Data-Driven Design & Development
Course info
Programme
Staff
Course semester
Exam
Abstract
In this course, students learn how to work in data-driven design and development processes and what changes data analysis brings to the design and maintenance of games.
Description
Data analysis has become one of the driving forces of game design and development. This course teaches data analysis methods, and how they affect design and development. Students learn how user data is gathered, and how data analysis can be used in order to support the design and development of games and other interactive systems. They also learn how to develop, use, and analyse different game industry related metrics (e.g. customer metrics, community metrics, performance metrics, gameplay metrics) and how to use those to balance and optimise different aspects of games, informing the design process.
Formal prerequisites
The students need to have attended a introduction to programming course.Intended learning outcomes
After the course, the student should be able to:
- Describe the impact of data analysis on game design, production, and marketing.
- Identify the stages of game design, production, and marketing in which analytics support decision making.
- Classify the key performance indicators relevant in each of the design, production and post production stages.
- Relate qualitative properties of the game experience with quantitative measures.
- Outline and apply relevant statistical measures for testing and evaluation
- Design tests and experiments, and evaluate their results in relation to the expected player experience.
- Construct effective visualisations from collected metrics that can inform game design, production, and marketing.
- Describe the challenges connected to the collection and analysis of large amount of in-game data.
Ordinary exam
Exam type:D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.