July 2020 Summaries

Firebase provides Analytics, Remote Config, Predictions, and A/B Testing tools that help game developers personalize content, configurations, and monetization strategies for player segments based on profiles, past behavior, and predicted actions. PeopleFun applied Firebase Predictions in its Wordscapes game to identify players unlikely to make an in-app purchase within seven days and showed those users more rewarded video ads, while avoiding additional ads for players likely to purchase. This approach helped the developer balance advertising with in-app purchases and reportedly increased player lifetime value by up to 5%.

Firebase Crashlytics, now graduated from beta, provides tools for diagnosing and reducing app crashes in competitive mobile ecosystems. Its dashboard offers crash insights that suggest possible root causes, including SDK bugs or API misuse, while custom keys and logs capture application state and user actions preceding a failure to help developers reproduce issues. Integration with Google Analytics adds automatic event breadcrumbs, supplying details such as user actions and event parameters before a crash. Configurable real-time alerts for high-velocity issues, regressions, and new crashes can be sent through Slack, PagerDuty, Jira, or email. Crash data can also be exported to BigQuery for segmentation and analysis, then visualized through collaborative Data Studio dashboards, with real-time exports supporting custom workflows and alerts.

Firebase recapped its month-long Firebase Live web series, which delivered talks, tutorials, codelabs, an interactive demo, product updates, and live developer support for remote teams. Key announcements included a beta local Emulator Suite UI for safer local development, improved security-rule testing and language capabilities, beta Sign in with Apple support, and Stripe extensions for invoicing and subscription payments. The company also introduced an ML Model Management API for programmatic TensorFlow Lite model deployment, Remote Config enhancements for organizing parameters and viewing A/B test information, and Crashlytics streaming to BigQuery for real-time stability analysis and alerts. Additional sessions highlighted advanced Google Analytics features for understanding user behavior and game engagement, while Firebase reaffirmed its plans to continue expanding tools, resources, and its Alpha program for developer feedback.