Multiplay and KUULUU Launch Games with SoftLayer, an IBM Company

Gaming companies flock to IBM SoftLayer's cloud, adding to 130 million players worldwide

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Jan 15, 2014, 08:00 ET

ARMONK, N.Y. and AMSTERDAM, Jan. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftLayer, an IBM Company (NYSE: IBM), today announced that game development studio KUULUU and world's largest online game servers provider Multiplay are using IBM SoftLayer's cloud capabilities to power widely popular games such as Battlefield 4 and RECHARGE. KUULUU tapped into SoftLayer's cloud for higher performance and scale for their newest game created with Linkin Park, the most popular band on Facebook with 55 million followers, called RECHARGE, while Multiplay utilizes SoftLayer cloud to support the mega title Battlefield 4.

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The global gaming market is estimated to total $111 billion by 2015 – driven largely by the increasingly popularity of cloud gaming (online, streamed and downloaded games are estimated to represent as much as $38B in revenue in 2012). By leveraging the cloud built on open standards to host and stream games, developers are able to provide users with uninterrupted, instant access to games across any devices that will provide higher performance and easily scale based. This allows games to be streamed directly from the cloud, rather than downloaded locally, freeing up storage space on user devices and making access to updates easier and more efficient.

Since last spring, the amount of active players relying on SoftLayer's cloud infrastructure has grown to 130 million. The company serves the whole ecosystem, from independent developers, to game studios, to publishers. By taking advantage of SoftLayer's cloud capabilities they are able to meet the demands of players around the world who expect faster development cycles, no-lag game play, and a flawless overall user experience.

SoftLayer's high value cloud platform allows KUULUU and Multiplay to scale easily to meet dynamic and extensive workloads requirements, with physical and virtual cloud servers available in real time on a massive global network.

Multiplay is one of the world's largest hosts of online game servers and is also home to one of Europe's biggest online gaming communities with over seven million gamers playing on their servers every month. The company provides high quality, affordable game servers for all major titles, including EA's Battlefield. For locations in Europe, the United States and Asia, they chose SoftLayer bare metal servers.

Multiplay supports approximately 500,000 gamers on SoftLayer's IaaS platform, hosting over 60 gaming titles including Minecraft, Battlefield 4, DayZ, Starbound and Team Fortress 2. Over 100,000 peak concurrent gamers play every night on SoftLayer bare metal servers throughout the world. In the case of Battlefield 4, Multiplay was able to spin-up and provision the IT resources required to support 25,000 new users in less than four hours while still being able to deliver a superior online experience.

"Bare metal game servers are the best way to get a truly excellent online gaming experience. Utilizing the power of single tenant machines, a Multiplay game server will always be there, ready for you to start gaming. We work with some of the biggest names in the gaming industry to bring players the biggest and best online gaming titles," said Will Lowther, Business Development Manager for Multiplay. "For Battlefield 4 we chose bare metal cloud solutions, provisioning them in locations all over the globe. With hardcore games the players expect absolutely flawless experience, so we cannot allow any lag times or glitches. By using SoftLayer's platform coupled with the high-speed network, we give the game fans exactly the experience they want."

With the launch of the highly anticipated RECHARGE, KUULUU needed a high performance and scalable service to support the game. Together with Linkin Park, they created a third-person 3-D online experience that combines puzzle, adventure and action elements. The game supports Music For Relief Power the World campaign, by introducing players to the real world clean energy solutions in the game. A big percentage of Linkin Park's audience are gamers, and as the biggest band on Facebook with over 55 million followers, using gaming as a vehicle gets to those fans on a personal level.

"We knew that producing and running RECHARGE as a Facebook mid-core game would be especially resource-intensive. SoftLayer gave us all the performance and bandwidth that we need in an extremely flexible way that suits our industry and our product requirements," says Florian Juergs, CEO for KUULUU. "On our side, we can do everything possible to develop an amazing game experience, but you do need partners that can support it. SoftLayer is that partner."

In providing KUULUU with an infrastructure that was resilient enough to withstand the constant demands of beta testing, launch, daily play, or update downloads, SoftLayer enabled KUULUU to concentrate on its core mission.

About SoftLayer, an IBM Company  
SoftLayer, an IBM Company, operates a global cloud infrastructure platform built for Internet scale. With 100,000 devices under management, 13 data centers in the United States, Asia and Europe and a global footprint of network points of presence, SoftLayer provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service to leading-edge customers ranging from Web startups to global enterprises. SoftLayer's modular architecture provides unparalleled performance and control, with a full-featured API and sophisticated automation controlling a flexible unified platform that seamlessly spans physical and virtual devices, and a worldwide network for secure, low-latency communications. For more information, please visit softlayer.com.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities. IBM could support 30 percent more top-level websites than any other cloud computing provider. Among the Fortune 500, 24 of the top 25 companies rely on IBM cloud computing. No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers.

Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

Press Contacts:

Andre Fuochi
SoftLayer, an IBM Company
M: 469-394-7274
[email protected]

Scott Cook
IBM Media Relations
M:312.669.4743
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM