Remember when all you needed to rock the world was a great idea and the skills and talent to get it out of your head and onto the screen? Press the golden master and off you go, onto the next million-selling game.
Okay, maybe it was never quite that easy, but at least you knew when you were done. Nowadays, it’s go online or go home. That means once you finish writing the game, you’re on the hook for another three to five years (if you’re lucky) providing a network service to a global community that expects access to the game — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. If your game goes down once too often, player loyalty shifts to the new kid on the block. And if that weren’t bad enough, you’re now responsible for billing, authentication, and let’s not forget security. You know every cheater out there will be looking for that fatal flaw that gives them unlimited wealth, power, or just the ability to spoil it for everyone else. If you thought putting together the money to pay your artists and developers was a monumental feat, how does $15-20 million in start-up costs sound to you? Between engine development, server infrastructure, and support costs, you’ll have to lay out most of that before the first player ever logs in. Once you’re up and running, you’re looking at another $7-10 million a year just to keep it going.
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Enabling High-Performance Gaming Across Any Network or Device
