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Not related, but relatable. I often wonder between Games and Enterprise Software, who has a more complex backend architecture? At the outset, it seems like Ga

Not related, but relatable. I often wonder between Games and Enterprise Software, who has a more complex backend architecture? At the outset, it seems like Games are complex as hell, in the sense that when a gamer shoots another gamer dead, there has to be freeing and re-allocation of processes/ resources, and with tens or hundreds of persons playing the same game over the internet , both the gaming architecture and network infrastructure’s gonna be complex. Would someone help me out here?

s_kilk 7y ago
Just a thought : games have the advantage of being constrained by a particular purpose and design, while enterprise architectures are more free to (d)evolve into a sprawling, incoherent mess of systems. Can you imagine anyone at a game company wanting to replatform the hit-detection system onto hadoop?
- ljm 7y ago
  I've thought about that, but at the same time I wonder just how much of each game (from a single studio) is actually reusable. There's the networking/infra side for multiplayer games, but even the engines themselves seem to get significant rework for each new game. It's all insanely optimised C++ (which I imagine can be reused in many places until the hardware is updated) and then a huge amount of scripting to piece the dialogue, story, cutscenes together, etc. right? I imagine it must be quite difficult switching careers between games and (particularly larger scale) web projects. Imagine defaulting to Ruby on Rails to handle your multiplayer infrastructure and trying to model the game state through REST.
Slartie 7y ago
It is a very different kind of complexity. Games are super complex in a very limited set of boundaries (the entirely virtual world of that single game) and have very rigid timing requirements, but usually the requirements to a "released" game don't change that much anymore. Enterprise apps usually implement stuff that seems simple (buy some item in a web shop), but gets complex due to a nearly boundless world which makes it necessary for them to interact with nearly every other system out there (which also changes all the time after release, just like the requirements to our app do). Thus the complexity of enterprise apps usually can be found in their interfaces to other systems (including humans) and in the way in which the app handles requirement changes over time, while the complexity of games is found in the simulation of their specific game world (including graphical representation of that world). It's like games are introverts while enterprise apps are extroverts. If you want to explode the complexity of each of these "classes" of applications, just add the thing that makes the other class difficult to the requirement: - A game that allows players in its world to interact tightly with an entirely different game world (like "really different", with entirely different rules and game play) which also evolves independently over time and on an uncontrollable schedule - An Enterprise app that implements super complex processes with thousands of different moving parts, modeled out into extreme detail and without the possibility to resort to "this is handled organizationally"
brbrodude 7y ago
I always think about how game programming must be so much more hardcore than business stuff in general.. Even the menu interfaces are all so custom & etc while in web & business it takes us so much even for generic stuff lol but then again in general the teams are much more specialized and probably better staffed in qty
AdrianB1 7y ago
I never worked with games infrastructure, but I can tell first hand about enterprise software (I am a manager & architect for a ~ 1000 server platform): I think it is easier for us. We have very few cases that are really time-sensitive (mostly in manufacturing execution systems), the responsiveness of the rest of the systems is quite relaxed, nobody cares about a few seconds here and there. In the same time we are seen just as cost, not revenue enablers (no comment on this), so we are very limited in money and technologies we can buy. It is also a very limited market where most companies buy, don't build, so you are usually stuck with the 3-5 real offers for any area and I personally know 2 products we use that are considered industry best, but they are pretty bad. There rest of the similar products on the market is worse - about 10 years in the past.
- godelmachine 7y ago
  I work on BMC Software’s ITSM module and the most time sensitive application is Service Level Management. For obvious reasons, SLA’s comprise an integral part in IT services industry, and if I am not wrong, BMC Software’s SLM module is still written in C++, at least that’s what the documents say. So far, I have never really seen any C++ stack trace in any of the log files, but some day hope to. Furthermore, I have never even seen any C++ related file in any of the configuration files.
hermitdev 7y ago
Games are complex, but nothing compared to large enterprise systems, especially financial. Typical (simplified) day for me: either download files or expect files to be delivered by start of business (typically 8am). Files need to be cleaned, uploaded. Changes need to be sent to untold numbers of other systems. 830am-300pm, various trading activity, new instruments being added, quants want new benchmarks, etc, more data loaded. 3pm, trading ends, mad rush to calc end of day returns, pricing and positions. All of this has to be sent to external accountants and auditors within about an hour. Id imagine games largely dont have many external dependencies (maybe on a service such as steam, Xbox live, PS network, etc), but they dont have to process and or deliver files from/to numerous sources for tje game to work. They just need the service live. They dont have to wait 15 minutes to check Bloomberg SFTP to find out that their request failed for some untold reason. I wouldn't be surprised to find AAA gaming and financial networking to be similarly, but differently complex for different and yet similar reasons. Both will want to reduce latency to the greatest extent possible, but for very different reasons.

s_kilk 7y ago

Just a thought : games have the advantage of being constrained by a particular purpose and design, while enterprise architectures are more free to (d)evolve into a sprawling, incoherent mess of systems. Can you imagine anyone at a game company wanting to replatform the hit-detection system onto hadoop?

ljm 7y ago
I've thought about that, but at the same time I wonder just how much of each game (from a single studio) is actually reusable. There's the networking/infra side for multiplayer games, but even the engines themselves seem to get significant rework for each new game. It's all insanely optimised C++ (which I imagine can be reused in many places until the hardware is updated) and then a huge amount of scripting to piece the dialogue, story, cutscenes together, etc. right? I imagine it must be quite difficult switching careers between games and (particularly larger scale) web projects. Imagine defaulting to Ruby on Rails to handle your multiplayer infrastructure and trying to model the game state through REST.

Slartie 7y ago

It is a very different kind of complexity. Games are super complex in a very limited set of boundaries (the entirely virtual world of that single game) and have very rigid timing requirements, but usually the requirements to a "released" game don't change that much anymore. Enterprise apps usually implement stuff that seems simple (buy some item in a web shop), but gets complex due to a nearly boundless world which makes it necessary for them to interact with nearly every other system out there (which also changes all the time after release, just like the requirements to our app do). Thus the complexity of enterprise apps usually can be found in their interfaces to other systems (including humans) and in the way in which the app handles requirement changes over time, while the complexity of games is found in the simulation of their specific game world (including graphical representation of that world). It's like games are introverts while enterprise apps are extroverts. If you want to explode the complexity of each of these "classes" of applications, just add the thing that makes the other class difficult to the requirement: - A game that allows players in its world to interact tightly with an entirely different game world (like "really different", with entirely different rules and game play) which also evolves independently over time and on an uncontrollable schedule - An Enterprise app that implements super complex processes with thousands of different moving parts, modeled out into extreme detail and without the possibility to resort to "this is handled organizationally"

brbrodude 7y ago

I always think about how game programming must be so much more hardcore than business stuff in general.. Even the menu interfaces are all so custom & etc while in web & business it takes us so much even for generic stuff lol but then again in general the teams are much more specialized and probably better staffed in qty

AdrianB1 7y ago

I never worked with games infrastructure, but I can tell first hand about enterprise software (I am a manager & architect for a ~ 1000 server platform): I think it is easier for us. We have very few cases that are really time-sensitive (mostly in manufacturing execution systems), the responsiveness of the rest of the systems is quite relaxed, nobody cares about a few seconds here and there. In the same time we are seen just as cost, not revenue enablers (no comment on this), so we are very limited in money and technologies we can buy. It is also a very limited market where most companies buy, don't build, so you are usually stuck with the 3-5 real offers for any area and I personally know 2 products we use that are considered industry best, but they are pretty bad. There rest of the similar products on the market is worse - about 10 years in the past.

godelmachine 7y ago
I work on BMC Software’s ITSM module and the most time sensitive application is Service Level Management. For obvious reasons, SLA’s comprise an integral part in IT services industry, and if I am not wrong, BMC Software’s SLM module is still written in C++, at least that’s what the documents say. So far, I have never really seen any C++ stack trace in any of the log files, but some day hope to. Furthermore, I have never even seen any C++ related file in any of the configuration files.

hermitdev 7y ago

Games are complex, but nothing compared to large enterprise systems, especially financial. Typical (simplified) day for me: either download files or expect files to be delivered by start of business (typically 8am). Files need to be cleaned, uploaded. Changes need to be sent to untold numbers of other systems. 830am-300pm, various trading activity, new instruments being added, quants want new benchmarks, etc, more data loaded. 3pm, trading ends, mad rush to calc end of day returns, pricing and positions. All of this has to be sent to external accountants and auditors within about an hour. Id imagine games largely dont have many external dependencies (maybe on a service such as steam, Xbox live, PS network, etc), but they dont have to process and or deliver files from/to numerous sources for tje game to work. They just need the service live. They dont have to wait 15 minutes to check Bloomberg SFTP to find out that their request failed for some untold reason. I wouldn't be surprised to find AAA gaming and financial networking to be similarly, but differently complex for different and yet similar reasons. Both will want to reduce latency to the greatest extent possible, but for very different reasons.