Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Building a successful Korean MMORPG with KakaoGames (GAM201)

Summary

Kakao Games and RyanHart Studio developed a Korean MMORPG called Odin Valhalla Rising, launched on AWS.
The game features cross-platform play between PC and mobile, with a solid story and open-world experience.
The game server was designed as a stateful server using TCP/IP for better response rates and stability.
Data is stored in the database at regular intervals for reliability, despite increased memory usage.
The game server architecture is simple, with one main logic thread, which aids in debugging and new developer adaptation.
AWS EC2 instance types were selected based on single-core performance due to the game server's single logic thread structure.
Amazon Aurora was chosen for the database due to its high performance, availability, and data durability.
Kakao Games redesigned their analytics pipeline on AWS for real-time and batch processing, improving performance and cost savings.
AWS Machine Learning Solutions Lab is assisting Kakao Games in developing a machine learning model to predict player churn.

The choice of AWS EC2 instance type is critical for performance, especially for applications with single-threaded architecture.
AWS services like Amazon Aurora and Amazon S3 can provide scalability, high throughput, and data durability for gaming applications.
Real-time data analytics and machine learning can offer significant insights and predictive capabilities for game publishers.
Serverless services like AWS Lambda can streamline data processing and reduce operational overhead.
Continuous evaluation of new AWS instance types and services can lead to better performance and cost efficiency.
The architecture of the game server, with a focus on single-core performance and a single logic thread, simplifies development and maintenance but requires careful selection of cloud resources to match performance needs.
The transition from on-premises to cloud-based analytics pipelines can provide scalability and flexibility, enabling game publishers to respond quickly to user behavior and game events.