The Entropy of States in Explorative Analysis

Why is entropy used in an exploratory analysis?

In some cases, we may want to understand the diversity of states seen at a particular position. In this case, the measure of Shannon entropy would be of interest. Entropy, as an information measure, has been discussed in earlier chapters; thus, we will not define it again here.

We want to see how to derive entropy for sequence data. Representing the sequences in this way can provide high-level and easy-to-interpret insight into how player behavior shifts between moments of highly uniform action to moments of highly varied action. This, in turn, can provide insight into how a game environment may be influencing player behavior, as highly uniform behavior is likely the result of some constant factor in the design of the game.