Today, the growing platform fragmentation has become one of a game developer's key concern. Engines such as Unity have gained strong popularity as a viable assistance in addressing the issue. However, they only solve part of the equation: regardless of the supported platforms, games often tend to live in silos, either per device or per platform. The reality shows that most of us have multiple devices on which we play the same games - and also that our friends don't necessarily own the same devices as we do. All the same, being able to play with them regardless of the device used, is crucial in making a game more fun through social means.

1. Breaking Through Silos
Going from Multiplatform to Cross-Platform
using the Cloud.
Philip Rangel, Lead Architect

2. It is a complex world
MULTI *.*

3. Multi Platform
Mobile
PC & Browser
TV

4. Multi Controller
• Resolution, CPU, GPU
Touch & Gyro
Keyboard & Mouse
Controller

5. Multi SDK
• C++, C#, AS3, Java, JavaScript, LUA

6. Multi App Store
• Individual Guidelines and APIs (Billing)

7. CLOUD AND ENGINES
FOR THE RESCUE!

8. Evolution of the „Cloud“
You are on your
own!
Iron
Scale fast and
patch (fast)!
Scale fast and
convenient!
Relax!
Infrastructure
Platform
Backend
aaS
aaS
aaS

9. Photon Cloud

10. About Us
WE <3 MULTIPLAYER

11. Photon Cloud
Realtime: Realtime Multiplayer.
Turnbased: Turnbased Multiplayer.
Chat: Turnkey chat.
Unity Networking: Convenient Unity Multiplayer.
11

12. 12

13. Cloud Stats
• Global Regions: US, EU,
Singapore, Japan (soon
Korea, China)
• 90k+ CCUs
• 1.2 Petabyte/month
• 4m+ messages per sec
• Top tier devs: Indies,
22cans, Msft, Glu,
Madfinger, etc.

15. Core
Game Logic
Connect > Matchmaking > Gameplay
---> Advertisement --->
Other stuff ;)
---> Analytics --->
---> Push Notifications --->
---> Social (Leaderboards etc) --->
---> In App Purchase --->

16. DEMO GAME

17. Connect > Matchmaking > Gameplay
• Connect closest Region
US, Europe, Asia (Singapore), Japan
• Authentication with facebook SDK,
Steam SDK, Parse SDK, PHP ...
• Session from
Facebook/Steam/Parse/PHP can be
verified by Photon Cloud

18. Connect > Matchmaking > Gameplay
Sample „facebook“ flow is:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Establish facebook session (facebook SDK)
Inject session token into Photon GameClient
Choose a region (EU, US, JP, Asia, …)
Connect to Photon Cloud
Session token gets verified

19. Connect > Matchmaking > Gameplay
AccessToken from
Facebook SDK:
Inject into
Photon SDK:

20. Connect >
Matchmaking > Gameplay
• List-Lobby for list of games
• Multiple lobbies e.g. to separate games
by type
• Join a random room, with optional
filtering (e.g. Map=de_dust)
• Find friends
• SQL-Lobby for flexible queries

21. Connect >
Matchmaking > Gameplay

22. Connect > Matchmaking >
Gameplay
• Rooms with players
• Events: Join, Leave, ... , Custom
• Properties for players and room
2
1
Room Properties
Map: Snow“
State: „ahd72...“
name: „r2d2“
max: 4
3
Event Cache
... Events ...
4
Player Properties
State: 18
Name: „Peter“

23. Connect > Matchmaking >
Gameplay
Events
• Properties
• Join, Leave, …
• Custom
Raise Events
• Reliable/Unreliable
• Cached Events
• Interest Groups

24. Connect > Matchmaking >
Gameplay
• Game Properties are used to store
– State of the Board
– Player in Turn
– Player Scores

25. Webhooks
• HTTP/JSON callbacks for core events
– Room: create, close, load
– Player: join, leave
– Data: events, properties
• Webhooks give you complete control

26. Setting up Webhooks
• Base URL
• Entry point for
each callback

27. DEMO WEBHOOKS

28. Webhook GameClose
• Called when last player disconnects from
game (important: disconnect != abandon)
• Game state is handed in as byte[] containing
– Player Properties
– Room Properties
– Cached events
• Restored when GameLoad is called

29. GameClose

30. WebRPC
• HTTP/JSON callbacks for functions
– Input: Parameters
– Output: Return values
• Freedom to write a custom API
– GetGameList, GetPlayerSkill, LoadLevel, ...
• Translation from Binary to JSON and back is
done automagically

31. WebRPC - GetGameList
Client:
YOUR Server:

32. Azure Websites + Table + Blob
• Azure Websites perfect for
Webhooks
– WebAPI == RESTful APIs (HTTP + JSON)
– Global
– RAD with Visual Studio: Deploy, Debug
• Azure Table Storage
• Azure Blob Storage

33. Azure Websites (WAWS)
• Managed Service for your Web based
applications
• Develop locally and deploy from VS
• Options:
– Scale: free, shared, standard (w. auto scale)
– Staged deploy
– Backup
– Monitoring w. Alerts
– WebJobs

34. Table vs Blob Storage
• Where do we save?
– Game State: Azure Blob Storage
– Game List: Azure Table Storage
• One Partition per User
• One Row per Game
• Why Azure Storage?
– ‘cheap’ fast data store
– its save (High Available & Geo Redundant)
– … & it scales!

35. Azure Blob & Table Storage
• What is Azure Blob Storage?
– Like Amazon S3
– Rest API: Uploading blobs per HTTP
• What is Azure Table Storage?
– ‘Like’ Google BigTable or AmazonDynamo
– Data in Rows & Columns, but Schemaless
– ‘Better’ Key/Value store
– ONE INDEX only: PartitionKey + RowKey
– Rest API: CRUD using JSON per HTTP

36. Azure Blob Storage
•
•
•
•
•
Install-Package WindowsAzure.Storage (VS)
Create blob client
Get container reference
Get BlockBlob reference
Upload:

37. Azure Table Storage
•
•
•
•
Install-Package WindowsAzure.Storage (VS)
Create table client
Get Table reference
Insert your Entity

38. Memory Game
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
https://www.exitgames.com/en/Turnbased
Register & request Early Access
Download Unity Memory Demo
https://github.com/exitgames
Pull photon.waws.turnbased.webhooks

39. Questions?
philip@exitgames.com