The document discusses best practices and lessons learned for game developers utilizing cloud technology, emphasizing the importance of transmedia storytelling and automation. It highlights key considerations such as the benefits of scalability, the need for application automation, and the challenges posed by legacy thinking. The author invites feedback on the presentation and mentions job opportunities.

1. LESSONS LEARNED

2. LESSONS LEARNED
and best practices for game developers
in the cloud.
@sarahnovotny

3. INTRODUCTION TO
we do video game transmedia

4. TRANSMEDIA
transmedia is the
technique of telling a
single story or story
experience across
multiple platforms and
formats using current
digital technologies.

6. WHY THE CLOUDS?
or more specifically, why ?

8. flickr @nishanthjois

9. BUSINESS CONSTRAINTS->
ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRAINTS
(no really, they’re helpful)

10. FREE TO PLAY
anyone can play
not everyone will pay
can’t be viewed as P2W

11. GAME SERVER
ephemeral
automated
instrumented
cheap

12. BUZZWORD COMPLIANT
cloud
on demand resources
API driven
$0 capital investment

13. WHAT HAVE WE
LEARNED?
robots and automation FTW!

14. Availability Zone #1
www.playhawken.com
Security Group
Root VolumeData Volume
Elastic Load Balancer
Webserver Instances
Web App
Server
Security Group
Proxy Instances
Dynamo Backend
Elastic IP
3rd Party
Services

15. Availability Zone #1
HAWKEN game play
Game Server
Instances
Dynamo Backend
Availability Zone #2
S3 Bucket
Game Client Distribution
Game Service
Instances

16. THINK IN TERMS OF FLEETS
one server is useful. a fleet of them is a product.

17. SCALING UP IS EASY

18. SCALING DOWN IS HARD

19. BUILD AWARENESS
application
automation

20. LOCATION

21. APIS OFFER ERROR CODES
200 OK
201 Created
202 Accepted
204 No Content
304 Not Modified
400 Bad Request
403 Forbidden
CHECK
THEM

22. PLAN FOR THE

23. ASYNCHRONICITY
don’t assume the data you’ve just sent is where you’ll retrieve it

24. CULTURE
legacy thinking
education
education
education
engineering leadership
patience
BIZ
DEV
CLOUDDEV
here be
dragons

25. COMPLEXITY KILLS
not too hot
not too cold
just right

26. I’M @sarahnovotny
& YES, I’M HIRING

27. We are sincerely eager to
hear your feedback on this
presentation and on re:Invent.
Please fill out an evaluation
form when you have a
chance.