Epic Fails in LiveOps

Epic Fails in LiveOps

James Gwertzman, CEO

January 16, 2017

Silverlining:Theyusedthistimetocatchuponcontent;mightneverhavecaughtupiftheydidn’tgetthatextratime.

Introduction to PlayFab

Game ManagerMissioncontrolforyourwholeteam.Allthedataandtoolsyouneedtoengage,retainandmonetizeyourplayers.

Game ServicesBack-endbuildingblocksforyourlivegame.Storage,compute,commerce,analyticsandmuch,muchmore.

Add-On MarketplacePre-integratedtoolsandservicesfromindustry-leadingpartners.ReduceSDKfatigue,with(mostly)single-clickaccess.

PlayStreamTheactivitystreamthattiesitalltogether.Events,triggers,real-timesegmentationtoautomateyourliveops.

PlayFab is a flexible LiveOps platform for games.

Full-text search for players

• Easilylocateplayers• Searchacrossallplayerproperties• Usewildcardmatches

1/18/17 PlayFab Confidential 7

Player segmentation

• Triggeractionsasplayerenter/exitsegments

• Updatedinreal-time• Setmanuallywithtags• Usesegmentstotarget

stores,runbulkactions


Create and manage item catalog• Itemscanhave:

– Limiteduses– Anexpirationtime– Customdata– Defaultpricesinmultiple

currencies– Tagstohelporganize

• Limitededitionitemshaveenforcedscarcity

• Catalogscanbeimported/exportedasJSONdata

• Updatecatalogfromserverdynamicallyatanytime


Item stores

• Onecatalogcanhavemultiplestores• Storescanhavedifferentprices• Storescanbetargetedtodifferent

playersegments


Time-based leaderboards for tournaments

• Leaderboardscanberesetonafixedschedule(daily,weekly,monthly)ormanuallyatanytime

• Whenleaderboardsreset,thelistofplayersatthetimeoftheresetisarchived

• Useleaderboardstandingattimeofresettoissueprizes,determinetournamentwinners


{"PlayerId":"4AC350E4134A36C8","Value":620}{"PlayerId":"3CC3A4D866D9580A","Value":620}{"PlayerId":"D15EFFB805045CFA","Value":620}{"PlayerId":"B8271B32A8035722","Value":620}{"PlayerId":"B188B845940ED6D3","Value":620}{"PlayerId":"321DBA3528144483","Value":500}{"PlayerId":"EA141B9B63B53583","Value":500}{"PlayerId":"DC01857A8D90B2F5","Value":500}

Host session-based game servers

• Uploadcustomgameserverbuilds• Configuremultiplayergamemodes• Selectregionswhereserversshould

behosted• Serverswillscaleautomaticallybased

onload


Server-hosted JavaScript

• Writeserver-basedcodewithoutadedicatedgameserver

• EasyuploadofJavaScriptcustomlogic• Makechangestoyourgamebehavior

withoutrequiringclientupdates• Serverauthenticationprotectsagainst

client-sidecheating• AccessthemorepowerfulServerAPI(with

featuresnotavailableontheclient)• GitHubintegrationforeasyrevisioncontrol


Applicationsinclude:• Grantingplayerrewards• Validatingplayeractions• Resolvinginteractionsbetweenplayers• Managingasynchronousgameturns

Trigger actions from real-time events

• Triggeractionsinresponsetoreal-timeevents

• Eventscancomefromclient,server,orthirdpartyvendors

• RichsetofactionsincludingrunningCloudScript orsendingpushnotifications


Scheduled jobs & bulk player actions

• Schedulejobstoruninthebackground

• Runonce,oronarecurringbasis• Schedulenow,orinthefuture• Runtasksforeachplayerina

segment,orforthetitle


Full-text event search

• Filterandsearchthroughrecenteventhistory

• Zoominonspecifictimeperiod• Lookforspecificplayers,event

types,orerrorconditions


Remotely manage game configuration

• Storegameconfigurationontheservertomodifybehaviorovertime

• Comingsoon:changeconfigurationbasedonplayersegment


More than 1,000 developers w/ 450+ live games

1/18/17

Daily Active Players (2016)

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500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

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2,500,000

3,000,000

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4,000,000

4,500,000

Jan1

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Apr1

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5Ap

r22

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6De

c23

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0

Tips to running a live service with a small team

• FullyleveragethecloudandotherSAASservices• Continuousintegration• Frequentandautomateddeploymenttolive• Allengineerstaketurnsbeing“on-call”

SAAS services we use to run PlayFab

1/18/17 22

Tools we depend on

Basic API handling architecture

CloudScript Execution

PlayStream event handling

Multiplayer game server hosting & scaling

How the cloud has changed deploymentsScenario A: Successful deployment

Dedicatedhardware

Cloud

BuildA

BuildA BuildB

BuildBDowntime

How the cloud has changed deploymentsScenario B: Rollback needed

Dedicatedhardware

Cloud

BuildA

BuildA

BuildB

BuildB

BuildA

Downtime

Thinking about #fails

• Notallfailureiscreatedequal• #failsrangefrompraiseworthytoblameworthy• Typesoffailure:– Failuresinroutineoperationswhichcanbeprevented– Failuresincomplexoperationswhichcan’tbeavoided,butcanbemanagedsotheydon’tturnintocatastrophe

– Unwantedoutcomesinresearch,whichgenerateknowledge• Goalswithfailureshouldbe:– Detectearly– Analyzedeeply– Designexperimentsorpilotstoproducethem

• Everyoneonteammustfeelsafeadmitting&reportingfailures

Source:StrategiesforLearningfromFailure.HarvardBusinessReview.April2011.

Our most common sources of failure

• Operatorerrors(e.g.,mis-configuration)• Designerrors(e.g.,cascadingfailures)• Unexpectedsituations(e.g.,surprisingcustomeractions)

Misconfiguration failure

• Failure:– Matchmakerserverwasdownfor13minutes

• Cause:– Wehaveaprimaryanda“hot”backup– Intheprimaryfails,trafficshouldswitchtobackup– Route53wasmisconfiguredtoroutetraffic(correctly)toprimary,butcheckhealthonthebackup(incorrectly)

– Whentheprimarydidfinallyfail,trafficdidn’tswitch

• Solution:– Short-term:Fixtheconfiguration– Long-term:Automatehealth—checkintegrity

Route53(DNSservice)

MatchmakerPrimary

MatchmakerBackup

Traffic HealthCheck

X

Design failure

• Failure:2-minutesystem-wideoutage• Cause:

– Agamewasrunningatestofitemconsumption– Designissue:calling”consume”loadedentireinventory– Result:100+requestsfor13Kiteminventoryin1minute– ThisblockedAPIservers,waitingforthedatabase– DynamoDBthenauto-scaled,socallsunblocked,leadingAPI

serverstothenpegCPUto100%processingload– Thismeantserversstoppedrespondingtohealthchecks– Serverswereallthenauto-terminated

• Solution:– Short-term:werolledback,whichredeployedservers– Long-term:APIthrottles,pagingdatarequests

Complexity failure• Failure:ElasticSearch wentdownfor2days• Cause:

– AWSElasticSearch wastryingtoscaleourcluster– Insteadofaddingnodes,itreplacesthem– Thisrequiresmovingalldatafromnodetonode– Theydon’tthrottledatamoves,soCPUswentto100%– Thistriggeredhealthcheckfails,andnodetermination– Butnewnodestriggerindexrebalancing,buttheywerealready

rebalancingbecauseofthescaling– Atonepointwewerelosing4nodesevery30minutes

• Solution:– Short-term#1:turnoffwritestocatch-up;notenough– Short-term#2:spinupnewcluster,aimwritesatnewcluster,

back-fillw/datafromKinesisqueue– Long-term:MoveoffAWSESontoourownEScluster;customize

configurationbasedonexperience

ESWrites/sec

ESDelayinseconds

Unexpected failure

• Failure:– Suddensurgeoftraffictoourdocsite,resemblingaDDoSattack

• Cause:– Customerwaspingingourdocsiterepeatedlyasa“healthcheck”– Theyranacustomeracquisitioncampaignsotrafficspiked– Wesawtheseunusualqueries,withastrangeuseragentstring– Weassumeditwasanattack,soquarantinedthatuseragentstring– Thishadtheaffectoftakingdowntheirgame!

• Solution:– Restoretheirtraffic;explaintodeveloperwhythisisabadidea

Other common customer fails

• Notusingreceiptvalidation• “We’llwait,andifit’ssuccessful,we’llinvestintools”• Notrunningevents• Launchingwithoutreal-timedata

Fake receipts are a big problem

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

140,000

160,000

180,000

200,000

LegitReceipts FakeReceipts

Why in-game events matter (AdCap)

PlayFabaddedasbackendplatform

Setting up a live event

• Moveart/assetsintoUnityAssetBundle• Moveplanetconfig toGoogleSheets• ExportdatatoPlayFabcatalogs

LiveOps depends on tools

Howmuchcanyoudowithoutwritingcode?

TheLiveOpsToolsContinuumWritingSQLHackinggameDB

WebtoolsModifygameparams

Questions?James [email protected]@gwertz

Technology

Epic Fails in LiveOps