The "Game Cloud Market Tracking" report shows that in the first half of 2024, the overall market size of the game cloud in China reached 65.6 billion RMB, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year. Among them, the game cloud infrastructure (IaaS) market reached 40.3 billion RMB, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year; the cloud solution market size reached 13.9 billion RMB, an increase of 17.5% year-on-year.

Of note, the data in the report shows a significant growth in cloud solutions, which can be attributed to the deepening understanding of the value of PaaS services by game companies. As game companies scale up, they need to build more powerful and responsive data operation platforms, and fine-tuned operational capabilities have become a necessity for game companies. From cloud data warehouses, data lakes, databases, cloud-native middleware, and even PAI, game companies have deepened their cloud demand at various levels, becoming the biggest driving force for PaaS growth.

01. The advancing cloud providers, integrated IaaS+PaaS driving growth

As game scale continues to expand, the demand for data storage and operation capabilities by enterprises also increases, leading to the growth of database products. Alibaba Cloud, with its self-developed cloud-native database products PolarDB and AnalyticDB, can effectively support typical scenarios such as large-scale online concurrency during peak periods, large-scale data reading and writing, version updates, and game operations for popular games of different types such as "Jue Qu Ling," "Heartbeat Town," "Sausage Party," "Eternal Void," and "Journey of Swords and Expedition," providing a more stable and smoother user experience, or more timely operational data analysis.

As a technical support provider, NetEase continuously refines new gameplay on the front end, while Alibaba Cloud provides ultimate network experience on the backend: based on Alibaba Cloud's latest generation ECS model g8i, "Eternal Void" supports super high concurrency online at the same time. Behind every sword swing by a player is not only the player's extreme reaction but also the ultimate test of the network: Alibaba Cloud's forwarding router TR helps "Eternal Void" game servers to sink by region, enabling secure and stable interconnection between game servers in multiple regions and platform servers, providing hundreds of Gbps of high-quality bandwidth in multiple regions to ensure the best network experience for players.

In addition to game server business, in scenarios such as intelligent anti-cheating, global log collection, real-time data warehouses, NetEase also deeply uses Alibaba Cloud's PolarDB, ClickHouse (CK), Flink, and other cloud-native components to provide cloud-based game operation acceleration for LeiHuo Games.

During game operations, there are often situations where only certain player data needs to be restored. PolarDB supports the restoration of only specified parts of the library or tables to the original cluster, and the flashback query function can efficiently query information about clusters, databases, and data tables at a specific time point in the past.

02. Next stop, AI!

Multiple surveys suggest that although the current impact and changes brought by AI are limited, with the rapid development of cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies, AI is expected to lead the industry towards transformation in the future, opening up endless possibilities for players.

Taking Giant Network's "Space Kill" as an example, the AI endgame challenge mode created by combining Alibaba Cloud's model training capabilities allows users to engage in intellectual competition with multiple AI players, making it a reality. This mode is both fun and controllable, enhancing the interactive experience of the game. It can be seen that the AI endgame challenge mode has increased the average online duration of players by 10 minutes. This is not just a numerical leap; it means that AI makes the game more enjoyable and players more engaged.

With the emergence of large models, the industry is once again considering how AI can penetrate games more deeply.

This year, NetEase's Fu Xi assisted in the global debut of the game Copilot teammate function for the "Eternal Void" mobile game, jointly with Alibaba Cloud. In addition to free conversation, this AI teammate can autonomously complete tasks such as map navigation, item search, and combat, bringing it closer to human players.

The demand for AI has also sparked a surge in the cloud market. A report by market research firm Canalys analyzes that leading cloud providers are focusing on deep integration of AI and cloud computing to explore new growth points. The impact of AI on cloud consumption is becoming increasingly significant, gradually becoming a key driver for business expansion. The customer base of AI platforms provided by top cloud providers is expanding, and it is expected to continue to drive cloud consumption growth in the second half of 2024.

The Chinese game cloud market is thriving, and at the same time, more domestic games are going global, sailing towards distant horizons.

The globally popular game "Black Myth: Wukong" this summer has changed the fate of Chinese AAA games. According to estimates from third-party platforms, as of mid-October, its sales on the Steam platform have increased to 21.3 million copies, allowing its developer Game Science to successfully enter the top ranks of Steam publishers.

Chinese games have become synonymous with global hits. At the same time, more and more game developers are realizing the true essence of "go global or get left behind" and are betting on overseas markets. Some game producers have even stated, "Going global is now the inevitable trend for Chinese games. The potential in overseas markets is enormous, and with sufficient infrastructure, opening up the market is easier."

Data from the "2024 Q3 China Game Industry Quarterly Report" shows that in the third quarter of this year, the actual sales revenue of Chinese independently developed games in overseas markets reached 5.169 billion US dollars (approximately 36.791 billion RMB), the highest in nearly 5 quarters, with a 15.4% increase compared to the previous quarter and a 20.75% increase year-on-year. The outstanding performance of new games like "Jue Qu Ling" and the Chinese AAA title "Black Myth: Wukong" contributed to the growth in the third quarter. It seems that all game companies have reached a consensus: focus on quality games and go global!

"The primary technical challenge for Chinese game developers going global is the stability and efficiency of computing resources," said a technical expert from the cloud gaming industry. In fact, most games going global have a high demand for computing resources: "Especially for top games with large DAU, a few minutes of downtime can result in significant losses."

Today, the most important technical keys for game developers going global are network, servers, security protection, and service experience. Rich node deployment and network resources can allow global players to play online smoothly without lag, reducing game latency. Popular games require stable support for millions of simultaneous online users in terms of servers and computing power, and global game companies have always emphasized technology. Game developers like Game Science represent a stronger force in this regard. As a representative of Chinese games competing globally, they have taken a particularly typical path in the cloud: from migrating to the cloud, using the cloud, to deeply utilizing the cloud.

In 2012, when Game Science had just been established for a year and was developing "Honkai Impact 3rd," facing limited resources and fierce market competition, Game Science boldly abandoned traditional methods and, with the help of two ECS servers from Alibaba Cloud, embarked on a "journey to the cloud."

Over the years, Game Science has been one of Alibaba Cloud's first customers and an important partner that has driven Alibaba Cloud's progress. In 2013, based on the strong demand for technical services from Game Science and other game companies, Alibaba Cloud established the first technical service team dedicated to the gaming vertical industry. This step has changed Alibaba Cloud's service model, allowing Alibaba Cloud to provide systematic services and reliable products to customers from an industry perspective.

Undoubtedly, Game Science and Alibaba Cloud have witnessed each other's growth, and their cooperation has deepened over time. At the same time, the success of Game Science has provided new reference points for more game companies on their path to going global.

On July 17th, Xindong officially released the open-world life simulation game "Heartbeat Town." With its high degree of freedom and open gameplay, "Heartbeat Town" received a rating of 8.8 on TapTap on the first day, ranking first on the TapTap hot list. With the influence of good word of mouth, the user base grew exponentially every day, placing high demands on the underlying architecture and cloud resources. The previous architecture and cloud architecture design could no longer support such a large number of players playing online.

Alibaba Cloud assisted Xindong in handling the pressure of 100,000 new users per day and completed architecture and selection migration and upgrade work during the early morning maintenance periods.

It is evident that on the path to going global, as invisible companions, cloud providers and game companies have jointly shouldered many pressures. At the same time, cloud providers are evolving through their capabilities, providing more security for game companies.