Game analytics: the events every mobile game should track

The short answer

Track a small, planned set of events in six groups: sessions, the first-launch funnel, progression, economy, monetization and technical health. Write them in a tracking plan before coding, name them consistently and attach parameters. With about twenty well-chosen events you can calculate retention, find where players quit, balance the economy and see why revenue rises or falls.

Start from questions

Events exist to answer questions. Write the questions first.

• Where do new players drop out in the first ten minutes?
• Which level is too hard?
• Are players running out of currency or sitting on piles of it?
• Which ad placement is used most?
• Do players who use a feature stay longer?
• Is the game stable on low-end phones?

If an event answers none of your questions, do not add it.

The core event list

Most analytics tools record installs, device model, country and app version automatically.

The first-launch funnel

The steepest loss of players happens in the first session, so instrument it most carefully. Fire an event at each step: app opened, loading finished, each tutorial step, first action, first win, return to menu, second level started. View these as a funnel. A large drop between two steps points to a specific problem: a long load, a confusing instruction, a forced sign-up. Fixing the worst step is often the cheapest retention gain available. See mobile game KPIs for what good retention looks like.

Progression events

Level start, complete and fail are the backbone for any level-based game.

• Completion rate per level shows difficulty spikes.
• Attempts per level shows frustration.
• Fail reason and progress show whether players lose at the start or one move from the end, which call for different fixes.
• Time per level helps content planning.

Games without levels use equivalents: match start and end, quest accepted and completed, zone entered. See level design principles.

Economy events

Record every time a currency enters or leaves a player's balance, with the source or sink. This reveals:

• Inflation, when players earn far more than they spend.
• Starvation, when progress stalls for lack of currency.
• Which sinks players value.
• The effect of a balance change, by comparing before and after.

This is essential for free-to-play games. See game economy design.

Monetization events

For purchases, track the whole path from shop opened to purchase completed, including failures with reasons. For ads, track the opportunity, the impression and the completed reward by placement. That tells you which placements players choose and where fill is poor. Background is in in-app purchase implementation, rewarded ads design and ad mediation.

Naming rules

1. One style everywhere. Lowercase with underscores is the common convention.
2. Object then action. level_start, level_complete, purchase_completed.
3. Parameters, not names. One level_complete event with a level parameter, not level_1_complete, level_2_complete.
4. Stable names. Renaming an event breaks historical comparisons.
5. Consistent units. Seconds, not a mix of seconds and milliseconds.
6. Respect tool limits. Analytics platforms limit the number of distinct events and parameters, and some names are reserved.

The tracking plan

Keep a shared spreadsheet with one row per event: name, when it fires, parameters, type of each parameter, the question it answers and the owner. Developers implement from it, and analysts read from it. Test every event in a debug view before release, because an event that fires twice or with a missing parameter poisons the data quietly.

Funnels, cohorts and segments

• Funnels show conversion through a sequence of steps.
• Cohorts group players by install date so you can compare the retention of one version against another.
• Segments split players by country, device tier, acquisition source or payer status.

Averages hide problems. A level with a 70 percent completion rate overall may be 90 percent on new phones and 40 percent on old ones because of performance, which is a technical issue, not a design one. See mobile game performance optimization.

A/B testing

Once events are reliable, test changes on a portion of players: tutorial length, level difficulty, starting currency, price points. Change one thing at a time, decide the success metric in advance and run the test long enough to include weekends. Remote configuration lets you change values without an app update.

Privacy and consent

Analytics is regulated.

• Consent. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, analytics that is not strictly necessary generally requires consent. Use a consent tool and respect the choice.
• Apple's App Tracking Transparency. Tracking users across apps and websites owned by other companies requires permission through the system prompt.
• Store declarations. Both stores require you to declare what data you collect.
• Children. Games directed at children have strict limits on data collection and behavioural advertising. See rules for kids games and the COPPA rule update.
• Minimise. Collect gameplay events, not personal details you do not need.

Tools

General options include Firebase Analytics, GameAnalytics, engine-provided analytics and product analytics platforms, alongside attribution tools for marketing. For most small and mid-size games a free tier is enough at launch. Choose one primary tool, since two tools with different numbers cause arguments. Crash reporting is separate and essential.

Common mistakes

• Adding analytics a week before launch.
• Tracking hundreds of events nobody reads.
• No parameters, so events cannot be broken down.
• Never verifying events on a device.
• Looking only at totals, not cohorts.
• Ignoring consent rules.
• Collecting data and changing nothing.

When to add it

From the first playable build. Analytics is part of an MVP, because the purpose of an MVP is to learn, and it drives decisions during soft launch.

Getting help

We write tracking plans, instrument Unity and Unreal games and build dashboards for retention, progression and revenue. Packages are on the offer page.

Sources: Firebase: Log events · GameAnalytics documentation · Apple: App Tracking Transparency. Checked November 11, 2026.

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