Companies building a game have a lot of infrastructure to put in place before launch. Today we are looking at what needs to be ready before your game can go live, starting with game server hosting.
Server Types Your Game Needs
First and foremost, you need servers. That much is a given for any online game, but the server types involved may be new to you and vary by game. A traditional MMO, think World of Warcraft or EverQuest, needs an authentication and login server, a patch server, and the game server or servers, sized to the game itself. You will likely also want proxy servers to take load off the game servers so they can serve players better. None of this counts the database servers every one of these server types needs to process its files.
Database and Software Requirements
Speaking of database servers, you need the right software to build the database itself, along with your other file types. SQL is common for databases, though the software you choose depends on your needs. Other required software gets more specific to the game itself. A graphically intensive game may call for tools like Unity or the CryEngine, while a simpler game may need little more than some hand-drawn sprites.
High Availability for Your Game
You also need your game up and running once you launch, since unplanned downtime is a brand nightmare waiting to happen (players tolerate planned downtime as a fact of life, but not unplanned outages). Building a high availability environment on a cloud service such as vnCloud keeps your server available around the clock. Our system stays up and running at full capacity even while we perform our own maintenance.
Latency and Location for Game Server Hosting
Beyond availability, your network also needs to meet latency expectations, which vary from title to title. A strategy game like Forge of Empires is far less sensitive to latency than a shooter like Halo. To meet those latency expectations, we optimize our network across 11+ ISPs so the connection to your server gets the best latency with the least packet loss and jitter, keeping gameplay smooth. Our Miami location is also central to the Americas, which resolves most geographic concerns, though a large player base in Australia would still be better served by an additional host in that region. Hardware resources can become a constraint too, but our solution scales, so you can add server capacity as those requirements come up.
To learn more about our solutions and how Vault Networks can support your game server hosting, reach out to us at (305) 735-8098 option 2. We are happy to help you put the right infrastructure behind your game.