how developers collect and study our gaming preferences

The video game industry uses big data as much as other IT industries, influencing the marketing and creation of games. So publishers better understand the target group and promotion rules in each market, for example by using free site scraping. This gives developers a better idea of ​​how to make the gameplay more fun and exciting. In this article we will look at how the process of developing and promoting video games has changed in recent years.

We all know how games from Japan differ from games from the US: the world has long become global, but clearly not enough to forget the cultural codes and customs of each individual country or region. Often, ignorance of this difference leads to marketing failures.

That’s why determining player preferences is now an important part of the development of any AAA gaming blockbuster. By collecting data from gaming forums, social media and review platforms, we can better understand not only what is and is not acceptable in each country’s traditions, but also which aspects of games are most valued by the public. By analyzing which genres are purchased more often, which features generate active discussions and receive positive responses, which visual style is more highly rated by users, developers adapt their games and publishers adjust PR strategies.

Additionally, data mining (also known as scraping or web scraping) helps identify user platform preferences (PC, console, or mobile) so that advertisements can be targeted based on those preferences. Information about which types of content most often attract players’ attention – video reviews, streams or game guides – is used to run more effective marketing campaigns. This is much better than trading randomly or trusting local freelancers.

Of course, the task from the above paragraph cannot be completed manually with a pair of free hands, so companies have long been using modern technical solutions: web scraping and special parsing algorithms. This allows you to automate the process of extracting the necessary information from the Internet, significantly speeding up and simplifying the work of developers and marketers.

At the same time, it is clear that this is not a core activity for game designers. And not just video game developers – companies from other areas don’t employ programmers. What should we do then? For example, use a free website scraper with an intuitive integrated development environment (IDE).

It greatly simplifies the process of extracting data from the Internet, whether it is the site of a local chain store, a major retailer or a social network. You define what specific data is needed (e.g. comments from social networks, entire web pages, keywords or categories), set the frequency for collecting and updating information, and determine the external storage for data upload. The system takes care of the rest. Ready-made JavaScript functions and code templates (over 70), built-in tools for debugging and optimizing the web scraping process allow you to minimize development time. Once collected, the data can be structured into individual sets for further use.

A comprehensive proxy network will provide access to websites around the world, emulation of user actions in specific geographic locations, and human authentication mechanisms such as the infamous CAPTCHA. If that’s not enough, a specialized API is available that provides even more functionality.

By using data parsing to analyze player preferences and behavior, marketers can not only target ads effectively but also improve the product, making it more attractive to the end user. This leads to an increase in engagement, reviews from specialist sources and ultimately an increase in sales.

With the advent of the service game genre, the process of creating video games has changed significantly. Developers not only communicate with the audience through data collection, but also adapt to their preferences, change art design, and add new mechanics and ideas. Well-known examples – Fortnite and Genshin Impact – prove this, keeping players’ attention for years with a constant stream of new content.

In an environment of intense competition and high expectations from players, it is important to collect feedback quickly and effectively. The use of proxy services to access data from third-party platforms without restrictions allows developers to quickly respond to the problems, wishes and suggestions of the gaming community, increasing the pleasure of gaming and contributing to the growth of the popularity.

Proxies are even more actively used to test game servers in different regions to ensure stability and low latency (ping) around the world. The conditional ‘player’ and ‘game server’ can be deployed to proxy servers, simulating a player’s connection to a server in a specific region. This allows you to determine in advance delays along the traffic path, select the best communication channels and ensure stable operation.

What’s even better is when the proxy network operator offers geographic diversity, allowing players to have a gaming experience without critical delays. It happens that the proxy servers in the global proxy network are located closer to the player and the game server, which minimizes delays, which is important in the world of online games, where every millisecond counts.

Experienced developers know that managing a proxy and data collection network is not easy. The best way to do this is to use a proxy manager. Whether locally or in the cloud, such a manager takes care of all the work – from selecting sets of IP addresses to providing ready-made code for integration into your automatic data collection program in most programming languages. Proxy Manager’s ease of use frees you from routine proxy management tasks so you can focus on more important tasks.

How do you rate your experience on the Internet? What do you personally miss in the global network? We’re waiting for your feedback in the comments!