FirstLook Engagement Analytics vs Pretty Good Playtesting

FirstLook Engagement Analytics combines in-game telemetry with out-of-game player signals in player profiles for game studios. Native Unreal and Unity SDKs support session tracking and custom events. Teams can segment players by playtime, retention cohort, source, country, custom attributes, and tags, then trigger automated email or Discord direct messages from events or rules. Dashboards cover players, Discord, Steam, visits, sessions, custom events, retention cohorts, and funnels. Listed inputs include Unreal or Unity telemetry, Discord activity, Steam playtime, and API custom events; identity syncing spans Steam, Discord, Epic, and console accounts. Teams can export segments as CSV or through an API, and API ingestion can stream warehouse events. Counter and duration events can feed filters, segments, triggers, quests, rewards, and Discord roles. The Forever Free plan costs nothing and includes 100k player profiles, up to 500 playtesters, and 1,000 emails per month. Analytics Core costs $149 a month, billed monthly per game, and includes 1M events. Engagement Pro costs $3,499 a month, billed monthly per game, and includes 10M events. FirstLook lists Community Support for Core and Slack Support for Pro.

Pretty Good Playtesting is a Windows toolkit for indie game creators coordinating testers and analyzing feedback. Creators share an invite link, filter for a target audience, upload a build, and prepare instructions and a survey. Surveys present one question at a time. Tester management stays in one place, with automatic reminder emails. The product analyzes recordings for trends, creates automatic reports, and highlights moments when players appear confused or stuck. Gameplay recording uses a custom-tuned OBS build, with a stated minimum of a 2015 laptop with integrated graphics. Any game engine is supported, and the product is otherwise compatible with any analytics solution. Privacy and security options include an included or bring-your-own NDA, anonymised tester data, and encrypted builds. The Free tier costs nothing, with specific limits not stated. Hobbyists costs $15 a month and Studios costs $30 a month; both have build and video storage limits and unlimited testers. An event-timestamping API is described as planned, and automatic tester rewards are a future feature.