Research conducted as part of Omdia’s 2024 Cloud Platforms for Games report has, for the first time, included bare metal solutions alongside hyperscale cloud platforms.
The positioning of bare metal providers, servers.com and i3D.net, as industry “challengers” reflects the increased competition faced by hyperscale cloud vendors for market share. As Principal Analyst Liam Deane comments:
“The newly-featured vendors, i3D.net and servers.com, are both excellent examples of the growing ability of specialized, non-hyperscaler vendors to provide compelling and differentiated offerings to the games market”.
But the results reflect more than competition alone. And, equally, the diversified list of featured vendors goes to show that attitudes to infrastructure are changing.
Games studios are reacting to an industry-wide departure from cloud-first strategies and hyperscalers are no longer the undisputed default.
“We see that game studios are going for a hybrid approach in which we [bare metal vendors] are complementary to the hyperscaler of choice” shared Jeoren de Koning, Chief Operating Officer at i3D.net, in his LinkedIn post celebrating Omdia’s reporting gearchange.
With hyperscale “primacy” under increased scrutiny, games studios are starting to reframe infrastructure decision making as a workload-specific process.
And, for most, this means adopting a hybrid approach.
Ultimately, it’s not about pitting hyperscale cloud providers up against alternative solutions. It’s not a zero-sum game.
Instead, for many the ideal setup will involve combining multiple compute types.
“There are so many unique benefits that come with combining cloud and bare metal,” shares Jarrod Palmer, Head of Gaming at servers.com. “The increased interest in bare metal hosting from technical teams across the industry over the past 12 months is no coincidence. Especially when you consider the economic pressures of today’s market”.
When it comes to launching a new game (when you’ve got no idea how many players are going to show up at launch) the hyperscalers play a significant and necessary role. But once those player numbers have settled, there are other great options (bare metal is one) that can be added into the mix to help manage spend, increase redundancy, and optimize performance.
“This acknowledgement from Omdia reaffirms the role that hybrid infrastructure plays in enabling game developers to achieve a successful game launch,” concludes Jarrod.
The benefits of hybrid infrastructure for gaming are something we’ve been talking about for a long time now. Because, simply, we know it works. Omdia’s 2024 Market Radar report marks a significant shift in the wider narrative. One that suggests the adoption of hybrid infrastructures within the gaming sector may be heading in the direction of mainstream adoption.
Thanks to Omdia for furthering the conversation.
