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Introducing Standard Events

May 12, 2017 in Technology | 4 min. read

"What custom events should I implement?" is a question we get asked a lot at Unity Analytics. Believe it or not, asking this doesn't mark you as an analytics newb: in our jobs across the industry, we've collectively had this conversation on what data to track in every size of organization, from indies to big studios.

Opinions on what to track vary widely, but here at Unity Analytics we believe the answer begins by asking "what questions do I want answered?" While we can't precisely answer that question for each and every one of you, we do know some of the most commonly-asked questions that developers have, and can use that knowledge to help you begin exploring your questions. To facilitate this, we're introducing a new tool: Standard Events.

"Standard" Events

Our new feature quickly points you to areas of player behavior you likely want to explore. Instead of completely freeform custom events, these new standard events are normalized to help you ask some pretty sensible questions, such as "how are my players doing?", "where are they spending money?", and "how engaged are they in my game?" Just by using the SDK's API, you get a built-in checklist of questions you should probably be asking.

The Standard Events – and their associated questions – are broken into the following five groups:

How well are players onboarding?
How are players progressing?
How effectively are players monetizing?
Which UI screens do they visit?
How actively are players engaging and socializing?

We've captured these five areas in the acronym A POEM, as explained in the short video below.

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Our beta users have had some great reactions to Standard Events:

"Standard Events cover 90% of what we normally track, so that works really well. The programmers also like this approach as it's less error prone and serves as a nice guideline of what events should get tracked."
Karol Drzymała, Orbital Knight

"Standard Events are exactly what we need. The API gives us the exact analytics calls we've been using on our own, and the integration was fast and simple."
Kyle Yamamoto, MochiBits

If you think Standard Events might help you, you can download it right away from our asset store page.

We'll dive deep on each Standard Event in a future post, but for now let's just list them all by category, including a quick explanation of what each event is for.

Onboarding/First-time User Experience

Event name	Event function
first_interaction	The first voluntary action a player takes after install.
tutorial_start	The player began a tutorial.
tutorial_step	The player passed a key stage in a tutorial.
tutorial_skip	The player skipped past a tutorial.
tutorial_complete	The player concluded a tutorial.

Game Progress

Event name	Event function
level_start	The player entered into a new level.
level_fail	The player failed to complete a level.
level_quit	The player quit a level before completing it.
level_skip	The player skipped past a level so they could carry on with the game.
level_complete	The player successfully completed a level.
game_start	The player began a game. This event is especially useful where a game has a distinct beginning and ending (e.g., arcade, endless runner).
game_over	The player concluded a game. This event is especially useful where a game has a distinct beginning and ending (e.g., arcade, endless runner).
level_up	The player leveled up, as might happen through an increase in experience (not to be confused with the completion of a game level).

Monetization

Event name	Event function
store_opened	The player opened an in-game store.
store_item_click	The player selected an item within the store.
iap_transaction	The player spends real-world money to make an In-App Purchase.
item_acquired	The player acquires an item within the game.
item_spent	The player expends any resource within the game.
ad_offer	The player was given the option to watch an ad.
ad_start	The ad started.
ad_skip	The user skipped the ad.
ad_complete	The user finished watching the ad.
post_ad_action	The user completed a desired action (e.g., an install click or purchase) at the end of an ad.

Application Navigation

Event name	Event function
screen_visit	The player navigated to a UI screen.
cutscene_start	A cutscene began to play.
cutscene_skip	The player opted to skip past a cutscene.

Engagement/Social

Event name	Event function
push_notification_enable	The player activated push notifications.
push_notification_click	The player reacted to a push notification.
chat_msg_sent	The player sent a chat message.
achievement_step	The player completed a milestone on the way to an achievement.
achievement_unlocked	The player successfully completed an achievement.
user_signup	The player registered through a login system.
social_share	The player shared something (e.g., an image, invitation, or challenge) with a friend.
social_share_accept	One player reacted to the social share of another.

Marc Tanenbaum

May 12, 2017 in Technology | 4 min. read

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