How Sandbox Interactive Uses Gcore’s Cloud for Expanding Albion Online in Asia-Pacific Region

Sandbox Interactive is a Berlin-based game development studio that specializes in creating massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). One of their most popular games, Albion Online, is a fantasy sandbox MMORPG featuring full-loot combat, a player-driven economy, and a classless “you are what you wear” skill system. The game is fully cross-platform, playable on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android with a single account, and is localized into numerous languages including Japanese, Korean, Traditional/Simplified Chinese, and Indonesian. Albion Online has a global player base, and Sandbox Interactive decided to expand their game to the Asia-Pacific region to offer faster connection speeds and better ping for players throughout Australia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The Challenge

Sandbox Interactive faced a significant challenge when expanding Albion Online to the Asia-Pacific region. The company needed to ensure that the game’s infrastructure could support the high volume of data and traffic generated by players in the region. The company also needed to optimize the game’s performance to provide a seamless experience for players in the region. Additionally, Sandbox Interactive needed a cloud provider that could ensure secure and fast connectivity between different data centers for the seamless synchronization of data across different locations.

The Solution

Sandbox Interactive turned to Gcore, a leading cloud provider that offers a managed Kubernetes platform to support high-volume critical data projects. Gcore implemented the following Managed Kubernetes solutions to support Sandbox Interactive’s Big Data project.

Deployment of Elasticsearch Cluster on Kubernetes in the Gcore Cloud

Elasticsearch is a powerful open-source search and analytics engine that can be used to search, analyze, and visualize data in real-time. With Elasticsearch, Sandbox Interactive can store and process large volumes of data generated by players in the Asia-Pacific region, and quickly search and analyze this data to improve the game’s performance.

Automated Container Management with Managed Kubernetes Platform

• Insta-scaling to help Sandbox Interactive easily scale their infrastructure, create new containers, and remove unwanted resources
• Ability to restart and update containers
• Continuous monitoring of container status
• Load balancing for control over the traffic and distribution of resources among the containers
• Deployment and updating of confidential information and application configurations without changing container images or exposing data
• Storage and management of confidential information such as passwords, OAuth tokens, and SSH keys

The Results

By using Gcore’s cloud platform, Sandbox Interactive was able to expand Albion Online to the Asia-Pacific region and offer a seamless gaming experience to millions of players in the region. The new server, Albion East, provides much faster connection speeds, better ping, and lower latency for players throughout Australia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Additionally, the timings of game and server events, such as territory battles, Crystal League, Faction Warfare, maintenance, etc., are optimized for the region’s time-zones, making the game more accessible to millions of players in the Asia-Pacific region.

The partnership between Sandbox Interactive and Gcore is a great example of how cloud providers can support high-volume critical data projects such as the EOSC platform. With Gcore’s managed Kubernetes platform, Sandbox Interactive was able to address their key challenges business challenges:

• Store and process large volumes of data generated by players
• Quickly search and analyze this data to improve the game’s performance
• Ensure secure and fast connectivity between different data centers for the seamless synchronization of data across different locations

Additionally, Gcore’s onsite support engineers ensured quick resolution of unforeseen issues. One such issue resulted in a sudden increase in latency in the leased line. The cause was a cut fiber that affected the backbone provider who operates the line. Gcore immediately provided Sandbox Interactive with a second leased line that is operated by a different provider as a fallback solution. Gcore also implemented an automatic fallback to an IPsec tunnel in case the leased line were to suddenly fail completely.

Gcore’s support was instrumental in successfully expanding our game to the new region. They were always available to discuss and agree on our requirements in person and provided a dedicated team of project managers and engineers. We highly recommend Gcore as the best choice for anyone seeking reliable cloud services.

David Salz CTO & Co-Founder of Sandbox Interactive

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