Gaming As A Service: Computing Clouds for the Gaming Industry

Pretty tired of our readers with numerous informative articles from the forum Cloud Technologies in Russia : Part I , Part II , Part III , Part IV , Part V , Part VI , we left something sweet for dessert ...

And so today we will talk about the latest edge of the use of cloud technologies, about the junction of the IAAS and PAAS areas - Game As A Service. What is the difference between the GAAS model and traditional online gaming systems? Information about this is extremely small and even here on Habré they don’t talk about it, although the topic is starting to gain momentum in Silicon Valley . Therefore, we decided to convene a round table, on our forum, and invite our own domestic adherents of this technology. What came out of it, read, see below.
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Participants:
Moderator of the discussion, Evgeny Shagalov , Development Manager, RUVDS
Alexey Lykov , CTO, Playkey
Alexey Khoroshilov , CEO, UltraVDS
Andrey Tomilenko , Managing Director, Big Data Host





Briefly presenting the participants of the round table and not tiring guests with a long prelude, moderator Evgeny Shagalov, head of development, RUVDS, immediately got down to business:
- So, Alex, can you tell us what were the prerequisites for the emergence of such a model and what is its essence?



Alexey Lykov, CTO, Playkey:

- Ok, I will not, I didn’t want to tell much about Playkey so that it would not be such an advertisement, and the audience of the end users is not the same here, not a large audience. But, in fact, Playkey is a gaming service that brings some kind of variety to life, a fun thing. People play and spend billions of money on it all over the world. Every sixth, according to our statistics, plays games. Every sixth pays and every second plays in the world, just at least once a toy launched. Every sixth dollar at least paid in his life. In fact, this is a very large market that we are trying to capture.

If we talk about history, how we came to this, we are the backbone of the former team of Enaza, which still exists. We sold digital content, were one of the largest and are now the largest provider, distributor of digital content. Enaza, it sold to large operators, such as Rostelecom, the Zabava project, which still exists. For MTS, for Svyaznoy they did a pilot project, for M.Video there is. All the digital content that is, is sold - it goes through us. But over time, as for games, digital distribution of games, it slowly dies. Dies in terms of what major game developers like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft are starting to build their platforms. Electronic Arts last July completely shut down digital distribution around the world. Just closed it. And now users can simply buy it in their client. The age of globalization, in fact, was to be expected. To this all the rest will come in the future.

Actually, we all understood this and it was time to invent something. Then we saw the Onlive service, which appeared seven years ago. Cloud Gaming, when the game is launched on the service, and the video stream is transmitted to the user. Thus, piracy is eliminated and you can provide the technology service to users, they do not need to buy a powerful computer, they can play BattleField on their “calculator” conditionally. That is, on any device that can play video and is connected to the Internet. This may be a phone, smartphone, tablet. We now focus only on PC and Mac OS.



Let's turn on the first slide. True, I do not remember what is there ... The target audience of this product is, after all, PC and console games. As for MMO mobile and casual games, mobile and casual, well, firstly, everyone has this from a mobile phone, casual is a weak iron, it will also work on any calculator. MMO, console games and PC downloads, this is what we can close. If before the user bought a console for himself, then there is no need for him to buy it for 500 bucks and buy the game also when it is in the Xbox Store or somewhere else.

We cover this audience, here it is shown, 1.2 billion players worldwide. The market for Smart is 70 trillion (billion) dollars and a market growth of 6% per year. In spite of this, the distribution is shown here and the growth is shown on the right. It can be seen that the mobile market is growing by 35% per year, the console and games for download are falling, but this indicates that only the ratio is falling. The total revenue is still growing and continues to play further.



Let's look at the next slide. Well, we actually asked Electronic Arts a question: are all the users, so you released a new toy, how many users can you play? Here they say that only 5% of users can play in the first year. That is, the rest of the computer just does not pull. And that they need to buy a computer, upgrade it, buy a video card, well, do something. Either come to terms with the worst settings, or ask parents for money, most often because the audience is at school. Of course, adults also play. If we compare the years 2013-2014 and 2015: if in 2013 the released new game could be played by 23% of users, in 2014 - 14%, in 2015 - already 5% of players. Just computers do not update, maybe there is no money or something like that. Users can not play. Actually, we solve this problem, we give our users to play a new game that has just been released using Cloud Streaming technology.



Briefly about technology: the left shows the streaming cycle - the game starts on the server, turns into a video stream, is sent via the Internet in the form of video streaming to the user, and the user sends his control by pressing the buttons and mouse to the server. This cycle occurs so quickly that the user does not notice what is playing on the remote server.

Of course, now I will tell you what is needed for this. First of all, these are game servers. There are wonderful representatives of cloud hosting sites, I’m telling everyone that if you have tomorrow, we will rent you tomorrow. Unfortunately, no one has. The reality is that no. It is clear why, because there is no demand. We are the only ones who came here, we want these servers, our usual hosting is certainly ready to lease them, to shift all the risks to us, but then the essence of cloud hosting ends somewhere. They must all learn to fumble resources between other companies, i.e. the rental model just does not work. She is not. The only supplier now on rental model is Amazon, which invested at its time about 4 years ago in good hardware, which of course is also outdated and provides for virtual machines with graphic accelerators in large volumes. In small volumes, some providers have one or two servers with some top cards. Therefore, the problem that confronts us is to create this infrastructure or to encourage those companies that are engaged in creating it. I would be happy to find those people or companies that could use these services, servers, and fumble with dreams: generate bitcoins at night when users do not play with us; engineering calculations carried out in autocadays at night. This is due to the peak of consumption. Our players mostly play in the evening after school, after work, and in the daytime, no matter what, they can work. There is such a problem, I would like to solve it. While we are building our cloud, unfortunately.

The second problem is, of course, the Internet. You need 5-15 Mbit - 10 Mbit is a comfortable video stream. Stream big is online streaming, it eats up traffic a little more than this movie - 3 passes squeezed, optimized and a good picture at the exit. This is work with providers that can be our customers. Recently, yesterday Rostelecom closed a tender for cloud games, maybe we will win, we'll see. Naturally, providers play such a significant role here when they can provide a quality channel to the end user. If in the data center, I have no doubt, good equipment and a good channel, then the Last Mile is still the worst internet connection: this is the D-Link router that is in the kitchen at home, it catches badly through the wall; network losses begin, and for online streaming this is critical. Waiting for users and connecting wired internet, or buying a quality Wi-Fi router and with a frequency of not 2.4 GHz but at 5 GHz is a hard task. You can play while on the PC and Mac, there is nothing complicated here - this is just a video picture that is played. As an option for future cooperation with operators, this is their digital set-top box for digital television, where you can play the same, connected gamepad and that's it, please. Millions of devices are already at your home, rolling software, turning on a gamepad, playing. I hope our operators will reach this. In Europe there are such in Asia too.



The cornerstone of all this technology is delays at all stages of service. They appear - this is encoding, decoding, network, screen rendering. For example, a TV who went to the menu saw: a normal mod, a movie mod, or a gaming mod.
Accordingly, gaming is the minimum delay, noticeable even by the unaided eye. Of course, I already have an eye on this topic, but I think you will also notice that if you put two TVs next to two streams of the same parallel, you will see the difference. A comfortable delay somewhere around 100 milliseconds until the user pushed the button and saw the reaction. 100 milliseconds is a comfortable delay for most types of games. Of course, for first-person shooters it's harder, the delays here are even smaller. If we are talking about modern technology - this is VR, there should already be a few milliseconds there. Because so long is impossible, the brain is not used. We minimize due to direct channels for operators, we minimize technologies, we try to install servers - again, this is a difficult task and we solve it as we can.



This is the business model of our service. In short, we are sharing incomes with copyright holders ... It was us in Skolkovo who participated in the startup competition, unfortunately, we did not win. In our Nomination Rubik Cube won, which eventually took 1st place. Subscription model: user pays a full month subscription. Now it is 590 rubles. and buys the key to the game. Unfortunately, the model is so far only such a “key + subscription”, because the right holders are not ready to give their games just by the “subscription” model, so far. Maybe when the volume is more this will all come. Subscription model in this segment is not developed yet. As long as they want to get a lot of money and sell the key for 3 thousand.



Question from the audience: - Is the key coming back later?

Alexey Lykov: - No, the key is always with the user, he buys it. This is a purchase. You can go to the competitors, you can buy a computer home if you won the lottery and continue to play. Or go to a friend to play.
The general business scheme is sharing of resources that we put in the data center between all users. Instead of each user buying their own resources home. The concept of cloud is one, as well as for the office and in general.



This is our statistics. We once realized that users only need hit games. They do not play old boring games, they want new items. And the novelties are 95% for half a year, 5% is old. All the rest is not necessary. This was our mistake initially, corrected and immediately saw growth. Understand the value of our service to ourselves first.

I would not like to project more fairy tales, more about cloud games. There are not many competitors in the world, the most famous is GeForce Nvidia. They position themselves only on their devices. This is their feature. There are several companies that work only with operators in France, in Korea. Here we are one of the few who work in the b2c market, who have shouldered such a task. Hope we can handle it. The most problem is to build the infrastructure. And most importantly someone should invest in it. While we are trying to do it ourselves. Are there any questions about what I said?



Question from the audience: - What is your recycling now?

Alexey Lykov: - Loading?

Question from the audience: - Yes

Alexey Lykov: - So, we are now renting servers in Amazon. That is, recycling is like?

Question from the audience: - Technically, do you take resources in volume depending on the number of users at the moment? or do you take the entire infrastructure initially?

Alexey Lykov: - No. The user connected, we launched one virtual machine, another user connected - another virtual user, etc. If the user does not use - we turned off this virtual machine and do not pay for it, there are options according to the Pay and Go model. I would also like to do something with someone. This virtual machine can be used by someone else: to generate Bitcoins.

A question from the audience: - Do you have any problems with loading from a long distance?

Alexey Lykov: - Arises.

Question from the audience: - How do you decide?

Alexey Lykov: - Users play - pay. This is an important indicator. In this case, the pings are large, with up to Frankfurt 30-40 milliseconds, approximately. But users are playing. And willing to pay for it. When we finally put the server in Moscow, it will be even less ping. I think there will be a significant increase. The joy of customers will be limitless.

Question from the audience: - They are playing because they are new?

Alexey Lykov: - For two reasons. First of all, a novelty. The second is that they do not have a good company on which they could play. This is the main. In addition, there are other advantages, such as: no need to download the game; no need to wait for it; no need to have a hard drive, store it somewhere; All saves in the cloud are stored.

Question from the audience: - And what is the advantage of not having to download the game?

Alexey Lykov: - Plus? I tell. Right holders, they have statistics on how many users came to the site, registered, started to download the client and did not play. People just disappeared, i.e. they never even played or started the game after that. It is at that moment when you come home that you want to play right now in this game. Now! Not tomorrow morning, when the game is downloaded, but now. Here at that moment “Aha!”, There is such a moment in marketing “Aha! Now I want to play! ”, And if you are deceived, then you just do not go to this game to play.

A question from the audience: - That is, if I understood you correctly, I wanted to play, I immediately begin. And for what period can I start?

Alexey Lykov: - 10 seconds. If there is a key, then 10 seconds. If there is no key, then depending on how much the purchase goes, 1-2 minutes. If the game is generally without a key, then 10 seconds.

Question from the audience: - What document is signed by the user?

Alexey Lykov: - Offer. Public offer.

Question from the audience: - And what software?

Alexey Lykov: - Soft client. 5 MB client install, download and run. 10 seconds plus or minus.

Question from the audience: - Tell me, how often do they go to play? Do you have statistics?

Alexey Lykov: - There is statistics: when he entered, what he played and how much.

Question from the audience: - What is the length of time until the game leaves the “new” status?

Alexey Lykov: - Probably, I won't tell you so. Those. It depends on the game. An interesting game - not interesting. On average, the game The Witcher takes a month. If we talk about GTA, then they play there, of course, longer, because there you can play for a long time. I honestly do not know these statistics.

Question from the audience: - In the hope of a new user, do you keep some kind of pool?

Alexey Lykov: - Yes, of course. At peak it is more cars, at night less.

Question from the audience: - What is the number of games that are already installed and how many, if not a secret?

Alexey Lykov: - Let there be five hundred virtual machines.

A question from the audience: - And what now does not suit Russian providers?

Alexey Lykov: - Lack of servers with GPU accelerators. - What will the colleagues say?

A question from the audience: - And you yourself are not ready to invest in graphic cards, and then choose providers?

Alexey Lykov: - We are actually doing this now, but we must understand that the server is an expensive thing, and the investments are not infinite.
Question from the audience: - Do you invest in servers or cards?

Alexey Lykov: - If there are server operators in which I can insert cards, it will be great. But they have neither maps nor servers. They have no such. I will explain why. First, these are passively cooled cards. Secondly, the slots in PCI must be so that the card can be inserted, 2 or 3. That is, this form factor is different. To do this, you can leave the case itself, and you will have to pull out the rest and re-install it.



Alexey Khoroshilov (left), CEO, UltraVDS:

- The case, compared with the cost of the server, costs two pennies, i.e. you can then invest in the cost of the card, which costs several hundred thousand rubles, and in the case itself.

Alexey Lykov: - This is what happens, i.e. we invest in the server. We use diskless cases, everything is stored on the storage system, also in the direction of optimization. There should be three large video cards in the case, and two more processors, two 2800 W power supplies ... The question is rather whether you need to have your own equipment for this? Here on the power supply, by the way, yes the actual question. Standard 500W server is coming ...

Alexey Khoroshilov: - 1000 W

Aleksey Lykov: - So a good server, after all, is simple with video cards, where one card is +300 W, this is for three cards + 900W. Power supplies there need to be changed. No, I can't imagine such a “hodgepodge.” Those. or the cloud provider has any servers, cases or processors that are not needed when it is ready to assemble them itself ...

Alexey Khoroshilov: - I didn’t quite understand, do you rent the hardware completely or do you have something?

Alexey Lykov: - Two models. We have our own servers and rented in Amazon. In Moscow - their own.

Alexey Khoroshilov: - As I understand it, some customers rejoice, and the rest ...

Alexey Lykov: - Yes

Alexey Khoroshilov: - And what about the ratio?

Alexey Lykov: - While in Moscow 5-10%

Alexey Khoroshilov: - Is it connected with the lack of equipment?

Alexey Lykov: - Yes. Now in Russia, I am ready to work on any model. Except how to buy yourself. We are such a small company, a startup, behind which is only an office and a few servers. Leasing us so far no one gives. And it’s hard to get out of this vicious circle.

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