Every good game has rules. Similarly, there’s a general rule of thumb in game development: every game you’re building should have a great backend. The server-side part of your game should be equipped with scalable, flexible and reliable tools, never visible to your players, but highly impactful on the quality of their game experience in general. These tools should also be well-maintained and easily managed, so that you could focus and creating what matters most: your game mechanics and dynamics.
We have stressed the importance of a great backend many times. Every game development manual will strongly emphasize it as well. Luckily, most game developers recognize the importance of an excellent backend to the point when they feel they should build their own game-specific server-side solution. We would not recommend that, and below there are 5 solid reasons why.
Technically, it is possible to build your own game backend. So why shouldn’t you?
1. Lack of server dev skills
Developing your own backend requires top-notch knowledge of server-side programming and languages like Java, PHP, Python, and Spark. Unless you’re jack of all trades, you’re probably only proficient in technologies specific to game development and gaining this proficiency may have taken you years. Likewise, server programming is a complex field and requires a dedicated server development team focused solely on that. Simply put, you shouldn’t develop your own backend for the same reason you’re not trying to build your own game engine.
2. Lack of time
If you’re building a commercial game, or a game you hope to monetize, you should be aware of today’s agile requirements. The market is extremely competitive and is accelerating exponentially, and you can never rest assured the game you will finally develop doesn’t become obsolete by the time you’ve finished building server-side backend. Cloud-based backend platforms are popular because they help deliver fast time-to-value and stay competitive. If you don’t care about the outcome, then take your time.
3. Lack of resources
Along with a variety of server-side tools and API’s, backend-as-a-service (BaaS) providers will offer an enterprise-grade infrastructure tenancy included into an overall price package. Such infrastructure already has all it takes to support a reliable backend: on-demand scaling, security, and a support team ensuring non-disruptive performance. Unless you or your company run your own on-prem infrastructure, you will have to rent cloud space all the same, then deal with complex billing and try to figure out the exact capacities for your game backend. So why bother?
If you’re into mobile game development, you should carefully consider this point: mobile multiplayer games are characterized by sudden traffic spikes followed by sharp longtail decreases. Can your server infrastructure handle that?
4. Support requirements
Building your own game backend is one thing. Ensuring 24/7 operation and support is quite another. As said before, BaaS providers have support teams that will ensure non-disruptive performance. Do you have the resources to do the same? Will you be able to provide 24/7 support no matter what happens? Make sure you are ready to provide continuous support and maintenance before you start building your own backend.
5. Vast market of BaaS solutions
There are lots of free and semi-free game development engines out there, for mobile game development and more. Similarly, there are lots of BaaS solutions on the market, capable of meeting even the most demanding requirements. Using backend-as-a-service has tangible benefits:
Acceleration: up to 4x development speed boost (although the resulting acceleration will depend on an overall project complexity);
Simplicity: having a server dev team take care of all backend development and infrastructure maintenance lets you fully focus on creative tasks;
Price: arguably, flexible pricing is the most attractive feature of cloud-based services. Most vendors will offer you a freemium model, under which you receive a number of free active users or API calls per month and pay for any extra users, calls or features. With most BaaS solutions you will simply pay as you grow. The use of backend-as-a-service lets you achieve up to 80% cost reduction, by some estimates. This is surely the best argument for using BaaS for game and app development.
If you still want to explore server-side development, we suggest that you try Festi Cloud Platform. Festi Cloud offers a wide range of build-in tools but has development modules you can get your hands on.
With Festi Cloud you will have the freedom and flexibility of building your own backend while enjoying the pre-built functionality enabling you to store data directly from the game frontend, create real-time multiplayer games with chats and push-notifications and much more. Festi Cloud Platform also supports Unity3d Engine integration and is the best choice for Unity developers.
Bottomline: unless you have an experienced in-house server dev team, you probably shouldn’t develop your own game backend. If you’re still strongly tempted to do so, go for Festi Cloud: its integrated development modules and API’s will let you control your server-side development while ridding you of repetitive tasks and enhancing your development speed. Contact us now to request a free trial.