Online features in Lewd games

[Elvishious]

Where should we draw the line?

It's been a long time I'm conflicted with a hard dilemma: As a game dev, I would love to use some cool API calls and data analysis to provide a better experience. But as a player, I don't want to have the game I'm playing to do weird communication with the internet.

Let me get it off my chest.

I've been playing a lot of Subnautica since the early development and one of the best features for this game's development was the "submit feedback" form.
That feature alone allowed the devs to know what player liked, disliked, wanted to see, wanted to be corrected, and could submit a screenshot with that. With some data analysis wizardry, they have been able to make so much progress on all aspects of the game.
As a dev myself, I found it fascinating and could see so many possibilities with such a feature.
Just being able to gather feedback from the game directly and having it centralized, without using Discord or a link to a dedicated website is definitively a time savior for the players and the devs.

This block of thought is where my struggles begin.

As a man of culture, I play a lot of NSFW games, and the last thing I want is that the lewd game I'm playing is sending personal Infos on the internet. That's the reason why I'm using a VM when I want to play a game like that.
But I also know that some people decompile games, analyze packages sent, and would potentially expose the shady behaviors of a game if something odd is found.
I think that no Devs would have the audacity to ruin their career over some data. Maybe I'm wrong or too optimistic.

The premise of using a feedback form led me to think of other types of online public service and the ethical/morality/acceptance questions that fly around it.

Should we completely avoid to use rest API post/get in a lewd game? (sending/receiving data)

The possibilities with restful API are almost endless:

• Using DeepL API to translate the game in languages you don't support yet.
• Using Patreon API to add value to your reward tiers (custom easter egg, exclusive content, etc...)
• Using a custom API from your website to display realtime news on the Title screen (like a % progress on the next update)
• Using Discord API to communicate with your discord server, so your custom bot could randomly brag about it "there's current XX player playing"
• Using Hosting websites to mitigate the file size of the game? (hosting game's sprites/renders, sound, WebM)

Would this type of feature be accepted in a lewd game? (feedback submission)
Can another type of API be used in a lewd game? (Patreon, DeepL, Discord, game's official website)
Maybe adding a disclaimer when you start the game: "This game uses online features, would you like to turn it ON? yes/no"

All feedback appreciated (devs or player)

 

[Domiek]

Even though I've worked in data analytics for years, I think this is a terrible idea for our games. Right off the bat, you're alienating a sizable portion of your potential player base who will outright refuse to play a game where data is sent from their phones/computers to some server that they don't know about. We live in an age where people believe Bill Gates is sticking microchips into vaccines. Data collection is already a big scare and the last thing you'd want is to create an unnecessary potential reason for people to not play your game, even if what you're doing is completely innocent.

I do agree though, having an instant centralized way to receive feedback directly from the player would be really cool. If a player is invested enough to send in feedback, maybe having an in-game button directing them to an external website isn't that big of a deterrent? I'm only speculating here.

 

[Amethyst Star]

Privacy has been a hot button topic for a while now, what with GDPR and huge private information leaks in the past few years.

It's unfortunate since feedback and player behavior analytics can be so powerful, but I feel like most people want to keep their porn private and would be immensely creeped out by a game making network calls. I wouldn't mind a game giving me an option to provide feedback, but I sure as hell don't want the game to do it automatically.

 

[DaClown]

Basic design principle on shear ethics of practice: opt-in not opt-out.
The decision to send information in this way should be active and voluntary.
The information gathered and sent should generally be anonymized with strong player/user controlled configuration of what is gathered or sent. By default nothing should be sent, so informed consent practices would require that the player specifically opts in piece by piece to what is sent with clear documentation on what is gathered and sent.
End to end encryption is pretty much necessary and even something like TOR would be advisable given that porn is illegal in most of the world.

The issue with gathering any of this information is storage and security of the information received is paramount. A databreach could be a matter of life or death for a lot of people. Best practice under those conditions is to gather as little data as possible and eliminate anything that might be used to trace back to the source or simply do not store the data any longer than necessary (scheduled erasures or 0 logs policies).

 

[Elvishious]

It seems like you all have the same point of view as me as a player. So in order to make the debate progress, let me try to play the devil's advocate.

Even though I've worked in data analytics for years, I think this is a terrible idea for our games. Right off the bat, you're alienating a sizable portion of your potential player base who will outright refuse to play a game where data is sent from their phones/computers to some server that they don't know about. We live in an age where people believe Bill Gates is sticking microchips into vaccines. Data collection is already a big scare and the last thing you'd want is to create an unnecessary potential reason for people to not play your game, even if what you're doing is completely innocent.

I do agree though, having an instant centralized way to receive feedback directly from the player would be really cool. If a player is invested enough to send in feedback, maybe having an in-game button directing them to an external website isn't that big of a deterrent? I'm only speculating here.

The issue you're pointing is more the opacity of what is sent and the limited people in the player base knowing what is going on.
The thing is with an in-game form there's some much stuff we can do to decrease the time spent on the feedback form on both ends:

• Automatic screenshot if the player decides to include a screenshot (just a matter of toggling a button), instead of asking the player to take a screenshot, copy it, then add it to the form hosted on a website on their own
• Player's location: saving a field in the form, but I imagine that a lot of other fields could be saved to thanks to that
• State of the serialized save: easily convertible to JSON, can be sent easily inside the form

Imagine some skilled dude decide to Wireshark the game an open the data sent, as we know it's relatively easy to open a POST/GET request and know exactly what is stored in it. If any personal data is found, your carrier is over.

Privacy has been a hot button topic for a while now, what with GDPR and huge private information leaks in the past few years.

It's unfortunate since feedback and player behavior analytics can be so powerful, but I feel like most people want to keep their porn private and would be immensely creeped out by a game making network calls. I wouldn't mind a game giving me an option to provide feedback, but I sure as hell don't want the game to do it automatically.

Yeah the debacle around GDPR made a lot of things move in the web dev industry (at least in EU).
When I'm talking about sending/receiving data, I'm not talking about personal data.
While imagining this, I thought it would be better to give the player full option/control over things he sends and being fully transparent about it, like adding a "?" button to tell exactly what is sent.

For example:
In the case of the feedback form, it would be in a JSON file containing only relevant data (player position in-game, feedback message, a category the player thinks his feedback belongs to, and probably a screenshot if the player decide to add it)

Spoiler: Subnautica feedback form

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And will be sent to the internet, only if the player submits the form.

In other instances like language traduction etc.. for each and every option that can communicate with the internet, adding a "?" to describe what is sent/received seems to be a good solution too.

On top of that, we can make a master button in the settings (by default off) that blocks the internet communication if turned off.

Basic design principle on shear ethics of practice: opt-in not opt-out.
The decision to send information in this way should be active and voluntary.
The information gathered and sent should generally be anonymized with strong player/user controlled configuration of what is gathered or sent. By default nothing should be sent, so informed consent practices would require that the player specifically opts in piece by piece to what is sent with clear documentation on what is gathered and sent.
End to end encryption is pretty much necessary and even something like TOR would be advisable given that porn is illegal in most of the world.

The issue with gathering any of this information is storage and security of the information received is paramount. A databreach could be a matter of life or death for a lot of people. Best practice under those conditions is to gather as little data as possible and eliminate anything that might be used to trace back to the source or simply do not store the data any longer than necessary (scheduled erasures or 0 logs policies).

Regarding porn illegality, most of the services I'm talking about are public services like DeepL, Patreon, Discord. It can be easy to anonymize the data sent/received: you just avoid to send public info.
A form as described above is anonymous. The best way to make it work legally would be to redirect the API call in-game from

You must be registered to see the links

to a proxy

You must be registered to see the links

. The proxy will then send the data to your server and nothing suspicious has been accessed by your PC.
There's a lot of work to do on the back-end to pull that off.

In the case of storage, with an application like I described, the only thing stored on the dev side would be feedback. The best practice would be to make all the feedback public on your website (like Subnautica did), so nothing is hidden. It's just an anonymous message with a screenshot and a category. There's nothing else stored.

• no email
• no name/nickname
• no country
• no IP

So even if a data breach occurs, there's nothing to gather except the anonymous feedback.



Mea-culpa: I should have been clearer when I used the big evil term 'data' in the OP. By that, I surely meant 'anonymous data'.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Even though I've worked in data analytics for years, I think this is a terrible idea for our games. Right off the bat, you're alienating a sizable portion of your potential player base who will outright refuse to play a game where data is sent from their phones/computers to some server that they don't know about. We live in an age where people believe Bill Gates is sticking microchips into vaccines. Data collection is already a big scare and the last thing you'd want is to create an unnecessary potential reason for people to not play your game, even if what you're doing is completely innocent.

I do agree though, having an instant centralized way to receive feedback directly from the player would be really cool. If a player is invested enough to send in feedback, maybe having an in-game button directing them to an external website isn't that big of a deterrent? I'm only speculating here.

Would assume your focus group should be your actual Patreons seeing they are the ones already invested at a level. If they could opt into such a "feedback program", it would be no more than what you would find in beta testing online games today really. As long as the user got a choice in partake it should be all good and those with a high paranoia wouldn't have to be afraid of black helicopters in the sky and cookie monster under their bed....

 

[MaxCarna]

This is an unexpected question that I came across these days, when I got angry feedback because my game had a google analytics tag. When I started developing my game years ago I still thought that people would be afraid to download executables, for all the wave of viruses and malware they had everywhere. I thought that a game completely online, without bringing anything to people's computers would be much more accepted, already in the first months I started receiving requests to generate a download version.

It is very sad that Facebook was able to generate this wave of panic where people give up the advanced resources that the internet has because they think that some secret agency on the other side of the world has nothing more to worry about than ordinary life that they have. I currently use the Patreon API from a PHP module to enable content in my game, it works very well. My major source of information has been Cloudflare. I don't even know why I keep the Google Analytics tag

 

[Elvishious]

Would assume your focus group should be your actual Patreons seeing they are the ones already invested at a level. If they could opt into such a "feedback program", it would be no more than what you would find in beta testing online games today really. As long as the user got a choice in partake it should be all good and those with a high paranoia wouldn't have to be afraid of black helicopters in the sky and cookie monster under their bed....

It's a weird state of mind I have. I have no problem when an early access game from steam/itchio asking for feedback and make data analysis. But for some reason, I find the porn games that use that type of stuff untrustworthy.

Probably because a lot of Porn sites used, for a long time, questionable behaviors on their website:
popups based on your preferences, tabs crawling, browser parameters (for a long time Chrome used to store username/password and credit card in an unencrypted folder), too many cookies (okay for cookies, but cookies that stays on my computer saying I watched "Ebony anal gangbang" is hard no), and sometimes straight-up malware.

This is an unexpected question that I came across these days, when I got angry feedback because my game had a google analytics tag. When I started developing my game years ago I still thought that people would be afraid to download executables, for all the wave of viruses and malware they had everywhere. I thought that a game completely online, without bringing anything to people's computers would be much more accepted, already in the first months I started receiving requests to generate a download version.

It is very sad that Facebook was able to generate this wave of panic where people give up the advanced resources that the internet has because they think that some secret agency on the other side of the world has nothing more to worry about than ordinary life that they have. I currently use the Patreon API from a PHP module to enable content in my game, it works very well. My major source of information has been Cloudflare. I don't even know why I keep the Google Analytics tag

I'll admit, I'm being paranoid too when it comes to practices like this thanks to all the debacle that happened because of privacy policies and personal data.
But what about the Patreon API on the .exe, did you face any criticism within your player base regarding this?
Do you have the % your patreons that accessed the patreon exclusive content on your .exe?

 

[anne O'nymous]

As a game dev, I would love to use some cool API calls and data analysis to provide a better experience. But as a player, I don't want to have the game I'm playing to do weird communication with the internet.

The question is really simple : Do people playing adult/porn games, that most of them have downloaded from a piracy site, want to have (who know which) data collected by an anonymous individual they know absolutely nothing about ?

And the answer is even more simple : No, the vast majority of them do not want it.


Personally I would be part of those who would just shut the game and never play it again. I've done it for every games I found having this kind of practice ; after "exposing" the said practice on the game thread if needed. This not because of some privacy concern, I know the limits of what you could do with the data, but because of a security concern.
Firstly I don't know you, therefore I don't know if you can be trusted to just collect what you say you'll do. Game engines aren't secured to restrict the computer access, any game can perfectly include a part that will transfer your web browser bookmark or history, to take a not too much concerning example.
Secondly, what are the guaranties that you know enough about computer security, to efficiently protect the data you'll collect ? By example, that you discover, through my IP address history, that every last week of the month I'm on another part of the country is one thing. That some bad guys who cracked your database discover the same thing is a totally other thing ; one that is way more concerning.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

A way around this that might give you some of the data you're after is to simply include a link to a feedback form in the menu of the game. Then put a screen explaining what it's for at the start of the game (and at intervals during the game - for example when a new chapter starts), then when the link is clicked you could ask the player if they want the anonymous data to be included in the feedback form and maybe even give them an example of what the anonymous data looks like; if they say no, just take them to the form hosted somewhere online; if they say yes, include the data as a text document attachment to the form.

 

[Elvishious]

The question is really simple : Do people playing adult/porn games, that most of them have downloaded from a piracy site, want to have (who know which) data collected by an anonymous individual they know absolutely nothing about ?

And the answer is even more simple : No, the vast majority of them do not want it.


Personally I would be part of those who would just shut the game and never play it again. I've done it for every games I found having this kind of practice ; after "exposing" the said practice on the game thread if needed. This not because of some privacy concern, I know the limits of what you could do with the data, but because of a security concern.
Firstly I don't know you, therefore I don't know if you can be trusted to just collect what you say you'll do. Game engines aren't secured to restrict the computer access, any game can perfectly include a part that will transfer your web browser bookmark or history, to take a not too much concerning example.
Secondly, what are the guaranties that you know enough about computer security, to efficiently protect the data you'll collect ? By example, that you discover, through my IP address history, that every last week of the month I'm on another part of the country is one thing. That some bad guys who cracked your database discover the same thing is a totally other thing ; one that is way more concerning.

Let's separate what's sent and what's received.

data sent:​

Imagine the data collected are just contained in the feedback form and contain no sensible data:

Spoiler: Json format

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

​

Those data are completely anonymous and are sent only when the user clicks the submit button. Is that acceptable?​

​

​

data received:​

Here we could just use Public API, such as Patreon, DeepL, or even your custom API.​

Testing those addresses is really simple and just requires a web browser to see what is received on the game with the GET address used. By decompiling the game and accessing the code, the address accessed should be written in clear.​

example:

You must be registered to see the links

On top of that, adding freedom for users to disable that feature and adding a complete description of what we are accessing and what we are gathering from those API should be appreciated.​

Even with that amount of control and transparency, do you think we should completely avoid features like that?​

​

The biggest problem concerning security would probably come from Patreon auth. If someone is doing the middle man between the player and Patreon servers, the hacker could try to decrypt the package sent via the POST and have access to the Patreon account of that player. But in that case, the security breach comes from the player that got middle-maned.
If that happened, the player also has the option to enable double-auth to prevent that type of casualty.
Adding a warning promoting that feature (double-auth) could also be a nice thing to remind.
nb: I know the devs could do the middle man here by posting the auth heys to a remote server, but let's pretend there's only GETs in that scenario.
Edit: Just realized that Patreon used OAuth, so there's no way to take the password unless you hack Patreon.

Maybe completely remove the data sent is the right move to do and replace it with a hypertext link to a feedback form on a website. What is your opinion about it?

Of course, when making a service like that and collecting anonymous data, you must know your limits. In no way, you should implement something like that without proper skills. The back-end here is not the topic I'm trying to discuss but I can see that most of the security concern comes from here, if you need a secured server and can't make it, you should hire a professional.

 

[anne O'nymous]

data sent:​

[...]
Those data are completely anonymous and are sent only when the user clicks the submit button. Is that acceptable?

You missed the main point : Why should I trust you when you say that it's all you'll send ?

If a AAA game editor add a bug report feature in a beta, I'll, more or less, trust them. Not because they are trustworthy, but because they can be sued and held responsible if they start to steal personal data from their customers. Therefore, doing such move would mean the end of their millions dollars business.
If an open source team do the same, I'll, more or less again, trust them. Not because such teams are trustworthy, but because the whole code is available and can be audited at any time ; and this part will be the first one to be. If they start to mess with the data they transfer, it will be seen relatively fast. They also aren't anonymous and so can be sued and held responsible. They have less to loose than an AAA game editor, but reputation is something important in this community, and they'll loose theirs.

But you, you are no one and nothing. I have just your words that what you'll get will be limited to what you say. Like I have just your words that you are who you claim to be. But I have no guaranties that your words are trustworthy, and no guaranties that the personal information you gave to any entities asking for them (like Patreon when you'll use their services by example) are correct ; even your bank account can have been opened on a fiscal paradise by using a false identity (not as difficult as it seem) and so lead nowhere.
Of course, I talk about the worse scenario, but why should I expect it to not be what will happen ? Just because you said that you can be trusted ? Like Domiek implied, a lot of people are cautious, when not paranoid, when it come to their personal data. Those people will always expect the worse, then decide if they take the risk or not, depending of what is this worse.

The biggest problem concerning security would probably come from Patreon auth. If someone is doing the middle man between the player and Patreon servers,

My answer was explicitly pointing the security of the data you'll collect, not the collecting process. You could use a SSH tunnel encapsulating a SSL connection transmitting data using a custom encryption, that it would change nothing ; I'm way more concerned by someone targeting the computer where you'll store the data, than by someone randomly sniffing on the connection between my computer and whatever server.

Not a single of the future players of your game will ever be a man-in-the-middle target. Not only none of them is valuable enough for that, but also they have to be found before they can be targeted. Which isn't the case of your server, that is already located. So, when you say that "in that case, the security breach comes from the player that got middle-maned", you're wrong. If such attack happen, the compromised host will be on your hosting provider network ; ideally the last router before your server since it guaranty that you'll sniff on all the traffic. Therefore, the breach would come from you, who've choose the wrong partner.
But anyway, like I said, none of your future players are valuable enough ; and if they are, the guy will absolutely not care about your own traffic, he's interested by things that have way more value. What is potentially valuable is your database, therefore no one will lost his time trying to sniff on the traffic, they'll just get directly to the said database.

And talking about this make me realize that I forgot a "thirdly" in my previous answer. It regard the limits of usability of your feature. Could it be, or not, hijacked by someone having compromised your server, to collect more than what you initially intended to get.

The back-end here is not the topic I'm trying to discuss,

Yet it's the two third of the concern. There's the data you'll get, there's how you'll secure their storage, and there's the way those data will be collected. You want to talk about the first, while what is effectively important is the two others.

It's not directly linked to what you intend to do, but yet related to the subject. Few months ago, I found a Ren'py game here offering a chat service directly implemented in the game. There's some way to hijack it and make it interact with the player's computer ; with all that it imply as security concern.
It's also possible that I perhaps, but surely without intention to do it, succeeded to gain access to his server. But, like I'm a good guy, if it effectively happened I'm sure that I would have done nothing more than closing the door before leaving.

The moment you start to add a remote connection in your game, every point related to it is part of the decision that will be made by the player to accept it or not ; especially the technical and back-end points.

if you need a secured server and can't make it, you should hire a professional.

Do you have the start of an idea of how much it would cost you ? I'm retired of the field since years now, but in my days it would cost you at least US$ 20.000/years to have someone effectively qualified working as freelance on the security of your server. You can probably cut it in half if you achieve to find someone really interested by your project, but the less you'll pay for it, the more your security will be nothing more than an illusion ; same if you hire someone just to install the security of the server.

 

[Elvishious]

You missed the main point : Why should I trust you when you say that it's all you'll send ?
[...]
My answer was explicitly pointing the security of the data you'll collect, not the collecting process.

You're right, so the solution would be to make the code open-source and completely remove the sent data from the in-game form, redirecting to an online form if the feedback is needed.
I'm still not certain if the open-source is necessary, sure, it will be easier to earn trust with that, but if you only receive packages from public sources that should not be an issue. As far as I know, I don't think it's possible to make damages using a GET request.

I'm paranoid regarding NSFW games that have online features, that's why I'm trying to find the right middle ground if one day I want to implement such features as long as I found one.

 

[anne O'nymous]

You're right, so the solution would be to make the code open-source and completely remove the sent data from the in-game form, redirecting to an online form if the feedback is needed.

There's still possibilities, all relying on the place where the data will go.
By example, Ren'py integrate the possibility to use google analytic to have some stats regarding players choices. Not everyone will accept to use such game, but at least we know that the data will be secured, and that you can't send whatever you want. You can try to have more personal information than we want to give, but to keep my previous example, you can't send our browser history or bookmark.

So, for your bug report problem, try to find a trustworthy site that can host a bug report feature. The world tend to change too fast for my age, but there's probably some devel sites offering a bugzilla API, or something like that. The more known is the site and the more known is the API used, the more you'll find people trusting it. Simply because, like for google analytic, we know that the data are secured, and that you can't use it to do whatever you want.

I'm paranoid regarding NSFW games that have online features, [...]

With reasons since the adult gaming scene rely mostly on anonymity.

We already know that regular indie devs who make regular games, by using their real names and having a perfectly legal and clean society, tend sometimes to mess with our personal data. Hell, we know that it's even the case for strongly established societies.
So, when it's a totally anonymous guy who start to say, "hey, my game will send me some of your data", we can only expect the worse. Most of the time it's just innocent, but it suffice of one time, or one wrongly done feature. I mean, the game with the chat feature I talked about, I'm sure that the dev have only good intentions ; yet it can be used to do really bad things behind his back.

 

[Joshua Tree]

You're right, so the solution would be to make the code open-source and completely remove the sent data from the in-game form, redirecting to an online form if the feedback is needed.
I'm still not certain if the open-source is necessary, sure, it will be easier to earn trust with that, but if you only receive packages from public sources that should not be an issue. As far as I know, I don't think it's possible to make damages using a GET request.

I'm paranoid regarding NSFW games that have online features, that's why I'm trying to find the right middle ground if one day I want to implement such features as long as I found one.

1) This is silly. People like "pornsites is scary shit with maleware etc etc"... We talking about games here, the creator got a Patreon. They accountable. If Patreon learned that a creator was malicious data mining their users... They would have a short stay at the platform. Also, adult sites on internet that actually live of their users, have more than often higher security these days than whatever average site else. I picked up a trojan once from a banner at friggin IKEA website.

2) Ask how people feel about x, y & z on this site is also silly, because the people you need to ask, is your actual Patreons, which do support you already. As I said before as long as the end user have the option to "opt out" of partake, no big deal what so ever. Bending over backwards for people who the majority pirate your game, and really should have no say in anything (they there for the free lunch) seems silly.

 

[DaClown]

It's a weird state of mind I have. I have no problem when an early access game from steam/itchio asking for feedback and make data analysis. But for some reason, I find the porn games that use that type of stuff untrustworthy.

Probably because a lot of Porn sites used, for a long time, questionable behaviors on their website:
popups based on your preferences, tabs crawling, browser parameters (for a long time Chrome used to store username/password and credit card in an unencrypted folder), too many cookies (okay for cookies, but cookies that stays on my computer saying I watched "Ebony anal gangbang" is hard no), and sometimes straight-up malware.


I'll admit, I'm being paranoid too when it comes to practices like this thanks to all the debacle that happened because of privacy policies and personal data.
[...]

I think you're being adequately paranoid. Keep in mind any system that you build for such data collection could be reverse engineered and widely adopted to porn game designs in general creating a new era of invasions of privacy, malware, and adware.

Many porn sites chosen at random still have many of these problems. I personally have an immediate hard no when data is collected from games I play not for QA purposes to catch and fix bugs or improve the features of the game but when it is in service of creating a market profile of me and the other players of the game. Non-consensual data collection for advertising and marketing purposes or particularly to sell that data to corporate or political interests is beyond a hard no from me; it is the kind of thing that will make an enemy of me.

 

[Sphere42]

For a different angle on this (but likely a similar conclusion...) what data are you actually qualified and willing to handle for the sake of improving your game? Say you gather something innocuous like simply counting how many players reach the title page of each chapter in your story, what does that mean? What is the "typical" profile you should aim for? If there is a steep drop at a specific point how do you reach those players to determine the cause when, by definition, they no longer play your game?

Or say you gather very specific data, for example the time spent having anal sex with two different model choices for the same character. If model A ranks significantly higher than model B what does that mean? Does model A have the sexier ass? Is model B's face just too pretty so players don't turn her around and you only offer anal in the doggy position? Did you properly normalise the watchtime to the total play/"play"time with each model?

Or with the feedback field, just how many times are you willing to read "die fucking loser cunt!" or "kill the negro bitch already!" or "may God have mercy on your soul" before you just give up hope for humanity and shut down the API forever? Are you going to publish monthly Patreon updates tallying up mentions of NTR, incest, futa or scat in feedback submissions?

TL;DR: in my experience on this site devs should focus more on actually making what they want their game to be rather than drowning themselves in arbitrary data.

 

[Luderos]

Say you gather something innocuous like simply counting how many players reach the title page of each chapter in your story, what does that mean? What is the "typical" profile you should aim for? If there is a steep drop at a specific point how do you reach those players to determine the cause when, by definition, they no longer play your game?

Most people aren't going to bother intrumenting their game for sufficient data gathering to matter, but it's certainly possible. In your example, if a game has 20 chapters and you can see that you're losing 5% of your players between chapters 1 and 10, but in chapter 11, you lose 90%. That shows you that there's clearly an issue somewhere. Maybe a technical problem is preventing the new chapter from loading, or maybe a certain quest is so difficult that people give up, etc. How specific you can get with your troubleshooting depends on how well your data collection is designed, but it's definitely possible to get useful results.

The people who were stuck may not get fixed directly/instantly, but if you can fix the problem in your next release/patch, the game is improved for everyone.

 

[Sphere42]

Most people aren't going to bother intrumenting their game for sufficient data gathering to matter, but it's certainly possible. In your example, if a game has 20 chapters and you can see that you're losing 5% of your players between chapters 1 and 10, but in chapter 11, you lose 90%. That shows you that there's clearly an issue somewhere. Maybe a technical problem is preventing the new chapter from loading, or maybe a certain quest is so difficult that people give up, etc. How specific you can get with your troubleshooting depends on how well your data collection is designed, but it's definitely possible to get useful results.

The people who were stuck may not get fixed directly/instantly, but if you can fix the problem in your next release/patch, the game is improved for everyone.

Those were rhetorical questions to highlight issues with data gathering and analysis not something I was seeking actual answers for

But sticking with your response a progress-blocking issue affecting 90% or more of your dedicated players will hit your primary communication platform long before you even bother to load the raw analytics data so that's still wasted effort. Plus correlation does not equal causation, maybe most of your players never hit that progress-blocking bug because you had the main girl shave herself near the end of chapter 10 and 90% of the remaining players had a pubic hair fetish while the die-hard fans quickly found and shared a workaround for the bug.

 

[Luderos]

Those were rhetorical questions to highlight issues with data gathering and analysis not something I was seeking actual answers for

But sticking with your response a progress-blocking issue affecting 90% or more of your dedicated players will hit your primary communication platform long before you even bother to load the raw analytics data so that's still wasted effort. Plus correlation does not equal causation, maybe most of your players never hit that progress-blocking bug because you had the main girl shave herself near the end of chapter 10 and 90% of the remaining players had a pubic hair fetish while the die-hard fans quickly found and shared a workaround for the bug.

Well sure, but the whole thread has been about how horrible data collection is, so I was just tossing in that there are very good and practical reasons to have it. And again, using your example, if the shaving scene is bad enough to drive away 90% of your users, it's still a bug, just a content bug Now, as you say, you'll likely find out anyway if it's that obvious, but what if the bug is with 1 of your 200 quests or 1 of your 1000 items or only effects people with certain resolutions/option settings? Even if a user is giving you direct bug reports, you can't always rely on them to tell you exactly what happend or what the exact status of their game was at the time.