansion-count over playtime
• graph meat over playtime

extra credit:

• graph playtime when the player buys their first (queen, nest, hive, ...) (maybe easier with achievements)
• graph offline vs. online-active vs online-idle time, ratios
• graph playtimes when people quit and never return

do this sooner rather than later, we need this info to balance the game

[erosson]

some useful pages:

• http://g3zarstudios.com/blog/google-analytics-in-unity/
• http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/business/business-and-law/tracking-player-metrics-and-views-in-flash-games-with-google-analytics-r3625

[erosson]

Okay, I think we're now tracking most of the data on the statistics screen. Stats verified to be working and visible in realtime:

• time at which first unit/upgrade of each type was purchased
• number of units/upgrades purchased in total

It's possible that I'm logging too much here and may need to pull back if I'm hitting any analytics limits. Throttling the total-purchased stat would be fine.

Custom dimensions/metrics that are now logged, but not available in realtime reports - we can verify these in ~24 hours:

• app version
• save file size in chars
• click log size in chars

Total unit count is not tracked, only purchased units - so, ex. drones built by queens don't appear in the metrics. That's fine, more interested in what tier they're at.

It's common to buy the first unit in a tier to unlock twin upgrades though, so that might throw the metrics off a bit - they buy one of tier n then continue building tier n-1. Meh, close enough.

[erosson]

https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#dashboard/e0yQWR_CQsmE34JOeiaiYA/a53523462w86246489p89488811/%3F_u.date00%3D20140902%26_u.date01%3D20140902%26_u.date10%3D20140901%26_u.date11%3D20140901/

app version is working. save file size and click log size are not. looks like scoping in ga was wrong: product instead of the only other option, hit. changed, let's take another look tomorrow.
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/customdimsmets#example-hit

[erosson]

This is now logged, but not in a useful way! GA only seems to want to tell me the total for all players, or show me how many sessions had exactly the same total.

[erosson]

#58 makes click log size obsolete, and save file sizes are relatively small - way less than 10k - so I'm not going to sweat this.

I'm satisfied with our analytics for now.