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Tag: gaming

  • Game Developers Shouldn’t Overlook Python’s Potential 

    Game Developers Shouldn’t Overlook Python’s Potential 

    Python is an object-oriented, general-purpose and high-level programming language developed in 1991 by Guido van Rossum. Since its development, Python has become one of the most popular programming languages in the world. It often ranks high in popularity surveys—for instance, it claimed the top spot in the Popularity of Programming Language index and came in second in the TIOBE index.

    Python earned its acclaim as a widely used tool because of its suitability for multiple purposes and for various projects—from data analytics and visualization to artificial intelligence, language development, design and web development.

    That said, Python isn’t exactly renowned for its use in video game development. But should this mean game developers should just disregard Python completely? Not at all.

    Familiarity Breeds Productivity

    Thanks to the language’s simplicity and coding speed, Python is an excellent choice for prototyping. The work product is visible immediately and it’s possible to quickly deliver a playable project to potential investors.

    Therefore, Python is also an ideal language to begin a developer’s adventure with creating games, regardless of whether the user is already fluent in it or just starting out.

    Due to the newcomer-friendly syntax of Python, developers can focus on the basics of game programming, not the complexity of the language itself.

    The effects, which are quickly visible, allow beginners to get actively involved in the process of creating a project. Advanced developers, on the other hand, will appreciate the fact that they can create something playable using their familiar, everyday work tool and that the process of coding will be, as always, very enjoyable and satisfying.

    Preexisting Python Tools and Libraries

    Python programmers can also take advantage of tools that were written specifically for them.

    The most popular library that supports Python game development is PyGame. This engine, available under the LGPL, allows users to build fully commercial projects. Additionally, the library is designed in a way that lets users easily use multiple processor cores. The main functions were written in C and Assembler, thanks to which the user’s project will be 10 to 20 times faster than if it were written in Python alone. This tool is incredibly easy to learn. Its creators also have prepared extensive documentation to help guide users through the process. 

    There are also available tools for 3D rendering, such as Ursina or Panda3D. Of course, these aren’t the only technologies designed for Python users. In fact, there’s a really large selection of available tools and engines such as PyOgre, PyKyra and Ren’Py that are worth checking out.

    Lastly, the Kiva library should also be mentioned. It may not have been created with gaming in mind, but it’s perfectly suited for it. Kiva is a multi-platform tool for creating window applications quickly.

    Python for Game Development 

    If you Google, “Which language should I use for game development?” the first results you see will likely be recommendations to avoid Python. However, that shouldn’t be a deterrent; it can be done! 

    Python has received criticism in the past regarding its use in game development, mostly centering around the fact that Python is not designed for computational performance but, rather, coding performance. This is justified. 

    But if a user, programmer or game developer is already familiar with the programming tools and takes advantage of the preexisting tools and libraries at their disposal, then Python for game development has clear promise, both now and also in the future. 

    If you want proof that a game written in Python can be an international success, I recommend EVE Online—a title that attracts over 20,000 players each day!

  • How Observability Can Improve Gaming

    How Observability Can Improve Gaming

    Competing in the gaming industry is becoming increasingly costly. To attract new players, millions of dollars are spent in user acquisition (UA), development and cloud infrastructure. As the space becomes more expensive, revenue and cost optimizations can become a matter of survival. 

    The cost to businesses because of server outages, game response lag or generally poor performance can equate to billions of market cap of gaming companies. The value of observability in modern games is about ensuring that revenue opportunity is not missed in a costly operating landscape. Observability assures that all investment spent on user acquisition is protected and that gaming user experience (UX) is maximized. And user experience depends not only on how the game’s UI is performing but also on the entire gaming environment performance and reliability.

    A modern gaming environment is usually highly distributed—a lot of pieces have to come together. The engineering team develops code for the gaming application, which can consist of many microservices, containers, managed cloud services, third-party APIs and serverless functions. Game designers create game levels, the art team produces visual effects and animations and the audio department creates game audio. Once these moving parts are packaged together, the game service has to be deployed on cloud infrastructure and the game itself shipped as executables for consoles, mobile devices and laptops.

    gaming observability

    All these elements generate massive amounts of observability data, particularly if a game is popular and played by millions of users. Thus, making sure that all gaming elements are working as expected means that gaming companies have to implement efficient ways of collecting and analyzing the massive amounts of that data. That data comes from gaming services, consoles and other sources in real-time. For instance, it is not uncommon to deal with hundreds of terabytes of ingested log data per day. As a result, improving the gaming experience can be quite challenging for gaming companies with large-scale operations. The companies’ success depends on how efficiently they can harness all the data generated by gaming environments.

    This is where observability comes in. Observability provides critical insights into what is—or what may be—wrong with the game, all its moving parts and user experience. Powerful observability capabilities are essential, including processing vast amounts of data (logs, metrics, traces, etc.) in real-time, managing fluctuating observability data from variable user loads and running concurrent real-time queries on a massive scale.

    So, what, exactly, needs to be measured for a great gaming user experience?

    Measuring the Gaming User Experience

    Gaming companies are under continuous financial pressure to deliver new features that attract and retain new users in order to offset mounting operating expenses. Attracting new users is a balancing act from the gaming companies’ perspective. If they move too slowly, they will lose gamers. If they move too quickly, the gaming user experience can deteriorate due to newly introduced bugs. Gamers can be very vocal on social networks, especially if their intent is to express their dissatisfaction with compromised gaming quality. As a result, companies are forced to balance the rate of feature introduction with user satisfaction. That’s why they need to measure user experience continuously.

    To improve gaming user experience, gaming organizations must establish measurable key performance indicators (KPIs), which can drive improvements and overall quality. KPIs include, but are not limited to: 

    • User video quality (frames per second)
    • Memory usage
    • Crash reports count
    • Database performance measurements
    • Service latencies 
    • User request count
    • Game-specific errors and warnings count
    • Code quality measurements, such as automated test coverage success criteria (a part of the CI/CD pipeline)

    Monitoring Service Latency for a High-Quality Gaming Experience

    Gaming applications are often bursty when it comes to user load, especially during the introduction of new games or new features. One of the critical indicators to monitor is service latency to manage fluctuating user demand during those times. 

    DevOps teams and SREs need to collect logs at a massive scale to analyze the performance of services, infrastructure and individual host utilization metrics such as high CPU utilization. This information gives engineers clues about the sources of bottlenecks and potential deterioration related to service latency. And logging tools need to be able to deal with this fluctuating demand, too. This level of insight into the state of the gaming application helps engineers troubleshoot issues before gamers face increased service latency that can impact their gaming experience.

    Analyzing Game-Specific Observability Data

    Game developers can create custom logs and metrics and combine those with observability data from the gaming engines. Both must be analyzed to assure a high-quality user experience. Some of the common gaming data parameters available for analysis are:

    • Log data that indicates when a player joins and leaves the game (associated with the player’s name)
    • The location of a player reported at specified times
    • Logs related to significant gaming events associated with each player (such as goals achieved or actions performed)
    • Logs related to chat messages between players, player location, the time when the message was generated and message context

    The more data collected, the better the chances to understand any issues that can turn players away from the game. Observability data management should evolve in parallel with game development. As new features are added, the code should be instrumented with KPIs to ensure the quality of the newly introduced code in the long run.

    Database Performance Monitoring is Critical for Gaming User Experience

    To store time-sensitive gaming data, DevOps teams must use fast databases. The database performance and how fast the game’s properties are retrieved from a database directly impact user satisfaction. Slow database performance negatively affects the gaming user experience. For DevOps teams to avoid any service issues, it is a must to measure key database performance indicators such as response times metrics, out-of-memory error logs and others.

    Fast databases could be expensive in the extremely competitive market where gaming companies are always looking for cost optimization to survive in the business. It’s non-trivial for DevOps teams to monitor user experience related to database performance and, at the same time, to look for ways to optimize the cost of fast databases.

    Build a Pipeline and Delivery Monitoring

    For a large-scale video game, new code is often pushed many times per day. Builds can be significant and deployed across many gaming consoles and end devices. Continuous build pipeline and delivery monitoring are crucial for frequent and commonly large software deployments.

    With large builds deployed daily over the network to thousands of gaming platforms—where each platform receives a massive amount of data—monitoring of build deployments should be automated. Errors from log data should trigger alerts and drive redeployments. QA automation is necessary to reduce the burden of QA efforts and make build deliveries less error-prone and less tedious. 

    Better Observability Improves In-Game Commerce

    Insights into user behavior are as important as monitoring possible issues affecting user experience. Observability tools can provide key insights into the overall engagement of all game users. High engagement then drives more excitement. Higher user excitement may increase the success of ad campaigns and accelerate in-game purchases.

    Observability Tools for Managing Gaming Experience

    When thinking about observability tools that can be instrumental in driving continuous improvement of user experience in the gaming industry, the following functionalities are important:

    • Ability to ingest and analyze log data at petabyte-scale and beyond in real-time to avoid gaming experience deterioration.
    • Zero-schema and ability to accept observability data in various formats from various gaming platforms, cloud servers, gaming consoles, and mobile devices. Because gaming environments use different third-party software packages, logs may come in many formats.
    • Ability to create alerts on collected observability data. Alerting can improve user experience by monitoring properties such as the number of active users experiencing client errors. 
    • Capability to handle backpressure when critical issues occur is essential. An alert storm can clog the data pipes, and the observability tool can be in the dark for hours unless it is designed to cope with backpressure.
    • Ability to collect data from build pipelines to monitor frequent and commonly large software builds being deployed daily over the network to numerous gaming platforms.
    • Capability to collect data from cloud environments such as cloud infrastructure monitoring. 

    Observability is key to protecting gaming revenue opportunities and assuring the success of video games, as long as you know what to look for in observability tools that are used to gather data from gaming environments.

  • What It Will Take To Bring Cloud Gaming to Fruition?

    What It Will Take To Bring Cloud Gaming to Fruition?

    The gaming industry is booming. There are 211 million people gaming in the U.S., and it’s one of the fastest-growing forms of entertainment on the planet. In the age of Twitch streaming, gaming has even upstaged traditional sports viewership. On average, young gamers between the ages of 18 and 25 spend a full hour more watching online gaming than watching traditional sports.

    Gaming has also become a way of connecting with others—65% of players say they play with others online or in person. Some software development teams even encourage gaming in the workplace to increase productivity. For this reason, there has been a massive shift toward online cooperative games, RPGs and sandboxes like Minecraft. Also, games are becoming more cloud-based, with purchases, downloads and game saves occurring in the cloud. Still, many people lack the hardware necessary to run complex games locally. All these factors are harbingers of a coming shift away from PC and console-based processing.

    I recently met with Noam Salinger, product manager, Granulate, to learn about the future of gaming and how software teams in the gaming industry can prepare. To Salinger, “cloud gaming is the next step.” The move away from consoles and toward cloud-based, remote processing will have huge ripple effects. Lowering the barrier to gaming could introduce millions of more players into the ecosystem and further balloon the industry. However, cloud gaming presents significant hurdles. The transition will require a substantial reduction in latency, 5G networking and highly efficient computing optimizations.

    Roadblocks to Cloud Gaming

    “Cloud is an integral part of any gaming company,” says Salinger. More and more functionality associated with gaming is being pushed online. There are already online game marketplaces, cloud-based account management and remote game saves. This is especially prevalent with mobile gaming. But, what about the actual processing for computationally-intensive games—could these workloads also move to the cloud soon?

    This kind of cloud-based gaming could soon come to fruition. Yet, Salinger foresees some major roadblocks to cloud gaming:

    1. The Software Components

    A complete jump to cloud gaming will require having the proper software infrastructure in place and getting vendors on board to support it. This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to cloud gaming in the software industry, said Salinger, “It’s still not mature enough.”

    2. The Business Components

    Furthermore, gaming platform companies might refrain from cloud gaming due to fears of it cannibalizing their existing hardware sales channels. On the other hand, cloud gaming presents a big opportunity to take on more of a subscription-based model, such as allowing a user to play any game they want from an extensive suite of games. Akin to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu or Peacock, we could see similar platform styles emerging in gaming. “They will have no choice but to participate at some point,” said Salinger.

    3. The Network Components

    As most gamers can attest, online games can easily suffer from network issues that negatively affect gameplay. Salinger predicts that the ubiquity of 5G networks will be necessary to propel the cloud gaming market forward. 5G could be a universal method to enable real-time connections for a broader base of end-user gamers.

    Even if software developers optimize game processing speeds, a poor network could add enough latency to data throughput to cancel out those gains. 5G could expedite this process, but it’s taking a lot longer than expected. Some estimates place 5G finally arriving at full throttle sometime in 2023, after more antennas are constructed and pre-existing physical infrastructure is upgraded.

    4. The Latency Components

    Another significant roadblock to cloud gaming is figuring out real-time remote computing on the game vendor side. “This is where the latency aspect of things really comes into play,” said Salinger. Since game clients will be making many remote calls, optimizing cloud CPU utilization will be vital to reducing the response time to requests.

    Cloud gaming will require parallel running processes that anticipate user action. Similar to the way modern web applications simultaneously trigger multiple backend requests for authentication, geolocation, user databases and so on, real-time cloud games will require many different processes running in parallel. Servers could allocate resources before requests come in, using predictive analysis of usage patterns to trigger components in advance of user behaviors.

    To enable intelligent resource allocation, Salinger describes how an OS-agnostic kernel module could be in charge of resource allocation, continuously adapting to changes in the application workload. Low-level resource allocation at the CPU level, the allocation memory, I/O, and the sequence of execution must be optimal for each specific application, he described.

    This sort of process is already being applied in production by some ad tech companies to enable real-time ad bidding. For example, by optimizing cloud CPU utilization, Perion is able to perform faster, process more responses and use fewer machines to perform the same task—thereby reducing the roundtrip time for each request. Similar principles could be used to advance cloud gaming.

    Rendering sophisticated virtual environments is highly resource-intensive, and high-performance graphics cards are expensive. Video games are set to only increase in complexity with new AR/VR modes. Cloud gaming could help respond to rising computational needs and replace the need for local computing hardware. In the process, this move could bring in more gamers, disrupt the console wars, and nullify age-old PC-versus-Mac compatibility issues.

    Moving to a cloud-based approach is also arguably more aligned with today’s fast-paced software release cadences. Pushing more frequent patches can help resolve bugs faster. But it also could aid in retaining engagement by introducing new levels and objectives continually.

    The rise of the gaming ecosystem can’t be ignored. But as it stands now, there are still significant challenges to wider penetration of cloud gaming. Cloud computing optimizations to reduce latency, mainstream adoption of 5G and significant re-platforming of software infrastructure are just some of the many issues that will need to be tackled before truly cloud-based gaming experiences advance to the next level.

  • The Gamification of Everything

    The Gamification of Everything

    Cross-pollination, for the non-scientific, is one of the key foundations of biodiversity on Earth. It is evolution in action—responsible for reinforcing the traits that make plants stronger and ensuring the survival of many species.

    On a far smaller scale—but equally crucial, from a business point of view—technology applications that move across industry delineation generally gets stronger. The traits that make great tech awesome in one domain combined with the unique use cases and experience of another domain result in more powerful and more flexible technology. And it’s not just a one-way street. Tech often moves back and forth across industry segments, and each time it crosses the line, its DNA improves. That means that, ultimately, the original domain tends to be strengthened by cross-pollination, too.

    This is exactly what’s happened with gaming development technology in recent years. And I’m not just talking about best practices. I’m talking about actual purpose-built gaming development technology that’s spread across and penetrated into industries like automotive, e-commerce, entertainment, architecture, real estate and more.

    This cross-pollination has left top-tier gaming tech players like Epic’s Unreal and Unity in a vastly superior position. In fact, it seems that cross-pollination is becoming an integral part of the growth strategy for these and other gaming tech companies. They’re not only betting their tools will shape the next generation of user experience in multiple industries–they’re also making strategic acquisitions that will make this happen.

    What Does Cross-Pollination Look Like?

    Cross-pollination of gaming tech takes a number of forms–some quite overt, others more subtle. For example:

    • The gamification of mobility–Gaming tech is bringing a new level of interactivity and visualization to the automotive industry. For visualizing self-driving, safety testing, visualizing automotive components, creating online showroom visualizations of vehicle interiors and more–gaming tech is deeply integrated into automotive development, manufacturing and retail.
    • The gamification of entertainment–Game development tools are revolutionizing the way entertainment companies develop content. From scene development based on a gaming methodology and gaming engines, to an entire popular series shot in one location using Unreal–gaming tech has radically changed the scene and series development pipeline.
    • The gamification of business software–The gamification of business software is streamlining processes, training and workflows. From companies like Invrsion, which offers game-like virtual reality tools for retail, to Salesforce, which adopted a game motif for key training—business functionality augmented by gaming tech and gaming user experience enhancements are becoming standard.
    • The gamification of education–Learners learn best when they’re having fun–and also when they have goals, targets and achievements to reach for. Sites like Khan Academy and apps like Duolingo have brought gaming tech and methodologies into the virtual classroom, changing paradigms for educators and learners alike.
    • The gamification of everything else–Shopping for clothes online during lockdown? The functionality that lets you “try on” garments is based on gaming tech. Designing a new pharmaceutical molecule using VR augmentation? Gaming tech. Urban design? Yep—gaming tech. And the list goes on.

    Why Gaming? A Unique Technology Incubator

    The question that companies in any industry should be asking is: why is gaming able to create such powerful, flexible and inspiring tech that lends itself so well to cross-pollination?

    The answer is multifaceted. First off, gamers are out-of-the-box thinkers, to say the least, and game developers–well, they broke the box before the gamers even got there. Gaming tech was born in a development environment on steroids—tight schedules, computing intensive processing, insane competition and frequent release cycles. This makes for a space that’s both receptive to new tech and open to new ways of doing things.

    Secondly, gaming is a ridiculously dynamic industry that is undergoing incredible growth, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend. More money coming in translates to more investment in developing, improving or acquiring tech, as well as to launching more and more new games.

    Finally, in the gaming world, human resources cross-pollination is built in. Game developers move between studios all the time. This spreads tech advancements like–pardon the sensitive reference–a virus. Because if something worked well for you in one job, you’re going to want to use it in your next position.

    The Takeaway

    In both the natural and business worlds, cross-pollination is necessary for survival. Gaming tech is leaking into other industries for one key reason: it is frequently superior. And this cross-pollination of gaming tech benefits both the industries that adopt it and the gaming industry itself.

  • Cooperative Gaming: Software Teams’ Secret to Success?

    Cooperative Gaming: Software Teams’ Secret to Success?

    Trust falls and team backpacking trips are out — cooperative gaming is in. Don’t think embarking on group Minecraft missions could help deliver great software products? Think again. A 2019 BYU study found a 20% increase in office productivity after just 45 minutes of gaming.

    Software engineering is a mentally taxing endeavor, and many developers are under mounting pressure to deliver. To destress, many software teams use gaming to unwind during work hours. Gaming, it turns out, has added benefits of improved morale, increased productivity and lowered ego around unofficial hierarchies within the office. Setting aside time to recharge with collaborative gaming could increase a workplace’s health and help software teams work together to deliver products more efficiently.

    I recently spoke with Max de Lavenne, founder and CEO of Buildable, ally to the workplace gamer, to see why he embraces gaming as a regular part of his software developer team’s weekly regimen. Buildable adopted gaming and saw a notable impact; de Lavenne shared how other teams could similarly introduce gaming to improve performance.

    Gaming in the Workplace

    Traditional business environments don’t typically embrace fun activities on the clock — there is a clear separation between work and life. But at Buildable, gaming is integrated into the weekly routine. The Buildable engineers set aside about 45 minutes mid-week for collaborative gaming, typically on Wednesday or Thursday. The Buildable team, made up of about 20 software engineers, favors Rocket League and a modded version of Minecraft.

    According to de Lavenne, gaming is a great way to foster collaboration and intuitive group thinking. “Getting recharged is really important,” he said. He encourages the team to adopt cooperative multiplayer games; no solo play. He also discourages violent and aggressive RPGs, like first-person shooters.

    Workplace gaming isn’t unique, in and of itself — many teams at other companies will often play Haxball during coffee breaks or get into a Call of Duty: Warzone match from time to time. Yet, few leaders have the stomach to sanction gaming as integral to the developer’s workflow and overall team dynamic.

    “Engineers collaborate best when they respect each other and have confidence in each other’s skillsets,” said de Lavenne. “They are individuals, but there’s a lot of groupthink in teams.”

    Benefits of Gaming

    Gaming has proven benefits. In fact, researchers at Kansas State University found that employees who spent one or two minutes during breaks in their day playing games such as Candy Crush on their phones reported being happier than their peers. Similarly, de Lavenne noticed improved mood and other positive outcomes from collaborative gaming at Buildable, including:

    • Better team morale: Having scheduled gaming breaks to look forward to each week keeps attitudes positive. Software engineering can cause fatigue, which managers need to monitor carefully. “People get tired, and there’s only so much the brain can do,” de Lavenne said .
    • More fluid communication: Collaborative gaming focuses a team’s effort on a collective activity free from monetary incentives, bonuses or other hidden agendas. Afterward, de Lavenne said he’s noticed more fluid communication emerge among the team.
    • Increased collaboration: There’s satisfaction in doing something together, and de Lavenne reports that gaming has redefined collaboration for his team in unique ways. Employees take the cooperative, creative attitude fostered from gaming experiences and apply it to more structured, scrum-type environments.
    • Increased productivity: Dedicating one hour for gaming per week equates to about a 2% loss of labor time. However, de Lavenne reported that the productivity gains afterward surpass that lost time and more.
    • Reduction of ego: In work environments, unspoken hierarchies inevitably exist. Interestingly, collaborative gaming can completely reverse those social dynamics. Seeing senior engineers at the bottom of a gaming leaderboard can be humorous and boost confidence for younger engineers.
    • Combating isolation: Throughout the pandemic, remote work has left many of us feeling lonely. For young engineers without families, a big chunk of social interaction may occur in the workplace. Games can help maintain good spirits by bringing teams together virtually.

    Tips for Encouraging a Healthy Gaming Culture

    The overall goal is to promote enjoyable, freeform shared experiences. To enable this, de Lavenne shared a few tips on integrating games into developer team workflows.

    First off, gaming should not be mandatory, as making it a required activity would somewhat defeat the purpose. Instead, gaming should be fun and completely voluntary. If people would rather get in some physical exercise or check Instagram, they should feel just as free to do so.

    Also, as much fun as gaming with the team could be, it’s helpful having the CEO removed from this activity, de Lavenne advised. This is important so that players don’t feel they’re constantly monitored. Yet, leaders may want to have a say in the type of game, as well as when it’s played.

    Furthermore, the game doesn’t need to be an immersive RPG — it could be as simple and accessible as Jackbox. Cooperative board games like Dungeons & Dragons or Gloomhaven could have just the same effect as digital games.

    Outside of encouraging collaborative gaming, leaders can take other actions to boost morale and productivity. One such action is leaving chat channels unmonitored, so that team members can engage with each other on whatever subject they want without oversight. Another way to affect morale is location, noted de Lavenne. As I’ve written previously, hiring interest is expanding outside of traditional tech hubs. Buildable, for instance, chose to headquarter in suburban McMinnville, Oregon, for its walkability, greenery and better work-life balance than in larger cities.

    Gaming Is Where It All Began

    Multiplayer video games, LARPing, and AR/VR environments not only offer an escapist retreat — they represent nostalgia. For many programmers, video games were a doorway to the computer science field in general.

    “I’ve rarely met a software engineer that never gamed,” de Lavenne added. Gamers often seek out the highest-performing machines. And chances are, those kids with limited resources built their rigs from scratch. “This inspires you to learn about hardware, and you start to care about speed, compile and software activities,” said de Lavenne.

    From Atari to Minecraft, gaming has been a shared passion among generations of programmers. Recognizing this affinity can unite a team. Because at the end of the day, “building good software is all about people,” said de Lavenne.

    Of course, software development takes extreme diligence, planning, and structure to deliver bug-free, user-centric products. But under intense pressure to perform and meet new digital innovation demands, software developers could get burned out without a bit of distraction. With gaming, “the team really comes alive,” de Lavenne said.

    So, when things get slow, check out what’s hot on Steam. You may, ironically, just find your next productivity breakthrough.

  • 6 Tips to Survive the World’s First Holiday Lockdown Gaming Crunch

    6 Tips to Survive the World’s First Holiday Lockdown Gaming Crunch

    ‘Tis the season to be jolly … especially if you’re a gamer. The upcoming holiday gaming release schedule is a joy to behold for locked-down, socially distanced or just plain pandemic-fatigued game enthusiasts.

    For game studios and game developers, however, holiday releases have an entirely different connotation—the infamous crunch time. While views differ on the evils or benefits of crunch time, there is one thing that the most strident detractors and the most ardent supporters of the development practice can agree on: This holiday season’s crunch is unique.

    How the world’s first-ever WFH gaming crunch time will affect actual release schedules, workflow, collaboration and game quality (not to mention coffee consumption) remains to be seen. To better prepare for the challenges of WFH crunch, here are six tips we’ve gathered from our gaming partners:

    Gaming Developer Tips

    Don’t pretend it’s business as usual, but don’t reinvent the wheel

    Developers (like everyone else) are most comfortable with what they know. So, while it’s crucial to adapt your development process and workflow to WFH, you don’t need to re-create them.

    To modify processes, put together a multidisciplinary team of your top people in each department. Bring them together (in person, if at all possible) for a short yet intensive meetup and let them brainstorm possible WFH scenarios and create a detailed playbook.

    This revised playbook should focus primarily on changing only what needs to be changed for remote working while keeping everything that already works intact. It should also include a comprehensive list of experts to be contacted for each scenario or question. And if a developer encounters a scenario for which there is no process, the playbook should help him/her identify the right team to notify.

    Once the revised playbook has been established, disseminate it to everyone then follow it religiously. Instruct employees to follow process, even if they feel that doing so may cause minor delays. Shortcuts are not the right move for WFH—it’s too easy to get confused.

    Create working groups (and avoid email like the plague)

    Email is a notoriously inefficient and confusing collaboration tool in the best of times. Late responses, missed messages in the thread … these and similar email issues can easily translate into WFH chaos.

    Instead of email, adopt a collaboration tool and strictly enforce its use. This enforcement is crucial, because the most powerful tool is useless if not used.

    Then, create multiple 10-person “smart work” groups with well-defined scopes and a domain-expert moderator to lead the discussion in each. Task these teams with addressing, discussing and solving companywide issues in their relevant arena.

    A list of domain-expert moderators should be shared with employees along with instructions on how to contact each moderator when unanticipated scenarios arise.

    Do VPN smart

    WFH employees frequently face VPN hardships such as low response times. Any latency is a nightmare when working remotely, and this can be compounded by low-speed home network connections.

    Aside from upgrading internet infrastructure (for employees at home, too) and using cloud-enabled DevOps tools (instead of on-prem solutions), implement companywide network traffic protocols to ensure smoother and more predictable VPN connection speeds.

    For example, instruct employees to avoid uploading large chunks of data through the office VPN at peak times. Instead, split these into reasonable-size chunks or schedule large commits during low-traffic hours such as lunchtime or at night. To ensure the success of this method, continuously monitor network traffic and alert employees that inadvertently violate traffic policies.

    … Or don’t use VPN at all

    Alternatively, you could trade your VPN for another acronym – FTP. When multiple teams working on multiple projects need to share artifacts, instead of uploading them through the overloaded office VPN, have them use a shared, secured FTP outside your network VPN. And consider using Steamworks or a similar solution to share testable artifacts.

    And there’s another brilliant solution you can choose, beyond VPN and FTP. The Google Stadia game streaming platform (for which many games are developed, anyhow) allows frequent uploads of private game builds. This enables developers to quickly see changes made throughout development in a live runtime environment. This little-known trait can save a massive amount of time and (especially) VPN bandwidth when working from home.

    Automate what you can

    When time loss is compounded by the inherent disconnect of WFH, any time savings are that much more valuable. Automation is well-known to save time and effort in office-based development, but in WFH its contribution can be mission-critical. As a rule, in WFH anything that can be reasonably automated should be automated.

    For example, try automating uploads to different storage locations (Steamworks, FTP, etc.). Then, you can integrate this upload as part of your build process—effectively automating the process. Allow each developer to choose in advance whether the build should be uploaded automatically, and enable email notifications when the upload is complete. This little time-saver (and others like it), multiplied by multiple development teams and multiple developers, can really add up.

    Try to avoid software updates

    In the office, when a little Windows software update goes wrong (which is not infrequent), it’s an annoyance. But in WFH, when no one is in the office to restart the affected machines, it can easily cascade into a serious productivity crisis.

    Try to avoid any unnecessary software upgrades or changes so as to not jeopardize your stable environment.  If you must update, make sure that someone is in the office to manage unexpected issues.

    The Bottom Line

    WFH is going to be the new normal, and development processes need to evolve accordingly. Crunch time is the time when processes are pushed to their limits, even in the best of times. By taking the time to ensure that the wheels are as greased as they can be, gaming companies can eliminate workflow and collaboration friction points. The end result—aside from on-time deliveries of high-quality versions—is developers who are happier, more productive and even a little bit jolly.

  • Game On: Gamification for the Win

    Game On: Gamification for the Win

    Staying competitive in today’s fast-moving digital economy is easier said than done. Operating in a digital environment requires a significant shift in company culture and an agile software environment that accelerates time to value. Creating a DevOps environment helps companies keep pace, but it requires a workforce that is empowered, excited and motivated.

    Gamification offers a unique opportunity to continuously engage your workforce by applying game-design elements and game principles into a corporate setting, making work more fun. Companies can develop a team-oriented Pod model that incorporates gamification to improve employee engagement and productivity, enable team members to work more efficiently, accelerate the learning curve and deliver more sophisticated products to market faster.

    When I joined Cognizant Softvision as CEO, I wanted to empower our teams and promote a continuous delivery mindset by developing a delivery model that was customer-centric, differentiated and unique to each client without being prescriptive. Thus, Game of Pods was born.

    The global, Game of Pods gamification program is designed to provide timely and superior customer service. At a high level, Game of Pods inspires and measures team performance and delivery while encouraging and monitoring individual performance. During competition, the Pod and its members are recognized and rewarded for their collective and individual contributions with badges and trophies.

    We typically focus on the output of each pod, rewarding collective behaviors and achievements that help the pod reach higher efficiency and quality targets. Collective badges are awarded to the pod while personal and peer-to-peer badges are awarded to the pod members. Pod badges are earned as a team and are focused on the health of the project, performance of the pod, quality of delivery and alignment with client objectives. A leader board displays the badges each pod earns, their experience points and their trophies. Pod and individual recognitions are celebrated over email and across Facebook Workplace, and shared with all employees.

    While perhaps not as intense as “Game of Thrones,” Game of Pods is the epitome of gamification in action and enables organizations to reach a higher level of efficiency and professionalism while challenging employees to achieve personal goals in a fun, team-oriented process. In addition, Game of Pods offers other benefits such as:

    • A flexible model that can work in any client environment.
    • Team empowerment that incentivizes teams and individuals to achieve more.
    • An approach that encourages diverse thinking that recognizes and rewards teams and individuals for improvement.

    Game of Pods is most effective in organizations that embrace an agile mindset and understand the need for flexibility in today’s fast-moving environment. While gamification has come a long way, successfully incorporating it into the workplace can be challenging. However, integrating gaming into your organization can empower and excite employees, motivating them to overcome obstacles that might otherwise stand in the way of success and sustainable innovation.

    — Andres Angelani