work to do, do not have time to deal with all of their suggestions or demands, and if they
devote too much time to placating everyone they are liable to lose track of their own
design vision. For this reason, many online games hire community managers whose
sole job is to listen to and communicate with the players and synthesize their feedback
into useful information that the development team can then use to refine the game.
The fact remains that, though invaluable, the feedback offered by players, whether
in a beta test or after the game has launched, is problematic at best. A more reliable
technique is to look at player metrics, though this data can be quite challenging to
understand. Sometimes referred to as data mining, analyzing player metrics is the pro-
cess of tracking what players are actually doing in the game and using that data to adjust
the play experience. So if you find that 90 percent of your players are using one particu-
lar type of object, it might suggest you should make more objects of that type. Similarly,
if players are never using a certain feature you put in, it might be worth your time to try
to determine why players are never using it and then address their issues. If it turns out
the feature simply is something they do not need, it may be wise to cut that feature
instead of maintaining it. Furthermore, you can learn from this mistake by avoiding
similar unwanted features in the future. The value of player metrics is that the data can-
not lie or exaggerate and it is a fair representation of what all of the players are doing,
not just the ones who take the time to talk to the developers. Just as surveys in general
can be colored by people’s desire to make themselves look good in various ways, so too
can feedback from players about their game experience. OnThe Sims Online, the devel-
opers used player metrics to uncover player exploits, since shortly after one player
found an exploit, soon the whole world would know and everyone would be using a par-
ticular object for their own benefit. Analyzing player metrics is essential to assessing
the true state of the world before making any changes and adjustments to your game.
Chapter 13: Multi-Player 255
AfterThe Sims Online
had launched, the team
at Maxis used player
metrics to uncover player
exploits.