BIG Analytics (datastore based analytics)

What is BIG Analytics?

BIG Analytics is a widget for studio that tracks anything you throw at it, on live servers. It’s fully customizable and runs using Datastores.

Why?

Because I wanted to

Why not use developer stats / web-based approach?

a.) Developer stats sucks because:

  • No API support to track custom stats
  • Can only (at the time of writing this) track revenue, age group, visits, visit time, and crash rates.
  • Data before 5pm PST is inaccurate
  • Graphs will visually glitch out constantly
  • Can’t be accessed via. studio
  • Data is not live and takes at least ~30 minutes to update

b.) Web-based approaches suck because:

  • Free services suffer from either limited bandwidth or long delays (~4 hours)
  • Opens up possible security holes in your games
  • Your key is at risk of being leaked
  • Upkeeping your own server costs a pretty penny (if you’re not going the free route)
  • Can’t be accessed via. studio

Can this be used in a game with heavy datastore usage? How costly?

Yes. BIG Analytics was built to be as efficient as possible. It abuses OrderedDatastores to prevent constant throttling and constantly monitors itself to stay away from the budget. You could theoretically track 60 individual stats a minute without hitting above the current limit, and exponentially more depending on the settings.

How would you add stats to track?

Add a module:
image
Module variables will be tracked for changes independently. The studio plugin will automatically get updated.

How can I get my dirty hands on it?

You can’t. I made this to give myself an advantage.


Pictures and examples of graphs generated from Disaster Dome

image

image

image

image

image

image

image
It can even keep up with holidays! (early screenshot)

25 Likes

I like how he advertises the hell out of it at the start then he’s like nah u can’t touchie touchie lol.

8 Likes

I was getting ready for a link to the plugin after reading the first parts. Sounded like he was intending on having it be open source. And then I got to the “Where can I get my dirty hands on it?” and the following note under it. And I was like “Oh… ok”

5 Likes

I wouldn’t recommend using a free service for production… but Heroku free tier still has enough hours for the entire month every single month (if you have a valid cc on file for verification).

Limited bandwidth, huh?

Not if you know what you’re doing. If anything it makes it more secure because you can control what the server is allowed to do.

This shouldn’t matter if you know what you’re doing.

I don’t think $5 a month is a lot even for a 9 year old.

This is a good thing.

c.) Datastore approaches suck because:

  • It’s freaking Datastore. Good luck doing any sort of relational query or storing any complex data.
  • Or you know, having access to your data anywhere other than studio.
8 Likes

I think you misread

1 Like

Either limited bandwidth or long delays.

I was hinting at allowing HttpService requests in your game(s)

I was hinting at if your entire game ever leaks for whatever reason (exploits like these happen almost ever year and you’re naive to think they won’t)

I don’t like paying $5 a month

I don’t need to store overly complex data. I also don’t want to access this from a web service.

Neat! this is actually quite nice for a datastore approach. Though personally, I’d rather an external database, because you can correlate data with different tables and timestamps quite fast, and learn skills from running databases.

3 Likes

Sad

2 Likes