Partner Article

Tips for End-user Satisfaction on Launch Day

The world of gaming is a rapidly expanding industry, due in part to the proliferation of the Internet of Things. Ensuring the smooth launch of a new game is vital to its success; online games are growing faster than ever, and gamers are increasingly quick to call out glitches. Innovative features and new mobile platforms contribute an additional level of complexity that affects how game quality is perceived. So how can online gaming companies avoid downtime and ensure end-user satisfaction on launch day? Here are three top tips:

Test, test, test

In gaming, the difference between a good launch and a bad one can spell the death of a franchise. At the very least, it can inflict significant damage on a company’s reputation. A good example of this is the launch of SimCity: one of gaming’s most historic brands was tarnished because the publishers failed to adequately plan for capacity by load testing. This major error in terms of web performance forced EA to offer refunds to those affected by launch issues.

With effective load testing, gaming companies can cut time to market, reduce risk of project launch failure, and use powerful cloud-based test scenarios to mirror actual user behaviour. Load testing teams are able to work closely with gaming engineers to simulate complex gaming environments, providing rapid loads and results in turn, as well as gaining insight into various configuration settings. These test cycles are essential when it comes to driving results and achieving long-term success.

Preparation is key

Capacity planning for online and mobile games is essential. As gaming companies prepare for a launch, they need to have the correct tools in place to ensure their systems can handle peak loads, as well as validate failover mechanisms during this time. In addition, companies should be able to define optimal machine sizing and establish elasticity rules for growing and shrinking cloud resources, based on load and traffic patterns.

Synthetic monitoring = success

Gaming companies rely on global synthetic monitoring to ensure availability and performance wherever their players are. Online gamers demand a near instantaneous experience from any device, at any time. When a business’ reputation depends upon peak performance, it needs a monitoring service that can ensure downtime is never an option: a service that provides second by second monitoring so teams can see their users’ experience in real time - from any location around the world.

The most successful gaming brands rely on capacity planning, regular load testing and synthetic monitoring throughout their development cycles to find and correct errors long before end users even see the game. This ensures that no matter how many players log in on launch day, the game is guaranteed to perform.

Sources:https://ukie.org.uk/sites/default/files/UK%20Games%20Industry%20Fact%20Sheet%2020%20March%202017.pdf, http://www.pcgamer.com/simcity-refund-ea-origin/

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sven Hammar .