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Fixing the Internet for Games

gafferongames.com

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Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#81

Post by kbenson »

gafferongames wrote: post #74
kbenson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really interesting thing I see for this is a possible other route for game revenue in the future. Instead of paying up front (traditional) pricing or advertising, or cosmetic (or not so cosmetic) in game purchases, you could have two tiers, free and optimized latency for a cost. Or some combination. Cosmetic in-game purchases aren't necessarily bad, but the amount my son has spent and tries to continue to spend (…

Our customer is the game developer not the player. They are free to pass the cost on to the player if they wish, but I think it’s much more enlightened to simply sponsor your player’s connection and help them have as much fun as possible. When players are having fun, they like your game more, stick around, tell their friends, and spend more in your store.

> Our customer is the game developer not the player. They are free to pass the cost on to the player if they wish

That's exactly what I was referring to. In this situation, you would be sort of like a transaction processor.

> I think it’s much more enlightened to simply sponsor your player’s connection and help them have as much fun as possible.

I'm not sure I would use "enlightened" to describe anything to do with the majority of games that use microtransactions, at least when it's a constant barrage of "special deals that last for a limited time and you'll only ever be able to get this digital item right now and if you miss out it will never be back."

When aimed at a very young audience, this is anything but enlightened. I don't mind my kids paying for the content they use. I do mind them investing in digital content locked to a single platform that they both don't own, and which becomes useless when they stop playing. At least if they collected cards for a collectible card game in real life, they could look at a collection, pass it on, or sell it.

Basically, I'm advocating for revenue streams that don't require hiring specialists in promoting addictive behavior linked to spending for games where a large part of the audience includes adolescents.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#82

Post by gafferongames »

ucaetano wrote: post #78
gafferongames wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are measuring improvement to google’s own data centers.

No, you're measuring improvement to the POP where you peer with Google. Unless you're telling me that Google is giving you access to its private networks all the way to the datacenters, which I'd find hard to believe. Between you and a Google Datacenter, most of the path is through Google's private networks.

We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. You seem to be overestimating how perfectly anycast finds the best PoP to get on the private network. You also assume that google’s private network is optimal from every point on the USA to their own data centers. This is not true. What’s better that google’s network? Everybody else’s, and google’s network, evaluated once every 10 seconds.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#83

Post by ucaetano »

gafferongames wrote: post #82
ucaetano wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're measuring improvement to the POP where you peer with Google. Unless you're telling me that Google is giving you access to its private networks all the way to the datacenters, which I'd find hard to believe. Between you and a Google Datacenter, most of the path is through Google's private networks.

We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. You seem to be overestimating how perfectly anycast finds the best PoP to get on the private network. You also assume that google’s private network is optimal from every point on the USA to their own data centers. This is not true. What’s better that google’s network? Everybody else’s, and google’s network, evaluated on…

> We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now.

Again, you only have visibility to the POPs, so you're only seeing improvements on the path to the POP.

For example: there is no Google POP anywhere near its Oregon datacenter[1]. You literally can't just push your traffic to the Dalles and plug into the datacenter.

So, no matter where your customer is, you can only improve the traffic to the Seattle or the Bay Area POPs, where the traffic will move over to Google's private network.

Sorry, but I have to call BS on your claims...

[1] https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#84

Post by gafferongames »

gafferongames wrote: post #82
ucaetano wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're measuring improvement to the POP where you peer with Google. Unless you're telling me that Google is giving you access to its private networks all the way to the datacenters, which I'd find hard to believe. Between you and a Google Datacenter, most of the path is through Google's private networks.

We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. You seem to be overestimating how perfectly anycast finds the best PoP to get on the private network. You also assume that google’s private network is optimal from every point on the USA to their own data centers. This is not true. What’s better that google’s network? Everybody else’s, and google’s network, evaluated on…

Ucetano: I’ve already explained why you’re wrong, but you don’t understand it. I’m not here to argue with you.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#85

Post by gafferongames »

kbenson wrote: post #81
gafferongames wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our customer is the game developer not the player. They are free to pass the cost on to the player if they wish, but I think it’s much more enlightened to simply sponsor your player’s connection and help them have as much fun as possible. When players are having fun, they like your game more, stick around, tell their friends, and spend more in your store.

> Our customer is the game developer not the player. They are free to pass the cost on to the player if they wish That's exactly what I was referring to. In this situation, you would be sort of like a transaction processor. > I think it’s much more enlightened to simply sponsor your player’s connection and help them have as much fun as possible. I'm not sure I would use "enlightened" to describe anything to do with t…

Speaking as the CEO, I would think twice about working with any customer who intends to pass the cost on to the player.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#86

Post by ucaetano »

gafferongames wrote: post #84
gafferongames wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. You seem to be overestimating how perfectly anycast finds the best PoP to get on the private network. You also assume that google’s private network is optimal from every point on the USA to their own data centers. This is not true. What’s better that google’s network? Everybody else’s, and google’s network, evaluated on…

Ucetano: I’ve already explained why you’re wrong, but you don’t understand it. I’m not here to argue with you.

You didn't, you just hand-waved and threw some claims around without any data to back it up, and you didn't address the key issue: you don't have access to datacenters, only to POPs.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#87

Post by [deleted] »

ucaetano wrote: post #86
gafferongames wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ucetano: I’ve already explained why you’re wrong, but you don’t understand it. I’m not here to argue with you.

You didn't, you just hand-waved and threw some claims around without any data to back it up, and you didn't address the key issue: you don't have access to datacenters, only to POPs.

[deleted]

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#88

Post by Matheus28 »

milesward wrote: post #29
stcredzero wrote: post #12

The Internet is optimized for throughput at lowest cost. No amount of good netcode that you write can compensate for this. The problem is the internet itself. The internet doesn’t care about your game. The Internet did change, such that streaming movies became viable. Given that games are now bigger than movies, could it be argued that that the network lag we're seeing is the industry lagging behind the culture? (Whi…

Wanna build your game on the same network Stadia uses? Https://cloud.google.com

And pay an obscenely high amount of money for bandwidth? Those providers all charge at least $0.05/GB; you can get bandwidth for a tenth of that elsewhere. Games use a lot of bandwidth at scale (agar.io would use a couple of PB a month). For F2P games, server costs eat a lot of revenue if you use those premium providers.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#89

Post by supermatt »

ucaetano wrote: post #83
gafferongames wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. You seem to be overestimating how perfectly anycast finds the best PoP to get on the private network. You also assume that google’s private network is optimal from every point on the USA to their own data centers. This is not true. What’s better that google’s network? Everybody else’s, and google’s network, evaluated on…

> We are measuring significant latency reductions for real players to google data centers right now. Again, you only have visibility to the POPs, so you're only seeing improvements on the path to the POP. For example: there is no Google POP anywhere near its Oregon datacenter[1]. You literally can't just push your traffic to the Dalles and plug into the datacenter. So, no matter where your customer is, you can only i…

As I understood it, they are measuring the latency to game servers located in googles datacenter. This is why they are talking about that. They cant measure game latency to a PoP, because the game server isn't at the PoP.

Instead of routing to the nearest PoP, they route to the PoP that provides the lowest latency to their game server. I don't understand the confusion. They are simply measuring latency over a number of different routes and choosing the optimal one (for their use case).

Maybe you are assuming that there is no latency between the PoPs and the datacentres? I can assure you thats not the case.

Re: Fixing the Internet for Games

#90

Post by kbenson »

gafferongames wrote: post #85
kbenson wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our customer is the game developer not the player. They are free to pass the cost on to the player if they wish That's exactly what I was referring to. In this situation, you would be sort of like a transaction processor. > I think it’s much more enlightened to simply sponsor your player’s connection and help them have as much fun as possible. I'm not sure I would use "enlightened" to describe anything to do with t…

Speaking as the CEO, I would think twice about working with any customer who intends to pass the cost on to the player.

Why? If it's up front, and it allows two classes of players and clearly defines them (and allows people to sort by them for games), what'st the problems that would make you think twice?

I can see some problems with the model, where it might not allow for a more evenly distributed set of revenue from players and certain players would get the benefit without the cost by having a very good and well connected and routed ISP that happens to line up with most servers, but what's the problem? If the accounts were designated "competitive" tier, that seems to clearly signal what the user gets. Additionally, at least it's then more information the service can expose about a player advantage, rather than the user paying for it outside the service and having a similar advantage but without the same signalling.

If it's about pay to win, I understand the sentiment, but I think there's a clear difference between pay nothing (or a token amount) and pay something for a "regular" account without a bunch of microtransactions and extra tiers, and what we see with games where you literally can buy your character into an elite level of capability that changes the game at a fundamental level (either from hard to easier or from nearly impossible to possible). I think making it so your players can easily separate based on these levels is good as well (which is another point towards very few differentiating levels). As long as the price is low enough that anyone could easily afford it for a while, it's not a real problem. Close to unbounded capability to pay for advantage is though.

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