essentials for network provider supporting massively multiplayer online role playing game

Point of View It’s Not Just a Game, It’s an Industry! Introduction Computer games first appeared more than 30 years ago as coin-operated, stand-alone boxes in video arcades. When personal computers began expected to more than quadruple from $673 million in 2004 to nearly 3 Billion by 2008.2” Annual revenues from the most popular games are well above the revenues of some Hollywood films and games are much less expensive to produce. to appear in the home, some of the “classic” arcade games came with them and were modified to run on the PC platform. As PCs became more and more powerful, games grew more elaborate. With the increasing availability of high speed Internet connections, a new Gamers are willing to spend a lot of money on a good game, but they have high expectations in return. Because there are hundreds of kind of game emerged: the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). thousands of simultaneous users spread across the globe, gaming has some unique application requirements. Performance is a key requirement in the MMORPG world as minor glitches can ruin the user experience. Slight hesitations in the response of a character can cause a player to Today, MMORPGs are a global phenomena. They offer the alluring prospect of taking on a new personae and interacting with other be “killed” during a game. Ironically, a game’s success actually makes performance management even more critical because the network must players in a virtual game world. Most MMORPGs are fantasy-oriented and include aspects of social networking. Players see themselves as be constantly monitored and maintained as player numbers increase. part of a gaming community and band together within the game in order to play more effectively. The world of the game may be virtual, What Makes a Gaming Application Unique? but the interactions between the players are real. User Base Games are different in several ways. They’re subject to “land rush” effects. The number of users doesn’t ramp up slowly, so the “In the US alone, online gaming, which includes everything from simple solitaire games to massively infrastructure needs to be planned and engineered to accommodate the initial burst of users. There are also follow-up influxes of new multiplayer online fantasy fare (MMOs), is expected to more than quadruple from $673 million in 2004 users that coincide with gift-giving holidays. New releases and patches need tobe carefully planned to improve the game without to nearly 3 Billion by 2008.” hurting user experience during the upgrade. The key for gaming firms is to provide a good user experience to keep the players coming back. — Billy Pidgeon, IDC research analyst Network Environment Leading companies in the MMORPG space are building a powerful new industry with exciting long-term potential. The basic revenue model Gamers connect through many different ISPs, leading to an unusually complex network environment. In many cases, troubleshooting may for most games involves an up front fee to purchase the software plus a monthly fee for access to the on-line game world. A popular game cross multiple networks and providers. In addition, a “gaming day” is different than the normal business day. Users tend to go on line after can have millions of subscribers, and MMORPG revenues exceeded $1 billion in 2006.1 According to IDC research analyst, Billy Pidgeon, “In work and play until the early hours of the morning. In order to accommodate these operational differences, maintenance must be the US alone, online gaming, which includes everything from simple solitaire games to massively multiplayer online fantasy fare (MMOs), is flexible. Gaming businesses need to provide 24x7 Customer Care, especially on holidays. Protocol Comprehensive Knowledge of Hosting Instead of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), many games use User Datagraph Protocol (UDP) for data transmission. It’s important to have a good understanding of application hosting. Games are sensitive applications and require rigorous change UDP is faster and more efficient for time-sensitive purposes. Because it doesn’t check the integrity of every packet, UDP is not as reliable as management. Game hosts must understand all the details of data center operations, from server virtualization to firewall management. TCP/IP. Data packets that are missing, duplicated or out of sequence may be permanently lost. Without error-checking, there is no Scalability is also a concern, since successful games will need room to grow. The provider and the gamer must work closely during the retransmission of lost packets. This kind of data loss can make a game appear jumpy, with characters appearing and disappearing on the design to forecast scalability needs. Most games run on clustered servers, which enable individual game “realms” to be expanded by landscape. If the problem is severe enough, the game will be unplayable. However, having packets arrive out of order (retransmitted) is not adding additional machines to the cluster. Physical rack space requirements must be preplanned, power and heating should be useful and may even hurt the performance of a game. It is often better for the game engine to fill in the lost data and keep going, accurately estimated and ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) capacity need to be accurately forecasted. hoping that more packets are coming. This is a speed issue that the game developers have to balance, along with choosing a provider that Customer Service will help ensure as many packets as possible are transmitted. Providing appropriate customer service is critical to the gaming industry. In addition to 24x7 holiday support, help desks must be Essentials for a Network Provider Supporting Gaming Gaming applications require a high performing environment from both a network and hosting perspective. Gaming can test the boundaries prepared to accommodate rushes in users and may need to cross networks and work with other providers to troubleshoot network problems. In order to provide true customer service, end-to-end support should be available. of an application infrastructure. The keys to success for gaming service providers are a high-performing network, flexible customer service and an understanding of the business. Understanding of the Business High-Performing/Redundant Network Service providers should have a thorough understanding of the gaming business. The technical and support staff should learn appropriate Speed is essential during game play. Any latency in the network could eliminate a user’s ability to play the game. Games require highly terminology and have a fundamental understanding of a user’s expectations. Good metrics on application and player behavior can responsive and consistent core network performance. Down-time would be disastrous, as users could not access the game. Providing a help in the tasks of day-to-day game management. well-designed, reliable and redundant network plays a key role in the success of a game. Because of the initial rush of users, performance The Difference has developed team of people who are dedicated to gaming. These experts are individuals with hosting, network management and glitches should be identified and resolved before the game is launched. In addition, the provider’s customer care center will need to accommodate gaming experience who offer gaming customers a single point of contact for operations engineering and customer support. ’s the early rush of users. To keep gamers coming back, the initial user experience must be good. gaming team works collaboratively with game developers during both operational readiness testing and application readiness testing. These Speed is not just essential during the play of the game. It is also a consideration in the speed of “triage,” which includes the installation of experienced engineers provide trouble resolution, incident command and control, post incident review and root cause analysis. The patches, upgrade implementations, maintenance and other enhancements. Providers must work closely with gamers to develop plans in advance combination of network and hosting expertise, dedicated customer support and high-performing network has already made a strong for any network upgrades (such as a need for more bandwidth) or enhancements tothe game. A streamlined process should be player in the management and hosting of Internet games. coordinated to handle such upgrades. Implementations should cause minimal impact to user experience during play. Any delays in game References 1. Piers Harding-Rolls (2007), Western World MMOG Market: 2006 Review and Forecasts to 2011, http://www.screendest.com/reports/ deployments could mean millions of dollars in lost revenue. 07westworldmmog/readmore/view.html. 2. Provided to , April 2, 2007.
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