Abstract:

Researching commercial games covers as many methodologies and skillsets as there are methodologies and skillsets required to develop games. Play testing helps designers, focus groups helps marketing, analyzing player behavior helps production and recommendation algorithms help gameplay engineering, to cover a few cases. Games research provides the toolset game developers use to build better games. Ben Medler covers how EA approaches games research presenting the different teams, tools and methodologies EA uses to aid the game development process. 

Speaker Bio:

Ben Medler is the Director and Gameplay Data Steward at EA in the Global Analytics and Insights group. His team studies the player’s experience in every EA game, focused on building standards across games for collecting/analyzing data while monitoring the integrity and quality of the company’s data systems. Graduating with a Ph.D. in Digital Media from Georgia Tech in 2012, Ben has worked on game teams, R&D teams and analytics groups during his time at EA, applying his skills in data visualization, UX design and game analytics.