Data Usage, what may cause my game to be using a lot?

RossmanBrothersGames

Hey guys, hoping someone can help me out here.

I recently had a tester tell me that a short session on our game used a ton of their data usage. I went into the settings and found that my game is using the most data of any of my apps (besides the app store) more than streaming, more than games I play with online functionality.

All I have in my game is chart boost ads (infrequent) and game center that would use Data I believe. Any thoughts on something I may have turned on or something? It is a ridiculous amount.

Hopscotch

@RossmanBrothersGames

Run your game on an pre Android 7 device. Have OS Monitor (Legacy version) installed.

This will tell you data usage and in detail all the URLs your app connects to.

Specifically, you can find problems, like deduce if you are maybe calling a leaderboard login too often in your app, etc.

Unfortunately, due to new OS restrictions, this app only still works on older Android devices, and not on iOS. Also make sure you get the Legacy version, not the new one. Both are on the play store.

RossmanBrothersGames

Thanks @Hopscotch I'll see if I can get my hands on a device. Will and android device recognize iOS log in attempts? Does anyone know if Xcode instruments can track things similarly?

It's really weird a tester told our game used 200 mb in a ten minute play session.

I went into my setting and saw that most games even ones with multiplayer and stuff were about 1mb or less of use and my game had 148 mb.

Can gamecenter stuff really use that much? Crazy.

Hopscotch

@RossmanBrothersGames

are you showing video ads? Still, 200mb in 10minutes is hardly possible even it was continuous video ads. Something else must be going on. It is all way, way too much.

If you are testing on iOS only you will need to do it differently as iOS does not report exactly what the device connects to. But do the following:

Install some network traffic monitor on your Mac.
Connect your iOS device to the internet via Wifi.
Set the network traffic monitoring software to report the activity of your iOS device.

I can't give you a recommendation on a good network traffic monitor, since I use ParrotSecOS and Kali on a RaspberryPi for this.

RossmanBrothersGames

Thanks @Hopscotch I appreciate the help. I will do a search for some network traffic monitoring that can watch an individual device.

It is very strange indeed.

The app has a an option to watch ads and it has game center, plus a button that leads to my publishers website, that is about it on things using data. I was wondering if test flight apps monitor the players experience (because test flight reports sessions and crashes) and if that is why... hopefully I can get to the bottom of this, you gave me a good starting point, thanks.

pHghost

Video ads can eat up crazy amounts of data. But yeah, 200MB in 10 minutes, that sounds way weird.

Socks

@Hopscotch said:
. . . since I use ParrotSecOS and Kali on a RaspberryPi for this.

Typical Hopscotch, I bet when you want a coffee you boil the water in a lab flask inside a vacuum heated by burring potassium in cold water

RossmanBrothersGames

Hey guys so I just cleared the Cell Data Statistics on my phone and did a 10 min playthrough of the game.

In that playthrough I watched no reward ads, though I had a pop up ad. And it signed me into Game Center.
while it wasn't 200MB like my tester said he experienced. It was 13mb. Does that still seem really high to people? It does to me.

Hopscotch

@Socks said:
Typical Hopscotch, I bet when you want a coffee you boil the water in a lab flask inside a vacuum heated by burring potassium in cold water

Close, I boil it in a vacuum, mix in the coffee just before it freezes, then enjoy it on a stick.

Hopscotch

@RossmanBrothersGames said:
while it wasn't 200MB like my tester said he experienced. It was 13mb. Does that still seem really high to people? It does to me.

yep, something is up. Time to compare projects and GS versions.

What version are you on?

pHghost

Yeah, that's high for those activities.

RossmanBrothersGames

1.25.79, so the second most recent, thanks guys

Moik

I'm not sure if Instruments will show the data, but if you have a Mac, you could turn it into a Wifi hotspot, connect your device to it, and watch what's happening using CharlesProxy. https://www.charlesproxy.com/

I do mobile app QA professionally, and that's our main tool for testing network behaviours.

Hopscotch

Thanks for the tip @Moik

Hopscotch

@RossmanBrothersGames have you managed to do some more testing and comparisons?

RossmanBrothersGames

Tonight I'll have some time to try what @Moik suggested. I'll let you know what I observe. Looking through my code I still don't se any reason for it. Hopefully I can narrow it down to a scene, or hopefully a moment within a scene.

RossmanBrothersGames

So I still need to figure out how to set my computer up as a hotspot, but after testing some other gamesalad games, I think it may be a gamesalad issue.

Most recent gamesalad games I try use up 2-4 MB just by starting them up and going to the main menu.

I played @BigDave 's newest game (which is pretty fun by the way Dave) and after about 5-7 mins of playing was over 10 MB similar results to playing my game for 10 mins and getting 13 Mb. All that was going on in his game was a banner ad, not connecting to Game Center or anything.

unbeatenpixel

10min-13mb without video ads, singleplayer? Yes, this is too much.

Which information traffic causes this? maybe it is a general problem in the latest build.

Two.E

Correct me if this old, does GameSalad collect data from games? Would this be causing it or as that been terminated now that they are focusing on education?
Also, while I am here, best of luck with your new publishers. Great step forward in the right direction!
Best,

pHghost

Yeah, just tried it. Downloaded Breakthrough (no idea you had published it already, @BigDave!), launched, shot the door once, first ad popped up, quit the game. For that, 3.9MB gone. What is going on there?

RossmanBrothersGames

@pHghost said:
Yeah, just tried it. Downloaded Breakthrough (no idea you had published it already, @BigDave!), launched, shot the door once, first ad popped up, quit the game. For that, 3.9MB gone. What is going on there?

definitely something with Gamesalad. Any other recently released games from the current version that people now about?

RossmanBrothersGames

@ForumNinja @adent42

AlchimiaStudios

@Two.E said:
Correct me if this old, does GameSalad collect data from games? Would this be causing it or as that been terminated now that they are focusing on education?
Also, while I am here, best of luck with your new publishers. Great step forward in the right direction!
Best,

I think you're right, but still seems excessive for what they've said they collect in the past.

adent42

@RossmanBrothersGames could you send me PM to the portfolio link? My first thought was the analytics, but that's nothing new. If it's due to a bad version of the ad networks, we'd like to know to see if we need to upgrade.

Thanks!

Socks

@adent42 said:
@RossmanBrothersGames could you send me PM to the portfolio link? My first thought was the analytics, but that's nothing new. If it's due to a bad version of the ad networks, we'd like to know to see if we need to upgrade.

Thanks!

Could you post what you find back here in this thread, I'm sure it would be really useful information for everyone, it'd be a pity if it ended up being resolved via PM between just the two of you.

Cheers !!

RossmanBrothersGames

Sent it @adent42 Its a pretty large and complex project, so if anyone else with a recent release that is doing the same could send him their project it may be easier to look at.

Moik

I checked my own droid app. It has no ads, makes an IAP call on launch, and then makes batches of five Leaderboard posts maybe every 5-10 seconds at most. After 3~5 minutes my data usage was showing as around 3kb.

pHghost

@Moik said:
After 3~5 minutes my data usage was showing as around 3kb.

Maybe it is an iOS thing?

Moik

Oh right. Original question was Game Center.

I hooked up my iPad Mini 4 to CharlesProxy and gave it a monitor. I played for about a minute and a half. With the same set of events, there was a total data cost for the play session of a bit less than 200KB, for an average of 2KBps. The largest transaction was a one-time 53KB with GC on launch. My Leaderboard updates of five integer values ran about 13KB each. The GS telemetry is 215 bytes, and has several seconds between them. (Though, they were all failing, and seemed to be going in pairs, maybe because they were failing?)

I'll maybe run the Droid through CharlesProxy in the future at some point. Maybe the Droid data is separating Google Play services away from the app and that's why there's such a stark difference. If Android was only counting the GS telemetry against my app then it would match with the 3KB I got earlier.

RossmanBrothersGames

It may be a chartboost thing as my game and Dave's game both use those

pHghost

Chartboost I think does thorough analytics, but still the data used seems way excessive!