GOOGLE CLOUD LAUNCHES A CLOUD BACKEND MANAGEABLE GAME SERVERS
The Android giant’s unit Google Cloud launches servers strictly for games, and this comes as Google Cloud made the publication some days ago. However, the managed service is meant to provide game developers with backend services they are used to in running their games coupled with multi-player games via the company’s cloud.
The beauty of it is that these are not game streaming servers but a structured backend service strictly developed to make things easier for developers in this space to build, scale and effectively manage the backend services of their developed games.
Funny enough, the service isn’t solely Google’s but emerged from a project Google and Ubisoft did announce in 2018, and the Kubernetes container orchestration platform which meant the service will sit on top of the Agones open-source game server. Based on the fact that it’s a Google Cloud product, it’s equally understood the team is also reusing a part of Anthos, which is a Google service for managing multi-cloud Kubernetes clusters.
On the other hand, there is a plan to allow for hybrid and multi-cloud support later this year, knowing that Game servers at the moment can only run on Google Kubernetes Engine.
It’s also been figured out as observed by Van Woudenberg, that virtually all game currently needs some certain backend cloud, such as multi-player features, match-making or keeping persistent game stats. This is considered a fact for major game studios and indie developers. With Google Cloud launching its recent server, it’s a known fact that quite a few gaming companies have already floated their own on-premises server fleets, comparing this with that of enterprise – owning hybrid-cloud is practically a must-have for such services.
More so, Google has promised it will make things easy for developers who already use Agones outside of Game Servers to input those servers into the same managed Game Servers ecosystem with the aid of Game Servers API registration. And in order to get started, it is expected of developers to still containerize their game servers. However, it will be very easy for developers already using Agones as a straightforward approach. While others will find it difficult, but not to worry because Google is already working with partners that will walk them through the process.
Google Cloud launch will also include integrations with the Open Match marketing framework as part of future updates like Game Servers.
- What is your take as Google Cloud launches game servers?
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