Author: Chris Blackwell

Need an online database for your game? Over the last few months, we’ve written a few guides and tutorials to help you get up and running with online databases for various game development scenarios. We thought it would be useful to recap some of this content in case you’ve missed any of it. First Steps […]

Many games these days have an inventory of some sort. Whether it’s an MMORPG where your character maintains an inventory of weapons, armor and other equipment picked up while adventuring, or a casual match three where the player collects power ups and coins. Believe it or not, even in such different games, the requirements for […]

We recently published an e-book called Introduction to Scalable Game Development Patterns on AWS, and I wanted to talk a bit about it as I think it’s a great resource. It will help you understand how to get started with any aspect of online play, be it as simple as setting up a leaderboard all […]

  We all know that a database is an integral part of many games. But, as a game developer, you want to dedicate all your time and expertise to building great games, not engineering databases. I get it, I’d much rather worry about fixing collision volumes, getting my frame rate up or making the perfect […]

Games? Databases? How do they go together? Aren’t databases what insurance companies use to keep their actuarial tables? Are you asking me to become an enterprise developer? Honestly, many of you already have a general idea of what databases are, though you might be wondering where they fit in to your game or game development […]

Multiplayer battle royale games are getting big, and I don’t just mean in terms of sales! Pitting dozens to hundreds of players against each other to be the last one standing, these games are all the rage. In fact, according to a recent survey, over 40% of gamers in the US played a battle royale […]

I had the good fortune to attend the devcom developer conference in Cologne, Germany this August. devcom is a precursor event to gamescom, Europe’s biggest trade fair for video games. However, as this is a blog for developers I’m going to focus on devcom. devcom is the official gamescom developer event and is roughly equivalent […]

When your mobile game client starts, you want it to always reach out and grab the latest and greatest content, right? That way, when you make changes and introduce new features, you can always put them in the hands of your players. But you can’t always guarantee that all your players have updated to the […]

Players expect multiplayer game sessions to be fast and full. But with the rise of Battle Royale games and other player-intensive games, ensuring a consistent matchmaking experience can be a challenge. Let’s be honest: the last thing your players want to fight is a matchmaking queue. That’s why today, we’re excited to introduce Large Match […]

A continual dialogue is a great way to engage your players and keep them coming back to your game long after launch. By sending a message to your players’ devices every day, you can encourage them to explore a new map, equip a new weapon, or even make an in-game purchase. Today, we’re going to […]