Gaming Industry
The gaming industry is an area that is growing rapidly, open to development, and constantly innovating.
Advances in internet technology have contributed immensely to the development of the gaming industry. However, the development of the internet may be insufficient to meet the needs of this sector from time to time. This can undermine positive user experiences in the industry.
To prevent this, the use of CDN in the gaming industry can overcome some of the inadequacies of the internet network, which can create obstacles in the industry. Providing the distribution of the content of video games with CDN can eliminate some problems.
You can also read another blog post of ours, “How to Increase the Cyber Security of Your Servers?”.
What is CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
CDN is a distribution network that allows incoming requests for your website content to be answered from the geographically closest CDN servers.
CDN servers located in certain parts of the world keep copies of your website content. This retained copy (cache) is sent from the CDN server to the client and the website reaches faster to the client.
Thanks to this distribution network, user requests to your site do not need to go to your main server. The incoming request is automatically received from the nearest CDN server.
How does a CDN Service Benefit Your Website?
It is very important that your visitors can view your website as soon as possible. You can achieve this by using a CDN service.
CDN ensures that the web page loads quickly and does not make you wait for a long time to view the page. At the same time, when your website's loading speed increases, you contribute to your SEO performance.
Website speed, which has a very important place in terms of SEO, is one of the parameters that affect this performance.
On the other hand, the response of the site contents by the CDN servers eliminates the need for your main server to respond to all requests. Your main server, which starts to respond to fewer requests, gets less tired. Thus, you can save on your technical maintenance costs.
At the same time, CDN servers that come between the clients and your main server also help you increase the cyber security of your website.
CDN for Gaming Sites
One of the areas where CDN service is most useful has been gaming websites. The reason for this is that these websites contain very large files.
It can take a long time for players to download games with high file sizes. This may vary depending on the internet speed they have or the speed of the website.
Some games reach such sizes; that even patches of such games can be very high sizes.
For this reason, it can often be annoying to download updated patches, albeit occasionally.
It is very effective to use CDN (Content Delivery Network) to prevent such situations.
Allowing players to download the games and patches faster adds to the user experience.
How Does CDN Benefit the Gaming Industry?
CDN can make it easier for millions of players to play or download the same game simultaneously.
In general, CDN can provide many benefits to companies in the gaming industry. If we evaluate these benefits, we can list them under 5 items.
Increases Game Download Speed
As we mentioned above, the size of the games that can be downloaded from gaming sites can be large in general. Downloading such games can take 3 to 4 hours from time to time.
This may cause gamers to give up or get bored before even downloading the game. This abandonment rate is seen less in purchased games than in free games. However, this rate does not change the opinion that the user experience is negatively affected in general.
Using a CDN can be counted as one of the things that can be done to prevent this negative scenario. During the download, if the game will come from CDN servers, the response and download speed of the request will increase.
Thus, the player can download the game faster and start playing the game as soon as possible.
Install Incoming Patches to Your Game Faster
It can be assumed that players expect to download games of large sizes even if it takes a long time. However, downloading patches that come to the game occasionally or frequently, waiting can seriously overwhelm the players.
When they want to play, a large patch may discourage them.
To prevent this, you can use a CDN service. In this way, you can ensure that the patch you published will be received faster. No matter how big it is, you can always reduce this download time with a CDN service.
The rapid download of patches contributes to increasing the loyalty of the players to the games. In general, the audience does not like to be too patient with the game.
Players generally show their satisfaction by choosing that game more for this sensitivity towards speed.
Do Not Be Affected by Fluctuations During the Game
As it is known, thousands of players can log in to web-based online video games within seconds. The meaning of these entries is that thousands of devices send requests to the server(s) where the game is located.
These high traffic situations can cause the servers to be strained and the players to be negatively affected during the game. These connection problems during the game or the "Game Crash" situation can cause the players to quit the game.
You can overcome this situation with CDN. High-bandwidth CDN servers are unaffected by your spikes in traffic. CDN service can help reduce the FPS drops that can be experienced in web-based games.
Extremely effective for web-based games, click to try Merlin CDN with a $10 free credit.
Increase Cyber Security of Gaming Servers
It is of great importance that your servers are cyber-security while serving the players. To provide a quality gaming experience, you also need to have safe content.
You should take various precautions to protect both your players' information and your company's information. You can choose a CDN service for one of these measures. Since your content is answered from CDN servers instead of the main server, any attack cannot reach your main server directly.
CDN servers located between the request and your main server ensure that you are protected from well-known attacks such as DDoS.
You Can Reduce Your Server Maintenance Costs
Each cyber-attack or instantaneous increase in traffic may require your servers to need more technical control.
Thanks to the CDN, your servers are less likely to get tired because the request to your site is not answered directly from your main server.
In this way, you will save the time of your team working for your servers.
How CDN Works for Gaming Websites
The working principle is the same as the service concept in other sectors. Your content is kept on servers in certain POP (Points of Presence) and they respond to the incoming request as quickly as possible.
The methods in the response phase may vary depending on the characteristics of the service provider or the needs of the customer. But overall, the process is pretty much the same.
What Happens If Gaming Websites Don't Use CDN?
If the CDN is not used, players may be less likely to have a positive user experience.
Players may lose time in pre-game processes such as downloading the game.
In addition, even after downloading the game, they may still encounter some problems while downloading patches or updating the game in general.
Players may be adversely affected by the instantaneously increasing player traffic during the game. Therefore, any delay during the game can affect the performance of the players quite badly.
This result may lead players to stop playing the game.
How Do I Choose the Right CDN Service for Me?
To answer this question, the technical needs of the company that needs the service should be considered.
For example, if the gaming company's player base is in Europe in general, they should prefer CDN service providers whose server density is higher in this continent.
Also, service providers with a higher overall server count may be more advantageous. This advantage will make it easier for you to serve a wider audience.
The performance of each service provider on your site may be different. For this reason, it would be useful to try your service provider for free before purchasing.
You can start experimenting with Merlin CDN with a $10 free credit now.