TLDR;
This blog post explores how game designers can use data analysis to improve player experience and game balance. You'll learn about data collection, analysis techniques, and case studies from well-known games like Gloomhaven, Pokémon TCG, and Team Fortress 2.
Introduction
In the competitive world of game design, data is an essential tool for creating engaging and balanced gaming experiences. By collecting and analyzing relevant data, developers can gain valuable insights into player behavior, identify potential issues, and optimize game mechanics to achieve maximum fun.
Data-driven decision making isn't unique to game design. In fact, the broader business world has developed robust frameworks that game designers can adapt.
Consider this advice on quantitative analysis from 'Traction':
Quantify Your Results
At a minimum, include the columns of cost to acquire a customer and lifetime value of a customer within a given traction channel. Since these metrics are universal, you can use them to easily make comparisons across channels. In general, we encourage you to be as quantitative as possible, even if it is initially just guesstimating.
~ Traction (Gabriel Weinberg & Lauren McCann)
For card game designers, this translates to measuring not just what players say they enjoy, but what the data shows they actually do during gameplay—which cards they select most often, which combinations create the most engaging matches, and which mechanics generate the most discussion in forums and community spaces.
This blog post will explore how game designers can use data to improve their games, providing useful information and examples from well-known games.
I. Data Collection
The first step in using data to improve game design is to collect relevant data during gaming sessions. This may include:
Time spent on character creation
Number of hits to defeat the villain
Average player score
Most used weapons
For digital games, data collection can be automated using in-game analytics tools. For non-digital games, careful notes must be taken and key metrics tracked manually. Additionally, "data mining" to find problems and interesting gameplay patterns is common for massive multiplayer online games.
Your Data Needs Matter
What metrics would make the biggest difference in your card game development? We're actively building tools to help designers like you collect and analyze the right data. Whether you need a simple playtesting tracker or a comprehensive analytics dashboard, we want to create solutions that address your specific challenges. Drop a comment below or reach out directly to share what data points would be most valuable for your projects. Our team is ready to develop custom tools based on your feedback—because your success is our mission.
II. Data Analysis
Once the data has been collected, the next step is to analyze it to gain valuable insights. This involves understanding what players enjoy and what they dislike, as well as identifying potential areas for improvement.
It's important to prioritize data for efficient analysis. A useful technique is to ask players about their three least favorite parts of the game instead of just one. This provides more data and ranks them by priority, highlighting what stands out most in a player's mind.
Clarity
This one is simple. If communication is not clear, there is going to be confusion. When you explain something, check to see if people understand what you mean. Illustrate your ideas when possible. And if someone else says something that isn’t clear, don’t ever pretend you understand what they are saying. No matter how embarrassed you are, keep asking questions until you understand what they mean. Because if everyone on the design team isn’t on the same page, how can there be any meaningful communication? But understanding each other is only half of clarity — the other half is getting concrete and specific. There is a big difference between saying to your producer “I’ll design the combat system by Thursday ” and “I’ll email you a 3–5 page description of the interface for the turn-based combat system by this Thursday at 5 p.m. ” The first throws wide the door for miscommunication, but the second gives important details about a specific deliverable, leaving little room for misunderstanding.
~ The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Jesse Schell)
Designers should be open to criticism and avoid becoming defensive when analyzing data. Objective analysis is key, with questions like "what don't you like about it?" and "can you tell me more about that?" This approach to feedback mirrors how we handle complaints in communication, as Rafael Echeverría explains in his work on linguistic interactions:
From resentment to acceptance
There is another way to address our resentment through speech. Unlike recrimination, which was a variant of "the conversation of personal judgments," this alternative is a variant of "the conversation for the coordination of actions." We are referring to the complaint. The complaint seeks to take actions that are conducive to eliminating the cause of resentment. Doing this has the power to dissolve it.
The complaint is a particular language game, made up of several linguistic acts. In it, declarations, affirmations, and requests are combined at minimum. If successful, it often ends in promises of actions that address the damage produced.
~ Ontología del Lenguaje (Rafael Echeverría)
III. Case Studies
Several well-known games have used data analysis to improve their design and mechanics. Here are some examples:
~ The Gloomhaven Case
Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game that relies on card-based mechanics to create a rich, tactical experience. Unlike traditional dice-driven systems, Gloomhaven uses ability cards tailored to each character class, reducing randomness and rewarding strategic planning. This approach not only enhances fairness but also encourages players to think critically about their choices, making every decision impactful.
What sets Gloomhaven apart is its ability to facilitate meaningful player interaction. The game requires players to collaborate, share strategies, and adapt their plans dynamically as they face new challenges. This social aspect of gameplay has been a key factor in its success, as it fosters a sense of community and shared achievement.
From a design perspective, Gloomhaven demonstrates the importance of balancing complexity with accessibility. Its modular scenarios and diverse character classes ensure high replayability while maintaining a manageable learning curve for new players. Additionally, the game's narrative-driven campaign structure keeps players engaged over extended periods, offering a sense of progression and accomplishment.
Lessons for Card Game Designers
Strategic Depth: By minimizing randomness and emphasizing player choice, Gloomhaven creates a rewarding experience for players who enjoy tactical decision-making.
Player Interaction: The game's collaborative mechanics highlight the value of designing systems that encourage communication and teamwork.
Replayability: Modular design and diverse gameplay options ensure long-term engagement without sacrificing balance or fairness.
Incorporating these principles into card game design can help developers create experiences that are both engaging and enduring. By studying successful examples like Gloomhaven, designers can better understand how to craft mechanics that resonate with players while maintaining balance and accessibility.
~ Pokémon TCG
Collectible card games, for example, are about being the best player in your community. A player's desire to achieve money or its equivalent could be efficiently satisfied in a collectible card game by ensuring that price guides are well published and distributed.
~ Team Fortress 2
In Team Fortress 2 (TF2), critical hits—or "crits"—are a key gameplay mechanic that increases the damage of attacks by 300% (3x their base value). This system is designed to add excitement and unpredictability to the game, creating memorable moments for players.
How Critical Hits Work
Random Crits: The base chance for a ranged weapon to land a random crit is 2%, but this increases based on the damage a player has dealt in the last 20 seconds, scaling up to a maximum of 12%. For melee weapons, the base chance starts at 15% and can scale up to 60%, encouraging close-range combat.
Performance-Based Scaling: The crit system rewards players for dealing consistent damage, as higher recent damage increases the likelihood of landing crits. This ties the mechanic partially to skill and performance rather than pure randomness.
Impact on Gameplay: Crits ignore distance-based damage falloff and random damage variation, ensuring their full power is felt. This makes them particularly impactful in fast-paced combat scenarios.
Design Intent and Reception
The inclusion of critical hits introduces an element of unpredictability to TF2, which can lead to moments of both triumph and frustration. For players, landing a critical hit often feels rewarding and exciting, while being on the receiving end can be frustrating due to its high damage output. Despite this polarizing reception, Valve has maintained and refined the system over time, suggesting its overall success in enhancing gameplay dynamics.
Lessons for Game Designers
Balancing Randomness with Skill: The scaling crit chance based on recent performance ensures that randomness is tempered by player actions, making the mechanic feel less arbitrary.
Creating Memorable Moments: Critical hits add dramatic highs and lows to gameplay, which can enhance player engagement and storytelling within matches.
Encouraging Playstyle Variety: Higher crit chances for melee weapons incentivize players to experiment with different combat styles.
By studying TF2's critical hit system, designers can learn how to incorporate mechanics that balance excitement with fairness while fostering dynamic player experiences.
~ Final Fantasy VII: A Case Study on Replayability and Narrative Design
Final Fantasy VII (1997) is a landmark title in the RPG genre, celebrated for its deep story, memorable characters, and innovative gameplay mechanics. Its strong narrative focus has been both a strength and a factor influencing its replayability when compared to system-driven games like Diablo. Here's what we know for certain:
Narrative Strength and Replayability
Impactful Storytelling: Final Fantasy VII is renowned for its emotionally engaging narrative, centered on Cloud Strife and his allies as they battle against the megacorporation Shinra and the iconic antagonist Sephiroth. The game's story is filled with twists, character development, and moments that leave a lasting impression on players.
First-Playthrough Impact: The strength of the story means that much of its emotional weight is felt most strongly during the first playthrough. Once players know the outcome of key events, such as Aerith's fate or Sephiroth's motivations, some may feel less compelled to replay the game purely for its narrative.
Replay Value Beyond the Story
Despite its strong story focus, Final Fantasy VII includes several gameplay elements that encourage replayability:
Optional Content: Players can explore side quests, uncover hidden characters like Vincent Valentine and Yuffie, or take on challenging optional bosses such as Emerald and Ruby Weapon.
Customization Systems: The Materia system allows players to experiment with different magic spells, abilities, and character builds, providing variety in combat strategies across playthroughs.
Minigames and Exploration: Features like Chocobo breeding/racing and unique minigames add layers of optional content that can make subsequent playthroughs feel fresh.
Comparison to System-Driven Games
When compared to a game like Diablo, which emphasizes randomized loot drops, procedurally generated levels, and endless character builds, Final Fantasy VII offers a more linear experience. While Diablo thrives on mechanical replayability, Final Fantasy VII relies on its rich world-building and emotional storytelling to draw players back.
Lessons for Game Designers
Balancing Narrative and Replayability: A strong story can create an unforgettable first experience but may reduce replay appeal unless paired with robust gameplay systems.
Optional Content as Replay Hooks: Including side quests, hidden characters, and challenging objectives can encourage players to revisit the game even after knowing the main story.
Customization Systems: Allowing players to experiment with different builds or strategies enhances replay value by offering new ways to approach familiar content.
By studying Final Fantasy VII, designers can learn how to craft games that balance narrative depth with engaging mechanics to appeal to both story-driven and system-driven players.
Pac-Man
Five different purposes, just for those simple dots! This makes them very elegant. You can imagine a version of Pac-Man where the dots didn't do all those things; for example, if the dots didn't slow down the player, and didn't award points or extra lives, they would have less purpose and be less elegant.
(1)
Most successful talks tell a story on stage. Without a story, the audience will lose interest. We suggest telling a story that tells what your startup is doing, why you’re doing it, and specifically how you got to where you are.
~ Traction (Gabriel Weinberg & Lauren McCann)
Do remember, when designing a game, you're not just creating a set of rules and mechanics—you're building a foundation for community. This is especially true for collectible card games, where player interactions and shared experiences form the backbone of engagement. The data you collect should reflect this community dimension, capturing not just what works mechanically but what resonates socially.
Collect the right shareable stories for your community
Co-founder Briana Ferrigno says, "We don’t just want to hear success stories—we want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. We want to know how resilience is built."
~ Get Together: How to Build a Community with Your People (Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, Kai Elmer Sotto)
This approach to storytelling parallels what effective game designers do with feedback data—they look beyond simple metrics of success to understand the full player experience, including frustrations and unexpected outcomes that ultimately strengthen both the game and its community.
IV. Additional Techniques
In addition to collecting and analyzing data, game designers can use several additional techniques to improve their games:
A. Balancing Difficulty "Increase difficulty with each success. This is a very common pattern in video games: each level is more difficult than the previous one."
B. Elegance in Design "Often, a better question is 'What do I need to eliminate?'" Look for all the things in your game that are only serving one purpose and think about which ones can be combined.
C. Use of Imagination "Players have rich and detailed imaginations. If there's something you need to present that is of lower quality than what your players will be able to imagine, don't do it; let the imagination do the heavy lifting!"
Conclusion
Data is an essential tool for game designers looking to create engaging and balanced gaming experiences. By collecting and analyzing relevant data, developers can gain valuable insights into player behavior, identify potential issues, and optimize game mechanics to achieve maximum fun. By experimenting with the strategies and techniques described in this blog post, game developers can create more engaging and balanced gaming experiences that delight players and keep them hooked for hours.
