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Overview
Tarquinio Teles
CEO
Hoplon Infotainment
Hoplon Infotainment is a small Brazilian company that's developing a new kind of massive multiplayer online game we call "Taikodom".
What's amazing is that you have a joystick on your side but you have a mainframe on the server side — you don't see that everyday.
Mainframe Innovation
Tarquinio Teles:
It's a sci-fi based game — but also a massive social game because it relies very much on social interaction. For this strategy to pay, it's central to have more people in the world. More people means more interaction, means more fun, means more things to do. We really wanted to have tens of thousands — hundreds of thousands being able to share the same universe.
To get this experience to the users, we need to be able to grow unpredictably; we need to have a very reliable system that is always available; and of course, we have to do that for a price we can afford.
Robust Platform
Tarquinio Teles:
The traditional way to do that would be getting a lot of small servers and networking them together. But we were interested in something different for our server model — especially because we wanted it to be able to grow with the success our game would have.
And one that had a large appeal to us was Linux on the Mainframe.
The Mainframe is still the standard for concurrent users for any kind of application. But the main point is to get a new virtual server. Once your configuration is established it only takes about three minutes to get a new server.
On-Demand Flexibility
Tarquinio Teles:
It's like a movie theatre that pops new seats as you have more people standing in line. So it will just grow to the size of the line outside. You don't get unused seats which you pay for anyway or lose your money. Or turn people away and say, "Well, come back in 15 days because I need five days to buy a new computer, two days to get it networked, and then the OS installed, and then the application, and then testing and then and then"
If you can grow by only getting new virtual servers, everything becomes more predictable, more well behaved. From a financial standpoint that makes a huge difference.
Reliability and Security
Tarquinio Teles:
And of course, you have to consider reliability. People expect your game to be available 24/7 — and it can have a peak any moment.
And security that you have to really care for now because of the value of the virtual goods that people have in the game.
All these compounded — and a few more issues like running Java very, very well — you can really, really use the powers of the Mainframe.
Satisfied Users
Tarquinio Teles:
What you really want from a game is to have a load of fun — and fun is something that people take very seriously.
So you don't want to mess with people when they're having fun.