Online game sites must satisfy large audiences who have a low tolerance for lagging and timeouts. This unprecedented level of interaction and sharing causes game sites to perform sluggishly under the strain of supporting high volumes of activity and users, negatively affecting customer ratings, IT operations and revenue. This infograph details the top performance issues online game sites faced in 2013, and how a CDN can be used eliminate the performance issues associated with today’s massive number of online users.

1. Why Online Game Sites Need
a Content Delivery Network
The global online game
industry is skyrocketing
Online Game Industry Global
Revenue Timeline 2011-2017
$19B in 2011
2011
Russia’s social games market nearly triples from
the previous year reaching $236M
China's online game industry recorded total
sales revenue of nearly $7B in 2011, an
increase of over 32% from 2010
$31B in 2012
Global MMO market reaches
400M players
2012
2013
2015
Expected to reach $70.4B by the end of 2013
MMO games will account for $14.9B, or 21.2%,
of 2013 global revenues
By 2015 Asia & Europe are expected to make
up 87% global mobile & online game revenue
Expected to reach $86.1B in 2016
2016
Russian Game Market is expected to grow at a
CAGR of about 15% & Reach $1.5B
2017
Expected to reach $35B in 2017
"No other sector has experienced the
same explosive growth as the computer
& video game industry..."
Michael Gallagher, President & CEO
Entertainment Software Association
As more gamers move online
developers are struggling to maintain
game performance & security
”We’ve just seen two of the biggest console launches ever, with
PlayStation 4 & Xbox One. That means there will be more gamers for
criminals to target, especially as the Sony & Microsoft machines
increasingly use the Internet for a fuller gaming experience”
- David Emm, Kaspersky Lab Sr. Security Researcher
Many top selling online games of 2013 experienced
site crashes during launch week due to the massive
number of users
The most commonly faced game site
problems due to the increase of online
gamers are:
PROBLEMS
Latency/Lagging
Server Crashes
Security Attacks
Download Failures
&
These problems have a major effect on:
Game Site Revenue
7.3%
$130k - $260k
in lost revenue
after a popular United States
game publisher was hit by a
stock decline DDoS security attack in 2013
reported by a European
gaming company after
experiencing a series of DDoS
attacks ranging from
300 Mbps-3.5 Gbps
Player Satisfaction
Server problems associated
with the 2013 launch of
SimCity4 led to a flood of angry
emails, tweets & developer
death threats
CDNetworks Content Delivery Network
equips online game sites with the
maximum level of performance &
security needed to increase user
satisfaction & revenue
Security Attacks
Server Crashes
Download Failures
Latency/Lagging
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How?
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By adding scale to game site infrastructure
CDNetworks Content Delivery Network
instantly scales & increases the capacity of
game servers with 140+ Points of Presence
located in 86+ cities bringing gaming content
closer to end users
Download Failures
Server Crashes
Reducing latency to create ultrafast downloads
& dynamic game play
Latency/Lagging
CDNetworks Dynamic Web Acceleration
reduces the number of data round-trips
necessary to complete a web request,
resulting in an ultrafast high performing
gaming experience
CDNetworks Cloud Load Balancing & Cloud
Storage solutions further mitigate post launch
performance challenges by assisting with the
heavy loads associated with ongoing play
Protecting against security attacks
Security Attacks
With a combination of global PoP
locations, anycast DNS methodology &
DDoS absorption infrastructure,
CDNetworks global network responds
automatically to unusual traffic spikes
For online game sites, reliable, fast & secure connections are, missioncritical. Game sites must support growing global client databases &
generate revenue by performing at the highest level. Users expect quick,
responsive & secure game play. CDNetworks Content Delivery
Network helps with precisely that.
cdnetworks.com
Infograph sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/07/18/new-reports-forecasts-global-video-game-industry-will-reach-82-billion-by-2017/)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/184834/
http://slashdot.org/topic/datacenter/rising-dependence-on-datacenters-makes-downtime-costs-skyrocket/
DDoS Attacks in the gaming industry 2013 report
http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-harassment-erodes-industry-spurs-support-groups
http://www.gamesindustry.com/valve-hits-record-7-million-concurrent-users-steam/#cOBMZgLTO6RMp5B4.99
http://www.gamesindustry.com/russian-social-gaming-market-nearly-tripled/
http://www.gamesindustry.com/hacking-attempts-surge-following-release-next-gen-consoles/
http://www.newzoo.com/press-releases/global-games-market-grows-to-86-1bn-in-2016/
http://english.people.com.cn/90778/7702699.html
http://www.gamesindustry.com/infographic-on-the-global-mmo-market/
Some images used in this infograph were take from the blog site https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/fixing-seo-problems-with-html5/