The Midas Method: Make Every Game You Touch a Success

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#1

Heya! My name is CJ and today I’m giving a live tutorial + qna session on troubleshooting game design through analytics. You can RSVP for it here, it’s starting at 5PM EST!

I’m a full time dev who has been making games for 13 years now, I’ve been through the accelerator program twice, and I got a degree in game design from Indiana University - and I want to provide you with as much of that experience in as little time as possible.

What I’m presenting today is an in-depth overview of the entire game success process, as well as an introduction to the things you can do with analytics and how to do them.

Highlights:

Plotting events onto a map:

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Word clouds:
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Sankey charts:

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Metric influence solving

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Also, did I mention all of these charts are dynamically connected? For example if you were to select a single path in the sankey chart, everything updates to reflect that!

I even wrote up a tool for determining if a game will succeed before even advertising it!

If any of this sounds helpful to you, you can RSVP here!

And of course, if anyone has any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them in this thread - but the best answers will be presented in the event :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks y’all! I hope this helps!
-CJ

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#2

I am not into game designing but this was a helpful tutorial and by the way I love your roblox stories I have watch it like multiple times it gives me motivation everytime I watch it, I’m sorry if this is off topic just trying to show my appreciation :smiley:

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#3

Thanks!! It was a surreal experience, but I’m just humbled so many people out there connected to it. Glad I could play a small part in your own dev journey! Also if you found this helpful, then I definitely recommend the event :joy:

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#4

maybe I’ll try and give it a shot

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#8

This might seem like a personal question. But was it hard for you to get into Indiana university?

I am in India and I have like 4 years before getting into college but I want to go to Indiana because it just overall seems perfect for me.

And yes the tutorial is great!

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#9

Heya! So, I didn’t have any trouble, however I was also a transfer student from Purdue with a decent GPA + I lived in-state. I definitely do recommend the program though, it really balances the technical and philosophical aspects of game development. Best of luck!

#10

Knowing that the fact that it went top of my head I will still try my best to get into Indiana university

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#11

Looking good! I hope we get to learn how to construct these data visualisations and how to decipher them through the tutorial.

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#12

Yep! They’re actually pretty easy once you know how to approach em!

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#13

Will the session be recorded so we can watch it later as well?

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#14

It will! The main benefit of seeing it live is so you can ask questions in the chat that I can respond to mid-presenation + afterwards with the QnA

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#15

This looks like a very interesting QnA session.

I see some of the highlight teaser pics you’ve sent may require additional applications. If so, would you be able to provide them during the event also?

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#16

Sure thing! Yeah so the main software that’ll be used is a free tool called Power BI. My hope is more to give people a map they can use at their own leisure in as engaging a way as possible, though I’m unsure if you’ll be able to necessarily complete the steps at the pace they’re taught. I know that whenever I’m following a video tutorial I have to pause and replay steps quite often :sweat_smile:

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#17

Will the presentation or a video be uploaded?

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#18

Yep! It’ll be recorded as a YouTube livestream, so you’ll even be able to see the chat I’m responding to

#20

Thank you so much for the presentation yesterday!

It was very insightful and I will definitely be taking your tips to heart.

I strongly recommend for anyone who was not able to turn up yesterday to watch the recorded video off youtube.

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#21

Looks helpful! If I were you I’d change the name though, I’m pretty sure king midas accidentally killed himself with that golden hand.

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#22

Sorry for not asking during the livestream but you know the sankey charts do they portray the most common series of events that occur in a game e.g. the most common one (based on the image you provided) is that someone dies then leaves the game.

#23

Pretty sure it’s the methods name. It doesn’t really refer to anyone Midas turned into gold. Plus, isn’t it just a mythological figure?

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#24

Haha well, I think I’ll leave it as is as warning to devs to keep a good work - life balance :joy:

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