After many public opinion controversies, "Ming Tide" once again proved its value at the end of the year: on the one hand, after the new character "Tsubaki" was launched in November, the game quickly rushed to the top 5 of the iOS game best-selling list, and once again topped the Korean game best-selling list, and entered the top 10 in Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and other markets;

On the other hand, "Singing Tide" is also one of the domestic games with the most awards this year, and has won the Best Science Fiction Award at the Galaxy Awards, the Best Drama of the Year/Best PC Game of the Year Award on Google Play, and the nomination for TGA Best Mobile Game/Player's Voice.

Behind the visible success, there are also many "invisible" challenges, on the one hand, the pressure brought about by the launch of the same version on all platforms around the world, and on the other hand, the complexity of the development of the open-world game itself.

If you want to catch the torrential traffic, you not only put forward higher requirements for the stability of the technical architecture, but also need to observe the real feedback of players from a large amount of data, so as to respond in a timely manner and iterate.

In the R&D stage, Kulo chose Shushu Technology as a partner. In the past two years, the company has not only witnessed the success of Rising Tide, but also accompanied the project team to solve many challenges - in the process, ThinkingEngine (TE Systems), the big data engine for counting games, has become a key driver of Kulo's globalization strategy.

01

Only by understanding the players can you make a good game

Due to the high complexity of the map and gameplay of open-world two-dimensional games, it is also more difficult to find the direction of the game's version iteration.

To this end, Kuro tried to use the game's heat map provided by Counting Technology. This allows you to visualize the areas where players are congregate in the game world, understand which areas are most popular with players, and which areas are less popular with players, and optimize the map design. For example, if the value of resource output and consumption is unbalanced through heat map analysis, the project team can adjust the difficulty and method of obtaining props in subsequent versions.

At the same time, the game's heat map can also show the areas where monsters are frequently killed, and based on this data, the game dynamically adjusts the strength, type and refresh rate of monsters, so that players can have a rich and fair combat experience. By hiding the data of bosses and props being discovered, you can also verify the player's exploration of the map, so that some important easter eggs, activities, gameplay, and stories can play a greater value.

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Game heat maps can also help optimize the performance of the game. If the project team finds that the game has performance problems such as lagging, overheating, and incompatibility, it can analyze which areas have a large number of users through the map, and consider dispersing the resources and monsters in the area to the surrounding areas to improve the overall performance and bring players a better experience.

02

It's important to iterate to retain players

In the process of global distribution, there are significant differences in cultural backgrounds, consumption habits, and game preferences in different markets.

Through the analysis of player behavior data and advertising data, the project team accurately grasped the needs and consumption psychology of players in different regions. The integration of game data and advertising data in the TE system can not only help the project team verify user retention and payment models, and conduct correlation analysis between gameplay preferences and player style characteristics, but also fundamentally reduce the cost of buying volume.

The cost of buying a global project is also high, and the decision needs to be made more carefully. Through the TE system, the project team realized real-time estimation of the payback cycle and ROI trend, so as to link advertising optimizers and channels to make timely decision-making adjustments, reduce the cost of buying volume, and optimize the effect of buying volume.

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Through the TE system, the project team can also explore the real needs of players in different product cycles. From the expected test data to the actual online data, there is a gap from the point to the line and then to the surface of the data at different stages and even in different modules, and this small quantitative change often brings qualitative changes, which requires the project team to continuously disassemble the game functional structure, quantify the indicators, and scientifically evaluate and adjust the game.

In terms of game content, the project team built a mature player portrait model through the TE system to adjust the plot and scenes, so as to make the game itself more distinctive and meet the preferences of different players.

At the same time, the project team also collects information through a variety of channels, such as in-game feedback portals, player communities, customer service, etc., to understand players' ideas, and then perceives players' real opinions and dynamics in real time through data reports built by the TE system, so as to do risk review maintenance more efficiently.

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In terms of game commercialization, since different payment models will affect players' payment behavior, the quality of the game's graphics, plot, gameplay, characters, props, skins, etc. will affect players' willingness to pay.

In terms of preventing player churn, the project team can see in more detail where players are lost and where iterative optimization needs to be carried out through the retention analysis of the TE system. In terms of gameplay, the project team optimized the ladder difficulty and numerical curves of different missions and bosses by observing real-time effects. For example, if the player completes the content in a short period of time, then it means that the depth of the gameplay scene is limited and may need to be further expanded in the future.

Open-world players will pay more attention to the immersive experience, so the requirements for game graphics and performance are extremely high. On the one hand, the project team continuously optimizes the rendering effect through the player's equipment performance data and detection feedback to ensure quality and efficiency. On the other hand, they also continue to optimize the loading algorithm through the abnormal results of the problem log, improve the stability of the game, and reduce the occurrence of crashes, stuttering and other phenomena.

03

The technology is hard to hold

At the technical level, TE Systems' global multi-cluster architecture has helped the globalization of Kulo's gaming business. This architecture ensures full coverage and accuracy of data analysis while maintaining privacy compliance.

Screenshot of the TE system demo

In the past, it was difficult to communicate data between different platforms, and it was extremely difficult to track the data feedback of the same player on different devices. The TE system's global + omni-channel SDK access, including C++ SDK and UE SDK, can aggregate multi-terminal data such as cloud games, PS, X-Box, PC, and mobile games, so that players' game data can be seamlessly connected, and progress and data can be consistent no matter which device they switch to.

At the same time, the cloud-native architecture adopted by the TE system improves the operational efficiency of the data platform in terms of computing and data storage. For example, the CLS solution jointly created by Shushu and Tencent Cloud supports the writing of millions of log messages per second in multiple regions, which can aggregate the business logs and cloud service logs of games to help the project team achieve optimal integration of resources.

04

epilogue

With the data support of TE's system, the project team can collaborate in a more efficient way, devote more time and resources to the development and optimization of game content, and bring players a better game experience.

For the industry, it is generally difficult for manufacturers to have enough resources and manpower to fully cover R&D, operation, distribution, etc., and there may always be areas that are not very good at.

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