Development of game servers

The demand for multiplayer games is growing rapidly, these include shooters, MOBAs, RPGs and other popular genres. Such projects are characterized by the interaction of gamers in real time, which means they need powerful servers that can provide the game with the necessary computing resources.

In this article, we will talk about the types of game servers and the main stages of their development necessary to ensure a stable gaming experience.

To ensure the stable operation of a multiplayer game, the server must solve a number of basic tasks:

• Scaling depending on the traffic used. Gamers should have a positive gaming experience even during hours of high server load. This issue can be solved by using elastic computing solutions, which make it possible to increase the power when the players are more active, and reduce it if the traffic has decreased. In addition, this allows publishers to reduce costs, as they only pay for the resources that are actually used.

• Low latency. The period of time during which a data packet is sent from the user’s device through the network to the server and returns back is called ping. Accordingly, the lower it is, the more sensitively the interface reacts to the actions of the gamer. For some genres of games, even an extra fraction of a second can determine victory or defeat, so this question cannot be ignored. To minimize latency, you need to place game servers where the players are directly located.
• Fault tolerance. When designing and hosting servers, it is necessary to provide for the likely failure of equipment so that this does not affect the gaming experience of users. To do this, there are special technical solutions that allow you to automatically replace hosts in which a failure has been detected and deploy in availability zones.

There are two most common approaches to deploying multiplayer game servers. Let’s consider how they differ, and which format will be preferable for new projects.

The first type is local game servers

Local servers hosted by players on their own devices is a fairly common approach to implementing multiplayer games. For example, it is he who is used in the popular Minecraft project. Its essence is that a person can organize a game session on his own computer, to which other users can join over the network. That is, the server in this case is the device of the gamer himself.

Technically, it looks like the developer is allowing the game to run a physical server on another device, and broadcast information to the players about available co-op play. This provides some benefits:

• Players get a high level of control over the server, and can implement various game mods, depending on what the developer allows.
• No running costs. Since the player hosts the server on his local computer, the developer does not bear the costs associated with its launch and maintenance.
• Simple scaling. Developers do not need to worry about how many game servers they need and in what regions they should be placed to meet the needs of users.

The second type is cloud game servers

This type of servers is the most in demand and is used in projects that organize competitive events. For example, the creators of Call of Duty, Fornite and League of Legends preferred it. Their main feature is that they are hosted on remote cloud servers that are available every day 24 hours a day and provide stable access to the gameplay.

When using cloud servers, developers get maximum control over the gameplay and can track exactly how gamers interact with each other. It also means that the creators of the project can release updates that affect all users, which allows them to easily manage in-game dynamics and control the integrity of the gameplay.

At the same time, developers have additional operating costs, and they are fully responsible for the occurrence of problems and failures in the network. However, this approach is the most preferred and in demand among the players.

However, this approach is associated with certain problems. For example, developers cannot control the in-game actions of players, which causes the problem of using third-party programs and cheat codes. This can be a problem when organizing competitive events. In addition, if the host computer is turned off, the game process will be interrupted for all users who participated in it, which can lead to a negative experience.

The launch of cloud servers for multiplayer games can be divided into several main stages:

• The choice of managed hosting that meets the requirements for hosting game servers. It is important that developers have a high level of control and access to virtual machines, which will allow fine-tuning of parameters to ensure a quality gaming experience.
• Designing the selection of players. This is an important element of multiplayer games, and allows you to form in-game teams based on the level of gamers, their skills and other parameters. To implement it, you need to select a fully managed and customizable service that can be integrated on the selected server.

• Choosing a solution with internal services. A REST API is often used to manage player identities and data, match requests, and other important functions when connecting to an internal service. To minimize the volume of work operations, you can, for example, implement the backend using serverless technologies or use a container approach.
• Creation of load testing and monitoring capabilities that will provide maximum transparency of the processes that occur on the game server. To do this, you need, among other things, to collect various metrics and collect logs. This data will be useful for identifying problems on the server and finding points where performance can be improved.

The server provides gamers with uninterrupted access to game content, so its deployment should be given no less attention than the production of the game itself. The AVADA MEDIA team has practical experience in creating and configuring servers for games of various sizes. We will ensure the stable operation of your project.