F2P Mobile Game Server Platforms : Perspectives on Consistency and Availability
Haarala, Jaakko (2018-04-10)
F2P Mobile Game Server Platforms : Perspectives on Consistency and Availability
(10.04.2018)
Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.
suljettu
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on:
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe201804176574
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe201804176574
Tiivistelmä
Modern game server platforms are complex distributed systems build with the purpose of operating online games in a service like manner. In the context of so called free-to-play mobile games, they also need to be designed to sustain potentially millions of daily users. Being distributed systems, these game server platforms face similar challenges as other distributed systems when seeking to provide reliability and scalability. One of such challenges is related to the trade-off between consistency and availability – to improve availability it is often necessary to weaken the consistency requirements.
As the features and requirements for game server platforms are different from other types of applications such as web applications, it is likely that the decisions on which trade-offs are made may be different as well. Based on a developed understanding of distributed systems and their trade-offs, this thesis seeks answers to the question how game server platforms approach these trade-offs. This is done by interviewing developers familiar with game server platforms using semi-structured interview method.
The findings suggest that stronger consistency is important for functionality related to storing player or game state, and in-app purchases. For other gameplay and non-gameplay related functionality, the consistency requirements were considered subjective; for some games stronger consistency may be more important than to others. The findings also suggest that for some platform functionality the consistency is not an issue due to data not being updated.
As the features and requirements for game server platforms are different from other types of applications such as web applications, it is likely that the decisions on which trade-offs are made may be different as well. Based on a developed understanding of distributed systems and their trade-offs, this thesis seeks answers to the question how game server platforms approach these trade-offs. This is done by interviewing developers familiar with game server platforms using semi-structured interview method.
The findings suggest that stronger consistency is important for functionality related to storing player or game state, and in-app purchases. For other gameplay and non-gameplay related functionality, the consistency requirements were considered subjective; for some games stronger consistency may be more important than to others. The findings also suggest that for some platform functionality the consistency is not an issue due to data not being updated.