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Removal of unity.sceneLoad on May 29

Discussion in 'Unity Analytics' started by ap-unity, May 15, 2017.

  1. ap-unity

    ap-unity

    Unity Technologies

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    Aug 3, 2016
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    [EDIT] In order to ensure no one gets caught out by this retirement, we've added a small but important change: we will create a whitelist for apps that contained a funnel or segment that uses unity.sceneLoad. If you want to keep unity.sceneLoad as-is for now, simply create such a funnel or segment before May 28. ALL processing on unity.sceneLoad will be retired at the end of 2017. This should give everyone sufficient time to migrate to one of our proposed solutions. [/EDIT]

    tl;dr We plan to remove the unity.sceneLoad custom event unless we are strongly persuaded otherwise. The event will cease to be processed starting May 29.

    You may have noticed a custom event on your dashboard that you didn't put there. We created unity.sceneLoad to provide developers something they could use right away to build, say, a level progression funnel.

    As the product improved and more developers became accustomed to defining their own custom events, it became less necessary to have this default event. We've decided its day is over.

    So why are we removing this event now?
    • You didn't add it to your project.
    • You have no control over this event or its data. E.g., you can't add custom parameters.
    • The majority of custom events in our system are unity.sceneLoad. If we could free up those resources, we could move faster on some cool features.
    • unity.sceneLoad events clog raw data, obscuring the custom events you are actually looking for.
    How will this affect developers?

    If you have funnels or custom segments with this event, they will no longer function correctly. You will need to remake them using another custom event.

    This event will also be removed from Raw Data Export files.

    How can you replace this event?

    We now recommend the adoption of Standard Events for this purpose. In particular, level_start and level_complete for tracking level progression, and tutorial_start, tutorial_step and tutorial_complete for onboarding.

    What if you need this event the way it is?

    Our current plan is to stop processing these events on May 29. If you or someone you know is actively making extensive use of this event, please respond to this post and let us know what use case you're trying to solve.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
    ap-unity, May 15, 2017
    #1
    unityjingyao and mpinol like this.

  2. Mangatome

    Mangatome

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    Wow, this is bad for us.

    We have ongoing research on live raw data that uses unity.sceneLoad to track player activity in our game.

    I understand your point about standard events, but it's no use to me for several reasons:
    - our code is still targeting Unity 4; porting won't happen any time soon
    - our user base is not likely to apply patches so we will lose data coverage for sure
    - the timeframe to make the changes happen is incompatible with our workflow right now

    Is there any chance you folks could please keep unity.sceneLoad for our project?
    I know adding backend exceptional rules is bad, but we would really be happy if we could keep unity.sceneLoad in our raw data for a little more. (I don't need it in the dashboard at all, though.)
     
    Mangatome, May 20, 2017
    #2

  3. marc_tanenbaum

    marc_tanenbaum

    Unity Technologies

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    Oct 22, 2014
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    637
    Thanks for the feedback. I've brought your case to the attention of our team. Early next week we'll investigate whether there's a way to help you out. One of our engineers asks:
    Can I give him some response?
     
    marc_tanenbaum, May 20, 2017
    #3

  4. Mangatome

    Mangatome

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    Hi @marc_tanenbaum, thanks for your reply.

    The only field of unity.sceneLoad we are using is level_name.

    The use case is as straightforward as it gets: we want to know what scenes players go to, in what order and how much time they spend in there. unity.sceneLoad conveniently helps us figuring that out: by just looking at level_name and timestamps, we can gather lots of useful intel. For some levels in our game, unity.sceneLoad is even the only fired event, so losing unity.sceneLoad will partially undermine our ability to track player behavior.

    Given that, through a partnership with an academic institution, research is being carried out based on raw data generated by the game, it's pretty critical that our data set remains as stable as possible.
    I will eventually port the code to Unity 5 and introduce a new custom event, but that will not happen in any way fast enough, so we would really appreciate some backend help! :)
     
    Mangatome, May 21, 2017
    #4

  5. marc_tanenbaum

    marc_tanenbaum

    Unity Technologies

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    Oct 22, 2014
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    637
    Hi @Mangatome,

    Chatted with our backend engineers today and we think we have an answer for you. We're going to temporarily whitelist apps that demonstrate the use of unity.sceneLoad. We'll base this on funnels and segments using that event. So...simply go to the Segment Builder and create a Segment based on unity.sceneLoad...doesn't really matter what's in it (at least not to us). The mere fact of that segment existing will be a signal that your app should be whitelisted.

    We're planning a whitelist period of six months, which I'd hope would be sufficient lead time to migrate to a different approach.

    Hope that helps!
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2017
    marc_tanenbaum, May 22, 2017
    #5

  6. Mangatome

    Mangatome

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2014
    Posts:
    13
    Hi @marc_tanenbaum,

    Great news!

    I already had funnels using unity.sceneLoad, but I also just created a segment as you suggested.

    And six months is a good timeframe indeed.

    This is beautiful, thank you all so much!
     
    Mangatome, May 23, 2017
    #6
    marc_tanenbaum likes this.