Game Education Summit North America

Writing a single monolithic game server and a complex, tightly integrated game application may have worked well in the past, when online games supported multiplayer experiences in the dozens. Even with sharded servers, it's difficult to provide rich experiences for hundreds of thousands of players in the same game world. Games are moving past this Client-Server model into a new system of online interaction.

Cloud computing offers one way to balance the needs of computing resource requirements with server hardware expenses. Data storage in advanced NoSQL databases (fast in-memory key/value pairs with enhanced atomic operations) allows us to scale to hundreds of thousands of users in the same environment, experiencing the same interactions. Big data processing tools, such as MapReduce/Hadoop allow us to crunch through tons of stats and provide metrics that drive player re-engagement, as well as delivering business-critical metrics for continuous improvement and design enhancements.

Put together, we're seeing a new way to provide for innovative, interactive experiences that not only entertain millions of players online every day, but also have interesting business opportunities for the oncoming wave of Gamification. This talk describes the past use of these technologies, as well as the future directions that some companies are moving to not only entertain massive numbers of players, but also to engage businesses and the workforce to create a more fun and imaginative workplace.