The last decade has witnessed the rise of big data in game development as the increasing proliferation of Internet-enabled gaming devices has made it easier than ever before to collect large amounts of player-related data. At the same time, the emergence of new business models and the diversification of the player base have exposed a broader potential audience, which attaches great importance to being able to tailor game experiences to a wide range of preferences and skill levels. This, in turn, has led to a growing interest in data mining techniques, as they offer new opportunities for deriving actionable insights to inform game design, to ensure customer satisfaction, to maximize revenues, and to drive technical innovation. By now, data mining and analytics have become vital components of game development. The amount of work being done in this area nowadays makes this an ideal time to put together a book on this subject. Data Analytics Applications in Gaming and Entertainment seeks to provide a cross section of current data analytics applications in game production. It is intended as a companion for practitioners, academic researchers, and students seeking knowledge on the latest practices in game data mining. The chapters have been chosen in such a way as to cover a wide range of topics and to provide readers with a glimpse at the variety of applications of data mining in gaming. A total of 25 authors from industry and academia have contributed 12 chapters covering topics such as player profiling, approaches for analyzing player communities and their social structures, matchmaking, churn prediction and customer lifetime value estimation, communication of analytical results, and visual approaches to game analytics. This book’s perspectives and concepts will spark heightened interest in game analytics and foment innovative ideas that will advance the exciting field of online gaming and entertainment.

The last decade has witnessed the rise of big data in game development as the increasing proliferation of Internet-enabled gaming devices has made it easier than ever before to collect large amounts of player-related data. At the same time, the emergence of new business models and the diversification of the player base have exposed a broader potential audience, which attaches great importance to being able to tailor game experiences to a wide range of preferences and skill levels. This, in turn, has led to a growing interest in data mining techniques, as they offer new opportunities for deriving actionable insights to inform game design, to ensure customer satisfaction, to maximize revenues, and to drive technical innovation. By now, data mining and analytics have become vital components of game development. The amount of work being done in this area nowadays makes this an ideal time to put together a book on this subject. Data Analytics Applications in Gaming and Entertainment seeks to provide a cross section of current data analytics applications in game production. It is intended as a companion for practitioners, academic researchers, and students seeking knowledge on the latest practices in game data mining. The chapters have been chosen in such a way as to cover a wide range of topics and to provide readers with a glimpse at the variety of applications of data mining in gaming. A total of 25 authors from industry and academia have contributed 12 chapters covering topics such as player profiling, approaches for analyzing player communities and their social structures, matchmaking, churn prediction and customer lifetime value estimation, communication of analytical results, and visual approaches to game analytics. This book’s perspectives and concepts will spark heightened interest in game analytics and foment innovative ideas that will advance the exciting field of online gaming and entertainment.

Developing a successful game in today’s market is a challenging endeavor. Thousands of titles are published yearly, all competing for players’ time and attention. Game analytics has emerged in the past few years as one of the main resources for ensuring game quality, maximizing success, understanding player behavior and enhancing the quality of the player experience. It has led to a paradigm shift in the development and design strategies of digital games, bringing data-driven intelligence practices into the fray for informing decision making at operational, tactical and strategic levels. Game Analytics - Maximizing the Value of Player Data is the first book on the topic of game analytics; the process of discovering and communicating patterns in data towards evaluating and driving action, improving performance and solving problems in game development and game research. Written by over 50 international experts from industry and research, it covers a comprehensive range of topics across more than 30 chapters, providing an in-depth discussion of game analytics and its practical applications. Topics covered include monetization strategies, design of telemetry systems, analytics for iterative production, game data mining and big data in game development, spatial analytics, visualization and reporting of analysis, player behavior analysis, quantitative user testing and game user research. This state-of-the-art volume is an essential source of reference for game developers and researchers. Key takeaways include: Thorough introduction to game analytics; covering analytics applied to data on players, processes and performance throughout the game lifecycle. In-depth coverage and advice on setting up analytics systems and developing good practices for integrating analytics in game-development and -management. Contributions by leading researchers and experienced professionals from the industry, including Ubisoft, Sony, EA, Bioware, Square Enix, THQ, Volition, and PlayableGames. Interviews with experienced industry professionals on how they use analytics to create hit games.

The entertainment industry has long been dominated by legendary screenwriter William Goldman’s “Nobody-Knows-Anything” mantra, which argues that success is the result of managerial intuition and instinct. This book builds the case that combining such intuition with data analytics and rigorous scholarly knowledge provides a source of sustainable competitive advantage – the same recipe for success that is behind the rise of firms such as Netflix and Spotify, but has also fueled Disney’s recent success. Unlocking a large repertoire of scientific studies by business scholars and entertainment economists, the authors identify essential factors, mechanisms, and methods that help a new entertainment product succeed. The book thus offers a timely alternative to “Nobody-Knows” decision-making in the digital era: while coupling a good idea with smart data analytics and entertainment theory cannot guarantee a hit, it systematically and substantially increases the probability of success in the entertainment industry. Entertainment Science is poised to inspire fresh new thinking among managers, students of entertainment, and scholars alike. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau and Mark B. Houston – two of our finest scholars in the area of entertainment marketing – have produced a definitive research-based compendium that cuts across various branches of the arts to explain the phenomena that provide consumption experiences to capture the hearts and minds of audiences. Morris B. Holbrook, W. T. Dillard Professor Emeritus of Marketing, Columbia University Entertainment Science is a must-read for everyone working in the entertainment industry today, where the impact of digital and the use of big data can’t be ignored anymore. Hennig-Thurau and Houston are the scientific frontrunners of knowledge that the industry urgently needs. Michael Kölmel, media entrepreneur and Honorary Professor of Media Economics at University of Leipzig Entertainment Science’s winning combination of creativity, theory, and data analytics offers managers in the creative industries and beyond a novel, compelling, and comprehensive approach to support their decision-making. This ground-breaking book marks the dawn of a new Golden Age of fruitful conversation between entertainment scholars, managers, and artists. Allègre Hadida, Associate Professor in Strategy, University of Cambridge

Game data science, defined as the practice of deriving insights from game data, has created a revolution in the multibillion-dollar games industry - informing and enhancing production, design, and development processes. Almost all game companies and academics have now adopted some type of game data science, every tool utilized by game developers allows collecting data from games, yet there has been no definitive resource for academics and professionals in this rapidly developing sector until now. Games Data Science delivers an excellent introduction to this new domain and provides the definitive guide to methods and practices of computer science, analytics, and data science as applied to video games. It is the ideal resource for academic students and professional learners seeking to understand how data science is used within the game development and production cycle, as well as within the interdisciplinary field of games research. Organized into chapters that integrate laboratory and game data examples, this book provides a unique resource to train and educate both industry professionals and academics about the use of game data science, with practical exercises and examples on how such processes are implemented and used in academia and industry, interweaving theoretical learning with practical application throughout.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications, ADMA 2021, held in Sydney, Australia in February 2022.* The 26 full papers presented together with 35 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 116 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections in Part II named: Pattern mining; Graph mining; Text mining; Multimedia and time series data mining; and Classification, clustering and recommendation. * The conference was originally planned for December 2021, but was postponed to 2022.

Affecting every sector and country in the world, digital technology is changing the way citizens engage in society, companies conduct business, and governments deliver public services. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the pace of digitalization and exposed such vulnerabilities as inadequate infrastructure, weak regulations, and a scarcity of skilled professionals capable of digitally transforming government. Not immune to the digital revolution, governments are slowly adapting to a digital world. Governments are implementing digital solutions to deliver services to their citizens, make payments, and engage the public. Focusing on how government can transition more effectively through digital transformation, Pivoting Government Through Digital Transformation covers the following key components: Setting the stage during the Great Resignation period Filling the digital talent pipeline Best practices and vignettes for applying digital transformation in government Looking ahead towards the future Key chapter contributors from U.S. and foreign governments, as well as state and local governments, discuss how they are coping with today’s environment and how they are using digital transformation efforts to enhance their organization’s effectiveness and digital talent pipeline. With chapters on theory and practice, this groundbreaking book offers an in-depth analysis of the most innovative approaches to e-government and discusses case studies from local, state, and federal government perspectives. This is an essential guide for government employees, scholars, and regular citizens who want to make government work more effectively and democratically in the digital age.

Large data sets arriving at every increasing speeds require a new set of efficient data analysis techniques. Data analytics are becoming an essential component for every organization and technologies such as health care, financial trading, Internet of Things, Smart Cities or Cyber Physical Systems. However, these diverse application domains give rise to new research challenges. In this context, the book provides a broad picture on the concepts, techniques, applications, and open research directions in this area. In addition, it serves as a single source of reference for acquiring the knowledge on emerging Big Data Analytics technologies.

Games live and die commercially on the player experience. Games User Research is collectively the way we optimise the quality of the user experience (UX) in games, working with all aspects of a game from the mechanics and interface, visuals and art, interaction and progression, making sure every element works in concert and supports the game UX. This means that Games User Research is essential and integral to the production of games and to shape the experience of players. Today, Games User Research stands as the primary pathway to understanding players and how to design, build, and launch games that provide the right game UX. Until now, the knowledge in Games User Research and Game UX has been fragmented and there were no comprehensive, authoritative resources available. This book bridges the current gap of knowledge in Games User Research, building the go-to resource for everyone working with players and games or other interactive entertainment products. It is accessible to those new to Games User Research, while being deeply comprehensive and insightful for even hardened veterans of the game industry. In this book, dozens of veterans share their wisdom and best practices on how to plan user research, obtain the actionable insights from users, conduct user-centred testing, which methods to use when, how platforms influence user research practices, and much, much more.