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Microsoft Xbox Vs. Enterprise Software: Same Platform, Same Rules, Different Game

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Crystal Dynamics

To the casual outside observer, it might appear that the world of enterprise software application development and data management is completely separated from the world of high-level games development. But this is not so. Kareem Choudhry, CVP of Microsoft Gaming Cloud and Kevin Gammill, GM of Microsoft Gaming Cloud explain that the two worlds are inextricably linked through the tools and platforms used to create them… and through their shared focus on three core tenets of computing: content, customers and cloud.

As in enterprise, it is in games

Let’s consider the facts. Enterprise software developers use change management repositories to track what code is where, who is working on it and what ‘assets’ have been augmented or changed - and this is a key component of games development with its massive banks of graphics data and gameplay logic.

That’s content.

Going deeper, enterprise software developers use cloud computing resources to provide a backbone for storage, software execution and, crucially these days, an increasing degree of data analytics to provide user insight and Artificial Intelligence (AI) functions - and this is a fundamental component of games development, especially for connected massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and others.

That’s customers, or gamers - same thing.

Perhaps most importantly of all, both enterprise and games software developers are now building their products in the cloud, of the cloud and for the cloud - the reality, which gives us the now increasing well used term ‘cloud native’.

That’s cloud computing, obviously.

Microsoft game on

In advance of Microsoft’s annual games developers event in San Francisco this March, the company held a virtual online press roundtable this week hosted by Choudhry and Gammill from the Microsoft Gaming Cloud division who both reflected some of these themes and expanded on the road ahead.

Choudhry insists that, “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has a clear view on gaming. He wants to now be able to combine the work that Microsoft does in gaming and the software assets and capabilities that we have across the rest of the company. Microsoft Xbox lead Phil Spencer was promoted to now report directly into Satya late last year and our focus in this division centers on those three core aspects already noted: content, customers and cloud. There will soon be two billion gamers on the planet and it is our goal to reach all of them.”

Choudhry and Gammill point to the ubiquity of access available through cloud and the opportunity that gives users (gamers or indeed enterprise software users) to access computing power. For Microsoft, it’s all about being able to do that from what the company calls a ‘first party cloud’, that is - not third party and not using some other vendor’s platform advantages, but in this case obviously Microsoft Azure cloud.

Gammill says that what’s happening now in games development is interesting. Where games developers used to target platforms (think Atari or Nintendo etc.), they are now targeting players, across any number of platforms. This resonates with Microsoft’s enterprise strategy to a degree, that is - the company has embraced Linux and open source and now works to a different (some would say more evolved, some would still argue comparatively narrow) set of commercial principles.

“When you bought a console like the old Atari 2600 back in the day, your relationship with Atari pretty much ended at the store apart from a few additional game purchases,” said Microsoft’s Gammill. “We now want to be able to develop and understand what players are doing across multiple platforms as we build out a more sophisticated strategy.”

Contemporary software approach

The more contemporary approach to software strategy that both Microsoft execs elude to can be summed up with two simple four-step processes that help explain how both games developers and enterprise software developers should be taking their products to market:

  • Develop, distribute, operate and then repeat.
  • Target, acquire, retain and then monetize.

Choudhry and Gammill both say that they have learned a few things internally at Microsoft. They say that games developers are trying to deliver the same interactivity and compelling content through a rich software development stack that enterprise developers are. The gameplay might be different at the user interface level, but many of the same energies are being exerted here.

Gammill pointed out that there is even a privacy and security element here in terms of the way games will be held accountable to things like GDPR through the gaming network that they operate. If a user’s profile details are held on a US database (and that could be not a whole lot more than their name and email address), then the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) directive means that those US firms need to declare that data and show that it is appropriately protected. Once again, that could be enterprise software data or that could be game user data.

Notable software platform developments in the Microsoft Xbox division in recent times include the acquisition of Simplygon, a firm whose technology works to allow developers to scale games for the web and the cloud. Microsoft also recently purchased PlayFab, a company that specializes in device-independent games. PlayFab’s tools are designed to be used by game developers across all platforms (mobile, PC and console).

November last year also saw the launch of Microsoft App Center. Described as a ‘mission control’ for apps, this service offers a datacenter version of virtual hardware so developers can test out games on different platforms (Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps) so that they can fully road test applications before release.

Shared DNA

If we accept then that major-scale games development technologies, platforms, toolkits, cloud services and methodologies all share very similar DNA to their enterprise software cousins, then should we expect the two disciplines to start to cross-fertilize with each other?

The answer is yes, yes and yes - for three reasons.

DNA share #1 - Games and gaming have already become a part of the way enterprise software packages are run due to gamification, that is - points systems awarded to enterprise users for completing work tasks.

DNA share #2 - The same enterprise software tools are being used to create games and enterprise applications -- and the enterprise can learn from the games world with its core focus on interactivity, immersive content and (for both areas) the aspect of ‘playability’.

DNA share #3 - Cross-fertilization is already happening from enterprise into gaming with technologies like Natural Language Processing (a combination of speech recognition and Artificial Intelligence) starting off in enterprise apps and now being used in games.

Games and enterprise software come from the same source and should offer the same degree of ‘addictiveness’ in the most positive sense of the word. So next time you sit there drowning in enterprise data analytics software that just isn’t compelling enough to use, send it back to your development team and ask them where the super-zapper recharge fire button is.

Ubisoft

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