GAMING

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When creating rich and dynamic worlds, innovative game mechanics, and unforgettable player experiences, some of the most important elements of the development cycle are collaboration and efficiency.

Developers, sound engineers, level designers, and publishers working on the latest games have offices, studios and partners spanning the globe from Montreal to China. To create a successful and efficient workflow, every location needs the latest version of the game to help steer it towards greatness. This collaboration involves sharing the latest version of your game within the office, sending and receiving content to and from remote studios across the globe, and delivering the final product to gamers.

The Challenge of Sharing Massive Game Development Files

As game mechanics advance—with more detailed graphics and worlds that are more vibrant and larger than ever before—the complete size of a conventional AAA game has exploded to over 50. Massive file sizes like this make collaboration and sharing a greater challenge. And, as long as game technology keeps evolving, these sizes will continue to grow and make them harder to manage and transfer.

The reason it’s so hard to transfer large video game files is that the technology used to transfer content across the internet, FTP, is older than Tetris.

From the initial concept to final testing and distribution, sending large files in media rich or uncompressed formats can take a very long time to transfer using FTP-based transfer methods. When using conventional file transfer methods, it can take up to a full day to complete a transfer. For development teams that frequently send game versions back and forth, this is unacceptable.

Fast File Transfer is the Solution

When file transfer distances span the globe, transfer speeds becomes especially slow as they fall victim to packet loss and latency. To meet project milestones and to ensure the final product is complete in time for launch, fast and reliable transfer speeds at each phase is essential. FileCatalyst, a file acceleration software solution, can help your game development files arrive at offices around the world in record times.

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FileCatalyst Products for Gaming

FileCatalyst Direct

Enhance production cycles by quickly sending large format media files with FileCatalyst Direct.

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FileCatalyst Workflow

Set your development cycle to “easy mode” by sending massive media assets and game versions via email addresses.

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FileCatalyst Central

From the design studio to the sound studio to the publisher, monitor all your transfers via a browser with FileCatalyst Central.

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The FileCatalyst Benefits

Keep Your Games Secure: Ensure your game files remain private until they are ready for release with industry-standard encryption using AES and SSL.
Collaborate Internationally: FileCatalyst eases international collaboration with fast transfers over large, geographically dispersed areas.
Accelerate with Delta Transfers: Manage and send file revisions quickly with our Delta Transfer feature to send source file changes to the destination, reducing wait times even further.
Stay in the Loop: FileCatalyst’s MD5 checksums ensure that each file transferred is accurate and intact. No matter what.
Streamline the Process: With FileCatalyst’s 10 Gbps speeds, transfers that took hours will complete in minutes – streamlining the entire video game file sharing process.
Compress Data for Faster Transfers: FileCatalyst’s Compression feature allows you to shrink a file’s size prior to sending, further accelerating transfer speeds.

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IO Interactive & FileCatalyst

IO Interactive has automated and streamlined video game file transfer tasks, reducing human error and allowing development to continue immediately.

Mads Laksø, IT Architect & Team Lead for IO Interactive explains how

How FileCatalyst Helps with Game Development

Interdepartmental Collaboration

Your games have fast travel, so should your workflow

Whether files are sent within your office, to third-party developers, sound engineers, publishers, and a host of other places around the globe, your ability to send files quickly is critical. Whether you’re sharing a file with the sound engineer in the next office over or receiving a new game asset from a designer across the ocean, FileCatalyst Direct is the “legendary item” that should be in any game studio’s inventory to the job done at blazing speeds.

FileCatalyst eliminates the FTP protocol from the equation by using a unique, custom-built UDP-based protocol. No matter what format or size your content is—or the distance it has to travel—FileCatatyst’s fast file transfer technology is guaranteed to maximize your bandwidth.

Synchronization

Autosave your progress

In many cases, content is updated and backed up on a regular schedule. Be it nightly, weekly, or monthly, all your team members need to be in the loop and have access to all the latest content to get the job done. However, manually initiating these recurring transfers can open room for error. And beyond human error, you must also contend with extended wait times that can slow development to a crawl. Don’t take an arrow to the knee: FileCatalyst Direct’s client application, FileCatalyst HotFolder, allows you to create complex scheduling and automation for frequent transfer tasks.

Simply set up HotFolders at each endpoint and set up their sync interval – be it every 30 seconds or once per day – and you have a hands-off solution that will guarantee synchronization across folders and ensure everyone has access to the most recent content.

Game Analytics

Rank among the best

The more you know about player behavior when playing your game, the better you can adjust it to deliver the best experience possible. But latency can put hours between the game client sending an event to it being accessible in the database. Video game development companies use FileCatalyst Direct to securely and reliably send this user data to their storage be it on-premises, off-premises, cloud, or hybrid.

Distribution

Conquer the final boss with ease

As games become larger and larger, simply getting your games into the hands of gamers can be a challenge. With FileCatalyst, you can deliver your games to users at multi-gigabit speeds (up to 10 Gbps). And, if you are sending closed beta games to a group of recipients, you can leverage our ability to send files of any size via an email, simply click the link and begin downloading.

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See how FileCatalyst can help your video game file sharing workflows today.

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