Analyzing Video Game Completion Achievements Implications for Game Project Scope

Part 8: Poster and Interactive SessionInternational audienceGame development project managers and product owners, such as directors, producers, and studio heads, rely on experience-based tacit knowledge to decide how much content to create for players. However, they could be operating on a misunderstanding of the way their players consume game content and how much game content is even desirable to players.This paper presents the initial findings of our efforts to mine video game achievement data to discover trends in game completion rates and correlations to factors outside of the length of the game itself. Through tagging a sample of game achievements that signal a player has “finished” the primary single-player content, we discover that, for most games, few players will consume all of the provided content. With a better understanding of how players consume game content, project managers and product owners can make more informed decisions on project scope, which could reduce game budgets, make schedules easier to meet, and improve overall production efficiency