The Future of Connected Games:
Unity and Google Cloud
Micah Baker
Product Manager
Google Cloud
Brandi House
Product Manager
Unity
Connected
games
of the top played Steam games
are connected games
Most Played
of the top watched Twitch games
are connected games
Most Watched
of the top grossing Google Play apps
are connected games
Most Rev Gen
Connected Games are the Most Successful
87% 90% 90%
“Connectedness” ⬆
= Engagement (Content, Gameplay) ⬆
= Success (Retention, Monetization) ⬆
Connected Games are the Most Successful
Connected Games “Levels”
Incentives/Rewards
Competition/Cooperation
People Interaction
Game State Mgmt
L1
L2
Real-time MP Tech
L3
L4
Community vs Toxicity
Persistent World Tech
“Dynamic Single Player”
“Turn-based Multiplayer”
“Real-Time Multiplayer”
“Persistent Game Spaces”
Retention:
Players peek through the door, but they
rarely step inside.
L1: Dynamic Single Player
Keep your eye on the prize...
Incentives
Can’t stop. There’s another
cat just above me.
Competition
Cooperation With our powers combined...
See L1 +
People Interactions
Async Multiplayer Tech
Cheat Detection / Prevention
L2: Turn-based Multiplayer
Humans are messy….
People Interactions
and sometimes need help communicating.
Async Multiplayer Tech
Cheat Detection / Prevention
Detect:
Prevent:
What are you doing...
See L1+L2 ++
Real-Time Multiplayer Tech
Toxicity vs Community
L3: Real-Time
Multiplayer
The-Cat-House - DeviantArt
Real-time Multiplayer Tech
The Co-operatives
Real-timeMultiplayerTech
Community vs Toxicity
Some say it’s like herding cats...
Chat/emotes
Clans/Guilds
Forums / offline chat
Player Management
See L1+L2+L3 ++
Persistent World Tech
L4: Persistent World
©2013-2018 metalparts
Meta Servers
Patch Server
Database / Sync
More...
Persistent World Tech
https://www.mmorpg.com/
Summary of Challenges
Incentives/Rewards - novelty, balance, individualization, schedule
Competition/Cooperation - ID, shared stats, cheating, notification
People Interaction - Friends: invites, chat; Strangers: filtering/emotes, skill matching
Game State Mgmt - latency tolerance, frequency, reliability, client authority / cheating
L1
L2
Real-time MP Tech - speed/QoS, core networking, cheating, cost
L3
L4
Community vs Toxicity - forums, clans (self mgmt), player management
Persistent World Tech - meta servers, patch servers, sharding, data synchronization, more...
The Path Forward
Quality Accessibility
Scalable
Flexible
Fast/performant
Reliable
Cost-down
Usability
Micah Baker
Product Manager
Google Cloud
Power Up Your Connected Games
Google Cloud
Open Build your game your way
Secure Protect your game and data
Innovative New solutions for new problems
Scalable Performant, reliable and cost effective scale
Google Cloud
Connected games need cloud infrastructure
L4
Connectedness
Infrastructure
L3
L2
L1
Cloud Infrastructure & Extended Services
Development Environment & Managed Services
Google Cloud
● Global game databases
● Innovative AI/ML models
● Connected game services
Innovate
● Launch coordination
● Capacity planning
● Fast game server scaling
● Operations monitoring
Launch
● Dynamic game content
● Improved matchmaking
● Game analytics
Engage
Google Cloud + Unity power connected games
How should I design my game?
Rethink global.
Google Cloud
I want to use more...
Machine Learning.
Google Cloud
Machine learning is...
● One branch of the field of Artificial Intelligence
● A way of solving problems without explicitly codifying the solution
● A way of building systems that improve themselves over time
Games built Google ML
Google “applied learning” projects
Applying ML to gaming
Testing and QA bots
In game chat translations
Player assistance
Fraud & cheat detection
Finding a good match Tracking player toxicity
Google is...
Democratizing ML.
https://ai.google/education
Google Cloud
Challenge accepted...
Launch&Scale
Get Help
Build
Innovate
L1: Dynamic Single Player
L2: Turn-based Multiplayer
L3: Real-time Multiplayer Session-Based
L4: Persistent World Real-Time
On the horizon...
42
Brandi House
Product Manager
Unity
43
Dedicated Game Servers
● Hosting and Scaling
● Runtime
● Deploying and Sharing
● Monitor and Debug
24x7x365 Support
Personal Account Management
Hundreds of games launched
Host and Scale with Multiplay and GCP
Dedicated Game Servers
Premium Support
Rapid scaling for your game, driven
by player demand
Zero Downtime patching
Health and Uptime management
Powerful Tech
Hybrid blend of Cloud and Bare
Metal
Global scale for your launch
Cost optimized solutions
Flexible Infrastructure
Optimizing Unity Headless Linux Runtime
Dedicated Game Servers
Time for a diet...
Deploy and Share Tools with Cloud Build
Dedicated Game Server
Monitor and Debug in Dev Dashboard
Dedicated Game Servers
48
Networking
● ECS-compatible
Transport Layer
● FPS “Archetype”
49
Matchmaking
● OSS Project with GCP
● Unity Managed Service
Flexible foundations
Matchmaking
Beyond the horizon...
51
● Player Auth/ID
● Friends/Invites/Parties
● Game state management
● Player economy / rewards
● … tell us what you need!
Unity and Google Alliance
52
Unity:
○ Accessible Game Dev
Tools and Workflows
○ Multiplay orchestration
Google:
○ Massive scale cloud
services and infrastructure
○ Flexible and Open
Questions?
53

The Future of Connected Games: Unity and Google Cloud