Mass Effect 2 developers borrowing social gaming's metrics-mining approach

Social game developers are often criticized for focusing on "player metrics" -- gameplay data culled from actual player experience that's used to guide frequent, carefully crafted updates. But a new interview with the creators of one of the biggest traditional game releases of the year shows that this metrics-based approach is starting to spread to all sorts of games

Talknig to IGN, BioWare Senior Producer Casey Hudson said the company is collecting massive amounts of anonymous gameplay data on players of January's Mass Effect 2. The company is capturing and analyzing data on everything from weapon use to skipped lines of dialogue, Hudson said, in an effort to determine what bits should be changed for eventual sequels and DLC.

"Sometimes you'll design something and think that it's going to be used in a certain way and people will use it in a completely different way," Hudson said. "And if you didn't know that, then you would just keep making that system the same as you did before. But once you know what players like and what they don't like, based on the way that they're playing it, then you can make more of the good stuff and less of the stuff they weren't interested in."

While Hudson doesn't see player data analysis as the be-all-end-all of game design, he does think it will help guide the company as it refines the game going forward. "Ultimately it doesn't always give you the answers, but it sometimes raises questions or gets you to ask the right questions," he said. "More people played the soldier class than all of the other classes combined. If you know that, then you can start thinking about future games. Is that good? Is that a problem? Should we look at the other classes and start thinking about ways to make them selected as often as soldier? As part of asking these questions, we can design games in the future a lot better."

Take-Two CEO sips on the haterade, says Zynga's 'metrics are sketchy'

You'd think gunning for a sweet $1 billion and the top spot among video games' largest publishers would be fun. Well, not for FarmVille maker Zynga: Not only is the media after the 4-year-old company, but so is everyone else. The next big timer to "be hype"--as the cool kids say-- is Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive. During the Reuters Media Summit in New York, Zelnick openly questioned Zynga's business model, casting doubt over whether it can make good on investor expectations as it quickly approaches an initial public offering (IPO).

"I would argue being the No. 1 player in (social gaming) is complicated, which is why Zynga hasn't gone public yet because their metrics are sketchy," Zelnick said to Reuters during a talk. "I think they have disclosure issues, I think you are seeing their acquisition costs go up, marketing costs go up and they have very high churn."

Zelnick was likely referring to the company's frequent amendments to its S-1 filing with the US Security and Exchanges Commission since it filed for IPO early this summer. His words also seem to allude to the 14 some companies Zynga purchased in a single year, which helped it amass nearly 3,000 employees worldwide. Finally, Zelnick could have been talking about how quickly the CityVille creator has lost daily players recently. (What a loaded statement, huh?) We can't wait to see who else gets "jelly"--that's cool now too, right?

[Via IndustryGamers]

Do Zelnick's words against Zynga have merit? Will Zynga be able to pull off a successful IPO with these negative vibes floating around?