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Games Infrastructure: A Business Perspective. Greg Melloy Business Area Executive, Games IBM Asia Pacific. The Games Industry growth patterns have common characteristics, well described by management theory. Mature Phase Retaining profitable customers Managing costs. Size. Growth Phase - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation
Games Infrastructure: A Business Perspective
Greg MelloyBusiness Area Executive, GamesIBM Asia Pacific
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation3
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation4
New Technology is causing this change?
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation5
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?
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation6
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation7
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation8
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation9
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation10
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation11
Convergence being driven from without and within
Game Platform
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation12
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation13
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 Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation14
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation16
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
Cu
sto
mer
Cu
sto
mer
Ext
en
sio
ns
Ext
en
sio
ns
Cu
sto
mer
Cu
sto
mer
Ext
en
sio
ns
Ext
en
sio
ns
33rdrd
Par
ty P
arty
ISV
To
ols
ISV
To
ols
33rdrd
Par
ty P
arty
ISV
To
ols
ISV
To
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation17
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation18
Developing a Solution Overview
Bringing it down to the function level
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation19
Identifying Integration Points
How will you integrate between these functions?
Staying cost effective
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation20
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation21
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation22
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation23
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation24
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation25
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
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation26
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?
IBM Media and Entertainment
© 2005 IBM Corporation27
Thank you for listening
Web Seminar: ibm.com/vrm/event/mmog2
ibm.com/solutions/games