Leverage DevOps to connect the dots in your Gaming Matrix

I remember the days when I created my first online game “Snake” (copy of design by Gremlin Industry). It was classic black and white pattern moving around the screen to capture new stuff and as you progressed, the tail would get longer and if you can’t control the tail before each level completes with speed and accuracy, you are out.

Today after 15 years, I am part of the rapidly growing iGaming industry, where we aim to match the same speed by finding the right way to connect the dots in a mysterious web that I like to call the Gaming Matrix (a grid of culture, social, technical or political environment where different dots connect). The difference today is that a gaming organization is the snake, moving around different markets, accepting new challenges and trying to collect as many opportunities to grow faster. Interestingly, the primary obstacle remains the tail of the snake which grows rapidly in form of new features, new games, new customers, and more. And if your gaming business is not able to follow the correct pattern of dots within the gaming matrix, then you are inadvertently damaging the business with self-created obstacles.

So, with the growing competition and complexity in the gaming industry, how do you maintain the pace of this snake? How to make the right choice among various available options? Now, we have multiple real-time challenges and we have to create an efficient as well as logical path to navigate by identifying the correct patterns of the Gaming Matrix.

A seamless DevOps framework matched with cutting-edge technology can help build a matured business model and smooth development processes for your snake. There are several dots within the matrix at every level in your game development strategy that may be the right choice for your business.  The right DevOps expertise can help leverage the right opportunities in the following five areas:

1. Big opportunities with analytics

Big data analytics emphasizes on user preference. This could be identified via user behavior, current market or identifying the cultural aspect of a user as well as the game. And DevOps tool chain will help in aligning and utilizing this massive data as quickly as possible and support your organization’s strategy for the immediate next steps. A matured DevOps framework will not only enhance the gaming business model but can forecast trends, new business ideas, games or markets by identifying the next step.

2. Quick application development:

After ideating on how to move your snake and in which direction, an immediate plan of action is required before your competitors identify the potential. Organization must be agile in transforming their “thoughts” into “breakthroughs." DevOps can modernize existing software with a new and improved tool chain and deliver new innovations with an improved time to market. This modernization or transformation should not only focus on replacing the monolithic architecture with microservices but on various integrations as well. Basically, how these services will talk to the new world, be it internal or external since you will not be the only one in this game.

3. Automated game testing:

Every step on the Gaming Matrix is strategic. Each movement has its own unique complexity and landscape. The complexities within each game makes the user’s experience unique irrespective of the platform (desktop or more commonly used mobile devices). Mobile game testing should include real life scenarios with real devices, real environments, real user behavior and establish a continuous integration workflow. Efficient testing framework is one of the key factors which decides the success of any gaming application or concept. This framework should include testing of the game itself as well as evaluate the virtual environment around it that will be generated with the huge amount of data. DevOps integrated these systems within the CI workflow and orchestrate the behavior where the user interacts with different entities.

4. Game Monitoring:

An impulsive approach is not going to help your snake move in the right direction. Organization needs to understand the code behind the Gaming Matrix: how the tail of your business is developing in contrast to new opportunities and ideas you have generated? Artificial Intelligence within your snake can assist with new digital business intelligence while working on cutting edge technology. Monitoring activities proactively and predicting result based on new patterns is the key benefit that makes the system more intuitive. A matured DevOps framework helps AI monitor, control, and make self-healing systems by bringing in machine learning and cognitive technology together.

5. Agile Gaming:

Definitely not the final dot in the Gaming Matrix but one of the key dots that can make your snake unique with every gaming experience by scaling-up the experience of the game. The right DevOps expertise can build a flexible release framework to wrap your idea again and again in a speedy and efficient manner based on the user’s behavior or patterns.

Adopting DevOps in the early stages will assist your digital gaming initiative with the right technologies and strategy, thus creating a competitive business model in the rapidly growing gaming industry. With a seamless DevOps implementation, you can move fast and achieve positive results by leveraging the possibilities in above mentioned five areas in relevance to your business objective.