Companies looking into game development have lots of infrastructure that needs to be in place before launching their final product. Today, we will be looking at some of the infrastructure that needs to be in place before your game can go live.
First and foremost, you will need servers. This is a given for any type of game that is online, but the types of servers may be new, and may vary from game type to game type. For example, a traditional MMO (World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc.) would need an authentication/login server, patch server, and of course the game server, or game servers depending on the size of the game. You would also likely want proxy servers to alleviate the load on the game servers so they can better serve the users. None of this includes the database servers that these different server types will all need to process their respective files.
Speaking of database servers, you need the relevant software that will allow you to create the database in question, among the other file types. SQL is commonly used for databases, though the software that you use will depend on your needs. Other types of required software are more specific on the game in general. A graphically intensive game may require tools such as Unity or Crytek Engine, and a simpler game may not require much more than some hand-drawn sprites.
You also need to make sure that your game is up-and-running once you launch – a game that is down is for unplanned downtime is a brand nightmare waiting to happen (gamers aren’t fond of PLANNED downtime, but at least they accept it as a part of life). In order to create a high availability environment, utilizing a cloud service such as vnCloud ensures you that your server will be available to you 100% of the time. Our system is designed to be up and running at 100% capacity even when we are running our own maintenance on the system.
It is also important to make sure that the network meets latency expectations in addition to being available however, which varies from title to title. A strategy game such as Forge of Empires won’t be as sensitive to latency as Halo, for example. To meet latency expectations, our network is optimized via BGP to work with 11+ ISPs to ensure that the connection to your server has the best latency and least packet loss and jitter, so gaming is not impacted. Our location in Miami is also central for the Americas, resolving any geographic concerns, though if you have a significant number of players based in Australia you may want to look into an additional host in that geographical area. Hardware resources may be an issue as well, but thanks to the scalability offered in our solution, you can scale up your servers as needed to meet these requirements as they come along.
To learn more about our solutions and how Vault Networks can support you in getting your game off the ground, please feel free to reach out to us at (305) 735-8098 option 2. We will be more than happy in supporting you in getting the appropriate infrastructure for your game.