Gaming COVID Boost Makes Continuous Intelligence Critical

Just as enterprises require continuous intelligence to ensure application performance and security, so too does the gaming industry. While some might not take the industry’s needs in these areas seriously, it faces the same challenges as its enterprise counterparts with a demanding customer base that expects a superior experience.

The need to monitor and maintain application performance and security in the gaming industry is hammered home by its sheer size and continued rapid growth. In 2020, worldwide revenues for video games were roughly $160 billion, exceeding the revenues of most other entertainment markets. Even more impressive is the fact that revenues from a single major release of a new game often far exceed those of an international blockbuster movie.

Revenue and participant numbers have been on the rise for more than a decade. Last year, the pandemic gave the industry an even bigger boost as people were stuck at home seeking entertainment. Investors suffering setbacks in other markets turned to what many saw as a thriving opportunity. That trend continues this year. Investors eagerly drove up funding and seeded many mergers and acquisitions. Astonishingly, more than 844 deals were announced and closed in the first half of 2021, valued at $71 billion.

See also: Continuous Intelligence Insights

Where continuous intelligence fits in

Gaming companies face many of the same user experience, app performance, and security issues as enterprises. And as such, they can benefit from a continuous intelligence solution that aggregates traces, logs, and other data, which can then be analyzed to find root cause problems and spot anomalies before they impact the user.

For example, many games today are searched for, purchased, and downloaded online. So, like any retailer, the sales site must be responsive and highly available.

Another issue is that in-app purchases are driving significant revenue streams. As such, the purchasing experience must be glitch-free and fast.

Most companies must support a variety of platforms (dedicated console hardware systems, PCs and Macs, and a mix of mobile devices). So, a company needs a way to determine if the hardware can support the demands of the software or if there are hardware-specific security risks.

Hardware-related problems can creep in thanks to fast-changing software that pushes the edge in visual effects. Enterprises face this issue all the time. Is the source of a poorly performing application the hardware itself? How do you secure an app for every platform? Again, CI can play a role.

Cloud-based games are growing in popularity. So, a gaming company would need CI capabilities that help monitor cloud performance and security issues, as well as sort through the complexities incurred in today’s cloud environments.

One other issue that must be considered is that most gaming companies have frequent rollouts of new apps, updates, and enhanced features. Enterprises struggle to manage this process. They and the gaming companies need a way to maintain app performance and security throughout the software development, deployment, and update lifecycle.

A final word

Gaming industry companies face many of the same application performance and security challenges as their enterprise counterparts. They must rapidly develop new products and services in a way that avoids downtime while delivering an exceptional customer experience. These are all areas where a continuous intelligence solution can help.