[Arcade DevLog] Bringing games to life with LiveOps

A major change has come to the Game Backend Service (GBaaS) of BCSDLab. Arcade. With the introduction of a new account authentication foundation, it is now possible to easily add account-based leaderboards and cloud saves to games, in addition to the existing leaderboard and dynamic data loading features.

What is LiveOps?

LiveOps is a term combining "Live" and "Operations," referring to an operational approach where content is continuously reinforced and improved even after a game is released.

What does BCSDLab. Arcade's GBaaS provide?

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Arcade currently supports global leaderboards, dynamic JSON configuration loading, and cloud save features.

• Legacy API

This is an early backend integration feature added to Arcade alongside the development of Recoil Defense. It performs a handshake using a secret key shared between the game and the server, providing anonymous leaderboards and dynamic JSON functionality.

• SDK v2

This is a newly developed version for next-generation LiveOps support. It uses account-based authentication rather than a secret-key method, and playing a game with SDK v2 applied requires an Arcade ID. It provides account-based leaderboards, dynamic JSON, and per-user cloud save features.

Global Leaderboards

The leaderboard itself is not a commercial service equipped with elaborate anti-cheat systems or complex ranking algorithms. Arcade's leaderboard is a feature implemented in-house for learning and experimentation, born from the process of facing the reality that "there is so much to consider when just attaching a leaderboard to a game." Thanks to this, a definite strength is that any game can attach a leaderboard shared by players worldwide with minimal integration.

Real-world application: Recoil Defense

Recoil Defense displays a "Hall of Fame TOP 10" on the main title screen to stimulate players' desire for re-challenges. Players who see their records on the leaderboard tend to play one more round, and players aiming for the top ranks show a noticeable increase in playtime.

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Dynamic JSON Configuration Loading

Traditionally, to control player balance data, dungeon drop rates, wave data, and accessibility to specific content, one had to rebuild and redeploy the game. This is a task that requires significant resources even for minor modifications.

The dynamic JSON loading feature prevents such data from being hardcoded into the game, allowing the game to fetch necessary data from the server and use it dynamically each time. This allows developers to control content in real-time without modifying game files.

Representative use cases that can be implemented with the dynamic JSON loading feature include (but are not limited to):

• Live Killswitch

When a critical issue occurs in a specific feature or dungeon of a game and access needs to be restricted urgently, taking down the server and modifying it is difficult for quick response and harms the user experience. By implementing a live killswitch with dynamic JSON, you can immediately block player access to specific features without modifying files.

• Live Balancing

This shines especially when balance patches are urgently needed or during periods of frequent modifications like initial development or open phases. This is because values can be adjusted and reflected immediately without going through the cycle of building and deploying for every modification.

Real-world application: Recoil Defense

Recoil Defense is a top-down roguelike shooter that combines the survivor-like genre with base defense. If values that need frequent adjustment, such as wave data, were embedded in the build every time, the process of rebuilding and deploying would have had to be repeated for every balance adjustment during the initial open phase. Instead, Recoil Defense was able to implement live balancing by fetching wave data from the server through Arcade's dynamic JSON loading feature.

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Cloud Save

This is a feature where saves are stored on the Arcade server rather than the user's local device. This feature is particularly significant given that Arcade is a service focused on WebGL game distribution. The WebGL environment cannot directly access the file system, so most rely on localStorage for saves, which is a structure that disappears the moment the browser cache is cleared. Cloud save fundamentally solves this problem and allows users to continue with their latest save even when connecting from multiple devices or browsers.

Real-world application: Land Linker

We piloted SDK v2 in the web build version of Land Linker to provide the cloud save feature. As Arcade aims to be a distribution platform for WebGL games, the experience of progress being maintained even when changing browsers or devices has been practically verified through Land Linker.

How to apply LiveOps to your game

Since this topic would be quite long to cover, I will introduce how to integrate the Arcade SDK into games along with the actual implementations of reference games in the next post. Please look forward to the next post!