games infrastructure: a business perspective

IBM Media and Entertainment

© 2005 IBM Corporation

Games Infrastructure: A Business Perspective

Greg MelloyBusiness Area Executive, GamesIBM Asia Pacific


© 2005 IBM Corporation2

The Games Industry growth patterns have common characteristics, well described by management theory

Time

Size

Start-up Phase

•Business development

Growth Phase

•Getting customers

•Meeting demand

Mature Phase

•Retaining profitable customers

•Managing costs



The growth curve however is not smooth. Over time, one or more industry transition points may be encountered. Many games companies are facing this transition phase.

•New Technology

•New Markets

•New Entrants

•New Revenue / Cost Structures

•Government Regulation

Size

Time



New Technology is causing this change?



Games Developers and Operators in growth led transitions are requesting Scaleable, flexible systems to accommodate change

– Open systems versus “rip and replace” technology transitions

– Predictable cost structures

Interoperable systems to easily enable new offerings

– Linkage for new and old delivery systems and to CRM and Billing systems

Established supported systems

– For complex high performance or connectivity issues, who can support difficult technical requirements? Who has done it before?



The heart of the matter Increases in Game Development

Complexity of games continues to increase

Target complexity has increased via step function

Cost of title development increasing

Development timelines increasing

Development team dynamics changing



Development: new techniques and new tools

Continuing challenges

– 3 major game consoles

– PCs

– Handhelds

– Need to support them all

– Development needs to be on single platform, multi target

– Iterative development cycle slowed down by … everything …

– Faster, more polygons, better sound

New challenges

– New consoles CPUs vastly different from traditional CPUs

– Radically different handhelds

– Umpteen phones

– Online everything

– New input: video, touch, sound, voice, text

– AI, Automated GM, Guides, Physics v.s. Animation



Continuously Ensure Quality

ModelVisually

Use 3rd party Components

Develop Iteratively

Manage Requirements

Manage Change

Simulation andModeling

Simulation andModeling

Asset Analysis &Reuse PreparationAsset Analysis &

Reuse Preparation

Code & ScriptDevelopmentCode & ScriptDevelopment

Community Web Site Development

Community Web Site Development

Visual, music and SFX Integration

Visual, music and SFX Integration

Automated Functional

and Stress Testing

Automated Functional

and Stress Testing

Game instrumentation

and Management

Game instrumentation

and Management

Player Monitoring and playtesting

Player Monitoring and playtesting

Visual ConstructionVisual Construction

Data ModelingData Modeling

Develop

Test

Discover

Team Collaboration Throughout The Cycle

Daily buildsDaily builds



Distributed development

Distributed development now a fact of life

It’s not as bad as they say

Ease of communication and collaboration is key

– Wikki

– Centralized

– “Share This” functionality increases ease

– Internal Blogs

– Instant Messengers (with audio, video, file transfer etc)

Reduces risk of games being created in cultural isolation



Measure Progress and Quality of Each Iteration

Code is automatable, is Art?

Project Plans

Display in production dashboard

Automatically collect results across your development tools

TextFile

Project

RequirementsRequirements ModelsModels

TestTest AssetsAssets CodeCode

There are few tools that do this today

Integrate with

Human feedback



Convergence being driven from without and within

Game Platform



Continuous development Game builds take a long time

Artists need to see their work in the engine in real time

Art and code

Dynamic asset insertion

Transition from nightly build, to Continuous incremental builds based on checked in change

Builds done in the room, not under the desk

Tools, Art, and code all maintained in repository

Regression and automated testing done as part of build process



Increase the use of automatMonitor system performance and availability while driving builds with automated test harness

Automated Test tools allow for the scripted simulation and execution of a game client

Measure response time of a typical (Robotic) end user

Identify and isolate scalability and performance problems

T1

T2

TMTPTMTP

start ...

stop ...

Recorded game process

Robot Script Robot Script

Robot Driven PC Robot Driven PC

Live player PCLive player PC

GameServerGameServer

Reuse test scripts, Reuse test scripts, set performance set performance

thresholdsthresholds

Reuse test scripts, Reuse test scripts, set performance set performance

thresholdsthresholds

ResponseResponseTimeTime

Continuously test and retestContinuously test and retest



IBM Case Study with BigWorld

•2000 Servers at the IBM Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Centre

•Large scale testing facility for MMOG Alpha & Beta Test phases

•IBM Rational Tool Integration under review


© 2005 IBM Corporation

Risk Reduction

Address Risks Earlier in the Project Lifecycle

Risk ResolutionPeriod

Risk Management Period

IterativeWaterfall

Ris

kR

isk

TimeTime

Develop IterativelyDevelop Iteratively



Eclipse: Open source, multi language, multi OS development environment

Manage Change and AssetsManage Change and AssetsProject ManagerProject Manager

Focus on ArchitectureFocus on Architecture

Continuously Ensure QualityContinuously Ensure Quality

Develop IterativelyDevelop Iteratively

DesignerDesigner ArtistArtist DeveloperDeveloper TesterTester

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ISV

To

ols

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arty

ISV

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ols

ISV

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ols

Role-based user interfaces Common models for integration across lifecycle Artifact sharing via Rational Team Unifying Platform

Role-based user interfaces Common models for integration across lifecycle Artifact sharing via Rational Team Unifying Platform



Online Games add a new Dimension

Millions of Concurrent Users

Truly Global Deployments bring global issues

– 24x7x365

– Customer care in local language at local times

– Global billing

– Multiple concurrent cultural norms, histories, mythologies, acceptable behavior



Developing a Solution Overview

Bringing it down to the function level



Identifying Integration Points

How will you integrate between these functions?

Staying cost effective



The World as it seems to be today

Games developed using internet service model we all learned in computer science school

Community, billing and support designed and implemented only after online engine and client complete

Change is occurring as this cost model is not sustainable

IP-based network;Internet

Directory andsecurity services

Collaboration

WebServer

Redirector

Domain NameServer

Public KeyInfrastructure

IP-based User

Internal NetworkDMZOutsideWorld

WirelessGateway

PervasiveDevice

---

Synchronization,Notification,

Device Manager

CommerceServer

TCP/UDPGame

Server(s)Load Balancer/Proxy

GameServer(s)

In-GameCollaboration

Service

In-GameCommerce

Service

Registration & Login

BusinessIntegration forGames

DatabaseServer

In-GameProvisioning

... otherservices...

GameStatistics

GameData

Pro

toco

l Fir

ewal

l

Do

mai

n F

irew

all

AccountsService

Accounts,Billing

Content /Digital AssetManagement

Firewall



This is what a real game infrastructure might look like

Several engagements that IBM has had in the online games space can fit into this model

NHN

– CRM

Warner Bros

– Registration



Infrastructure: New methods for Online scalability

– Difficult to maintain world state across servers AND performance

– Cluster programming techniques fraught with risk

– Current cluster technologies, MPI, not ready for game time

– Fibre based Centralized storage too expensive

– NAS centralized storage too slow

– Bandwidth to player still small for foreseeable future

Just some of today’s issues

Technologies addressing these issues

– New Grid technologies, enhance existing game engines

– Automated provisioning

– Grid and Peer to Peer file systems

– Parallel content distribution



Responsive Load Management Systems Your game servers could load balance the game DYNAMICALLY

Game servers allocate resources AUTOMATICALLY

Servers partition the game for OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

Game map zone : Blue Game map zone : Red Game map zone : Yellow

Huge User Movement From Map Zone BLUETo Map Zone RED

Grid Resource DynamicallyRe-allocated withOptimal configuration



New Grid Technologies

Path toward boundless virtual worlds

Allows players to SEE objects managed by other servers

Allow Players to INTERACT with the entities on other servers

Remove the performance impact of smart NPCs/monsters

Eliminate limitations of “shard” architecture

Allow dynamic real time load management

Easy to code to

Enhance performance

Range of sight For player #1 Range of sight

For player #2

Server 1

Server 2

Server 3

Server 4

Server 6

Server 7

Server 8

“Interacting” withEntities in other servers



Technologies exist to create truly global games

Taking your game global adds an additional layer of complexity

– Network requirements to ensure synchronization

– Distributed server resources

Asia servercluster

ServiceProvider #1

ServiceProvider #2 Service

Provider #3

Players

Storage cluster

USA servercluster

Europe server cluster



Games Developers and Operators in growth led transitions are requesting Scaleable, flexible systems to accommodate change

– Open systems versus “rip and replace” technology transitions

– Predictable cost structures

Interoperable systems to easily enable new offerings

– Linkage for new and old delivery systems and to CRM and Billing systems

Established supported systems

– For complex high performance or connectivity issues, who can support difficult technical requirements? Who has done it before?



Thank you for listening

Web Seminar: ibm.com/vrm/event/mmog2

ibm.com/solutions/games

games infrastructure: a business perspective

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