S03 E18 Embrace’s Eric Futoran On Understanding Every Player Experience For Record-Breaking Issue Resolution

Good games offer great experiences, and accurate and timely issue resolution is imperative to keeping LTV high and your game in good graces with its users. And it’s not just a must to please your players. App store algorithms have begun to rank games based on performance metrics and can punish games that go on the fritz. But, as all devs know, pinpointing the source is complicated, especially since most resolution tools either lack the data to determine the real cause or the holistic view of the player journey to check if other factors, like low bandwidth during the commute, are the real culprit. Years of frustration trying to figure out the root cause of the problem during his years as a co-founder of Scopely motivated Eric Futoran to build Embrace. The mobile-only monitoring solution effectively removes the guesswork by providing a “play-by-play of each user experience,” so your team can spend less time pointing fingers and more time building a #1 game. Eric joins host Peggy Anne Salz in this week’s episode to explain how Embrace “collects [an app’s] exhaust” and walks us through the key features that empower engineers to find solutions and, more importantly, take their seat at the decision-making table. “My goal at Embrace is to [prevent] you from constantly thinking about crashes and ANRs,” Eric says. “And allow you to get back to building games and making your users happy.”  CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro 03:06 - When you're forced to release a game 07:29 - Eric's lessons from his time at Scopely 10:47 - Give engineering a seat at the table 14:18 - Performance metrics now affect your ranking 17:30 - The need for proactive tools 21:39 - How does Embrace empower engineers? 26:30 - Examples of Embrace's effectiveness 33:07 - Eric's vision powering Embrace 35:48 - Can UA teams use Embrace? 37:29 - Advice to mobile studios + devs 41: 05 - Favourite games Q&A with Eric * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  ** Let's Connect ** 👉🏻 Twitter - https://twitter.com/pgbiz  👉🏻 LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/144491/  👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PGbiz  👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz  Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event