Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - How Creative Assembly delivers live games at scale with AWS (GAM202)

Summary

Mark Easton, a solution architect at AWS, introduces the session and the challenges faced by game developers in delivering scalable infrastructure for unpredictable game success.
Seb Mayenard, Technical Director of Live Services at Creative Assembly, shares the company's journey from its initial cloud steps to achieving high scalability for live games using AWS.
Creative Assembly, with a history of 35+ years in game development, needed a platform that could support millions of players and provide a persistent online universe.
The company aimed for a system that wouldn't require constant maintenance, leading to the adoption of AWS services.
Seb discusses the evolution of their infrastructure, the decision to use Erlang for service reliability, and the importance of graphing and monitoring every aspect of their services.
Creative Assembly utilized various AWS services, including EC2, DynamoDB, S3, and IAM, to build a scalable and resilient gaming platform.
The company embraced automation, quality assurance, and cost efficiency as part of their scaling strategy.
Seb emphasizes the importance of AWS support in optimizing costs and the benefits of going all-in with AWS for their infrastructure needs.
The session concludes with a look at Creative Assembly's current infrastructure and future goals, including making their platform more user-friendly for game teams and more efficient in resource usage.

Creative Assembly's approach to infrastructure is centered around the principle of "don't wake me up," emphasizing the need for a stable, self-sufficient system.
The company's infrastructure journey highlights the importance of choosing the right cloud services and the benefits of a close partnership with AWS.
Erlang was chosen for its fault tolerance and ability to isolate issues, which aligns with the company's goal of minimizing operational interruptions.
The use of AWS services like DynamoDB and S3 has been pivotal in handling the game's data and configuration needs, showcasing the power of managed cloud services in game development.
Creative Assembly's strategy of automating operations and testing from the beginning has been crucial for scaling and maintaining their live services.
The company's decision to go all-in with AWS rather than adopting a vendor-agnostic approach has allowed them to leverage AWS's full suite of services and support.
The talk demonstrates the evolving nature of cloud services, where AWS continuously releases new features that simplify previously complex tasks, allowing developers to focus on innovation rather than maintenance.
Creative Assembly's future focus on making their platform more accessible to game teams and further optimizing their use of cloud resources reflects a continuous improvement mindset in cloud-based game service delivery.