Bullet Point Learning Design - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 138

You Cannot Have Too Many Data Collection Hooks
Many of the things we have discussed in this topic rely on you hav-
ing collected data to analyze. Much of the user research work done at
numerous companies in the industry also relies on hooks like these.
In fact, user research and usability departments are hard at work as
we speak making a concerted effort to get more data collection meth-
odologies in the game to make sure that they can perform amazing
user research. In order to use methodologies like cognitive appren-
ticeship, you need to figure out where people's deficiencies lie. The
only way to do this, of course, is to gather data. In the Skull Island
example, the AI did not target players until they managed to kill an
enemy. Furthermore, dungeons procedurally generated in ways that
the players did not expect by examining their movement patterns.
This kind of stuff makes games great. If you're not sure how these
programming hooks might work, a good mantra is: there's no such
thing as too much data. If you want to make every single player throw
a huge chunk of data to a server every minute that contains health,
level, gender, chosen character role, current money, quests completed,
etc., that is amazing and useful. If it is a variable in your program, you
should be recording it all the time.
Summary
I hope that this gives you some idea of how to collect data from your
players and use them to make amazing learning experiences. It is so
important in learning design to make sure that every learner is accom-
modated. If you take the time to rip out this chapter and staple it to
the wall of your office, you'll have a better idea of how you're going to
go about making people learn their way through your game.
I really hope you have enjoyed the topic to this point and found
it useful. If you have any questions about how you might do further
research and learning, please don't hesitate to look me up, or check out
the Further Reading section in the Appendix at the end of the topic.
Remember that human learning is happening every time someone
picks up your game and starts playing it. What you want your players
to learn and how you decide to make that happen is entirely up to you.