Premiere Liaison

First Screenshots

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:21:58 +0000

The white iPhone4 template comes from: Reinholds

Use NuTracking Library with Unity WebPlayer

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:21:42 +0000

Unity 3′s WebPlayer use a strict security model. It blocks the network connection to third-party websites, unless a cross-domain policy file is deployed. Unfortunately, it also blocks the HTTP requests sent from NuTracking Library.

Check the Unity documentation for more details.

Since NuTracking Library 0.2.0, we used a walk around solution to solve the problem. Instead of sending HTTP requests from Unity application, we use ExternalCall to ask the web browser call the original ga.js and access the service of Google Analytics directly.

To use NuTracking Library with WebPlayer, you need to include the following code in section.

It might be put just before the line:

Restriction of Google Analytics

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:13:30 +0000

Here are some articles which mention the current restrictions of Google Analytics:

NuTracking: The API Guide

admin — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:07:25 +0000

The API of NuTracking is quite simple. Use the following code to initialize NuTracking and create the singleton:

        NuTracking.Instance.Startup(
            "UA-24576515-1"/*your account code*/, 
            "http://nutracking-001.premiereliaison.com"/*your domain name*/, 
            "nutracking-001"/*short name of your game*/, 
            true/*wantObfuscateGlobalIP*/, 
            true/*wantMonitorEditor*/, 
            true/*wantLog*/);

And here is the interface of the NuTracking class:

// this is not the actual code
 public class NuTracking : MonoBehaviour 
{
    // add a custom event
     public void AddGenericEvent(string _object, string _action,
        string _label = null, int? _value = null); 
    public void AddGenericEvent(string _pageTitle, string _pageUrl,
        string _object, string _action,
        string _label = null, int? _value = null); 

    // add a custom transaction 
    public void AddGenericTransaction(string _productSku,
        string _productName, float _price, int _quantity); 
    public void AddGenericTransaction(string _pageTitle, string _pageUrl,
        string _productSku, string _productName, float _price, int _quantity);
}

The function AddGenericEvent() could trigger a customized event tracking. This kind of events could carry meaningful gameplay information, and could be analyzed by Google Analytics’ custom report system. You could find some detailed information here.

The function AddGenericTransaction() is used for record transactions, like in-app purchase.

Here is a sample of how these functions are used:

public class Example : MonoBehaviour {

    // Use this for initialization
    void Start () {
        NuTracking.Instance.Startup("UA-24576515-1", "http://nutracking-001.premiereliaison.com", "nutracking-001", true/*wantObfuscateGlobalIP*/, true/*wantMonitorEditor*/, true/*wantLog*/);
    }
    
    // Update is called once per frame
    int frameCount = 0;
    void Update () {
        if (frameCount == 15)
        {
            Purchase();
        }
        
        if (frameCount == 30)
        {
            SaveGame();
        }
        ++ frameCount;
    }
    
    void Purchase()
    {
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericTransaction("SKU001", "Item 001", 0.99f, 1);
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericTransaction("SKU002", "Item 002", 1.99f, 2);
    }
    
    void SaveGame() {
        string sessionName = "GameSession0";
        
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericEvent(sessionName, "Result", "GameDurationInSeconds", Random.Range(10, 20));
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericEvent(sessionName, "Result", "GameScore", Random.Range(1000, 10000));
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericEvent(sessionName, "GamePlay", "Event0Triggered", Random.Range(0, 2));
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericEvent(sessionName, "GamePlay", "Event1Triggered", Random.Range(0, 2));
        NuTracking.Instance.AddGenericEvent(sessionName, "GamePlay", "Event2Triggered", Random.Range(0, 2));
    }
}

Announcing Duckie Go

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:00:14 +0000

Go Duckie Go is our up-coming game project. Please take a sneak peek at more concept art for Go Duckie Go.

Tracking Examples with Google Analytics

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 01:53:15 +0000

Tracking Examples with Google Analytics

Future plan of NuTracking

admin — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:20:31 +0000

The following features are not included in the initial release of NuTracking. We are evaluating them for future updates of NuTracking library.

Support native languages, especially C / C++, Objective C and Java. Thus it would be able to be used in most games regardless the technology be chosen. However, Google Analytics has its own mobile SDK. It seems meaningless to reinvite the wheel if it works.
Tracking in complex networking environment (e.g. network with proxies)
Provide app running on iOS / Android to check analytics result with mobile devices.
Tracking more iOS / Android device information, like OS version, screen resolution, etc.
Specific events analyzer for most-used gameplay events, like victory & defeat, achievements, time spending and complete % for each level, etc.
Tracking the Jailbroken device and pirate ratio of your game (iOS only)
Create customized backend service to remove the dependency of Google Analytics. With that, users could keep the valuable data in own server for maximum accessibility and safety

Integrate NuTracking to your Unity project

admin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:58:59 +0000

The integration of NuTracking is quite simple:

1. Register an account on Google Analytics (skip if you already have a GA account)

Before you begin using NuTracking, you must first create a free account at www.google.com/analytics and create a new website profile in that account using a fake but descriptive website URL (e.g. http://mymobileapp.mywebsite.com). Once you create the profile, write down or keep a copy of the web property ID that is generated for the newly-created profile.

A Web property ID is also known as the UA number of your tracking code and looks like UA-xxxxx-yy, where the x’s and y’s indicate the unique numbers for your profile. You must indicate the web property ID you’d like to use when instantiating the tracking object. See Web Property for more information.

You must indicate to your users, either in the application itself or in your terms of service, that you reserve the right to anonymously track and report a user’s activity inside of your app. Your use of the Google Analytics SDK is additionally governed by the Google Analytics Terms of Service, which you must agree to when signing up for an account.

BTW. If you are developing an iOS game. There is the following consent in the default EULA:

b. Consent to Use of Data: You agree that Licensor may collect and use technical data and related information—including but not limited to technical information about your device, system and application software, and peripherals—that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support, and other services to you (if any) related to the Licensed Application. Licensor may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve its products or to provide services or technologies to you.

2. When you successfully added your project to Google Analytics, remember your domain name and account number

or you might also find that in “Overview” of Google Analytics

3. Enable “E-Commerce Website” in project setting for tracking in-app purchases

4. On the game startup script, add the following statement to initialize NuTracking:

NuTracking.Instance.Startup(
“UA-24576515-1″/*your account code*/,
“http://nutracking-001.premiereliaison.com”/*your domain name*/,
“nutracking-001″/*short name of your game*/,
true/*wantObfuscateGlobalIP*/,
true/*wantMonitorEditor*/,
true/*wantLog*/);

5. Check Example.cs , which contains the sample code of adding user event and purchases

NuTracking Features

admin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:43:16 +0000

NuTracking is a game analytics library that built upon the mature and stable backend of Google Analytics. It provides an easy & elegant solution for you to collect and analyze the behavior of your players.

The first version of NuTracking is released as a script asset in Unity’s Asset Store. It provides the following features:

Easy integration to your game

Following up the tutorial, everyone can setup a Google Analytics account in 2 minutes, and then integrate NuTracking to your Unity project within a few seconds.

Track common player activity automatically

With no extra work, you could be able to access the information of total game sessions, daily unique players, daily new players, their geo location, the operation system, etc.

If you provide In-App purchases in your game, it could also be easily tracked.

Privacy protection

Google’s motto is “don’t do evil”. But do NOT over-trust them.

By default, the IP address was collected for geo location analyzation. And it’s obfuscated to prevent the back-tracing to protect the privacy of players. The true machine ID (like UUID in iPhone) is also obfuscated as well. By default, all the data that is sent to Google Analytics is anonymously.

Also, NuTracking use the HTTPS protocol to communicate with Google Analytics whenever feasible. It encrypts information with SSL and protects you and your players from eavesdropping and sniffer attacks.

Cross platform

The implementation of NuTracking considered the restriction of Unity framework in each of its supported platform. It is tested in WebPlayer, OSX, iOS, and even the Unity editor. Android has not been tested but it’s quite likely to be compatible as well.

Asynchronized behavior

NuTracking is working asynchonized with the game code. It won’t slow down your game for waiting network transmission, etc. It just works silently to fulfill its task in the background.

Source code provided, easy to customize

Every game has its special elements want to be tracked. NuTracking library provides general interface functions to trace any customized behavior with Google Analytics’s mechanisms (page view, event, or transaction).

Since the full source code is provided, it’s possible to highly customized that to do any geeky tracking you want. But, please understand that there are limitations when accessing the backend of Google Analytics. And you should always concern the player’s privacy and never track more than necessary.

Support both Unity Free and Pro edition

NuTracking is implemented with pure C# code. So you could use that even with Unity Free version.

Announcing our first game

admin — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:42:35 +0000