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- Scrolling with the mouse wheel, that's different.
I like it.
- It looks so good.
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
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GIWON CHOI: All from here?
ANDREW GIUGLIANO: It's from this one.
So [INAUDIBLE].
All right.
Let's get kicked off.
Thanks for coming, everyone.
Really excited to be back in person
giving talks and all that great stuff.
So my name is Andrew Giugliano and I'm a developer relations
engineer working to help developers be successful
with Google Play technologies.
And I'm very excited to give this talk with my friend
from Com2uS, Giwon, to share some of success story
with Com2uS on Google Play Games on PC.
GIWON CHOI: OK, hello, everyone.
Oh, that was real loud.
Sorry.
Thank you for taking the time to join our session today.
My name is Giwon.
And I'm from the business development team at Com2uS HQ
where I work with key platform partners
to bring better experiences to gamers all over the world.
ANDREW GIUGLIANO: Cool.
So in case you're just joining us, Google Play Games on PC
is a gaming platform which allows
users to play their favorite Android games on PC.
And our vision is to make gaming across mobile and large screens
seamless and enjoyable.
When you switch devices, your purchases and progress
transfer seamlessly.
So you never have to worry about restarting your favorite game
from scratch on a new device.
And with Google Play Games on PC,
you'll be able to play your games on a larger screen, which
can be both more immersive, and easier to play with a keyboard
and mouse.
We are continually expanding the catalog
so that users can play their favorite games on the platform.
"Summoners War" is one of the most-played games
which our users love.
And we're so excited to now have "Summoner War
Chronicles" on a platform, which brings
a new adventure to players.
Let me hand it over to Giwon to share more about the game.
GIWON CHOI: Thank you, Andrew.
So "Summoners War" is a turn-based strategy mobile RPG
that was released globally in June 2014.
Now nearly nine years later, we're
proud to say that "Summoners War" has become
one of the most popular mobile game apps
in the world with over 180 million downloads
and $2.7 billion US in earnings worldwide.
The game is set in the "Summoners War" universe,
where players as summoners can summon over
a thousand different kinds of monsters
and trade them in various PVE modes
to get them ready to battle against other players
in real-time PVP in-the-sky arena.
The game has amassed a large and active community
of loyal users, many of whom have been
with us from the very start.
So we're continuously working to release new content
to increase the lifetime value of our players.
"Summoners War Chronicles" is a new MMORPG
that's set in the same universe as "Summoners War".
The storyline actually takes place years
before the events of the original game.
And in Chronicles, summoners aren't just an NPC.
Players can actually take on the role of a summoner
and have skills of their own that
can be utilized during combat to give your team an advantage
over your opponent.
The game offers a fresh take on the "Summoners War" universe,
with its combination of strategic gameplay
and immersive storytelling.
But its key feature is the ability
to play across multiple platforms,
so this is mobile, tablet, and PC,
without losing any of your game progress.
But I'll talk more on that later on.
ANDREW GIUGLIANO: So bringing your games to larger screens
allows you to grow your business with a valuable multiplatform
audience.
There are already 2 and 1/2 billion mobile gamers
and one billion PC--
PC gamers, with more joining every day.
Our research shows significant crossover
in mobile gamers who also play their games on PC, which
means there's already a large motivated audience
ready to play your game on more screens today.
And when we ask mobile players around the world
if they would like to see their mobile games come to PC,
the answer we hear is a resounding yes
across many of the largest markets in the world.
In November, 2022, "Summoners War Chronicles" simultaneously
released on both mobile and Google Play Games
in the United States, which meant that on day one,
players were able to enjoy this game across surfaces.
Their PC version provided players
with a new level of gaming experience,
allowing them to enjoy the game on a larger screen with more
advanced hardware.
With cross-play, players are able to choose
the best way for them to enjoy that game at the moment.
For example, using a large screen
to experience immersive storytelling,
or using keyboard and mouse for that extra capability
to deal with a hard boss fight.
And of course, mobile devices still
give players a full game experience
with more flexibility to play on the go.
One of the best features with Google Play Games on PC
is seamless continuity.
Powered by Play Game Services sign in,
players can get their progress synced automatically
whenever they play on a new device
without worrying to remember a password.
And it probably shouldn't come as a surprise for me
to tell you that we generally see stronger engagement
for those players to play the same game on multiple devices,
which is why we leverage the power of the Play Store
to give a unique discovery experience for players to find
cross-play capabilities.
Here, players can remote install on their PC,
or install the game on your PC if it's
available on the platform.
And after that, they can play across devices
with the same Google account, which
keeps track of their progress and play features
like Play Points.
GIWON CHOI: Thanks, Andrew.
So now, I'll share some insights from our onboarding journey
on Google Play Games for PC.
Firstly, it was relatively easy to develop,
as essentially, it shares the same Android build structure
as its mobile counterpart.
But there are few mobile-only features and permissions
that we had to remove from the app's manifest
as they aren't supported on Google Play Games.
Aside from this, the main challenge that we faced
was the graphics compatibility issue with the Vulkan API
and the developer emulator supplied
by Google for testing purposes.
But this has since been resolved.
And during the development process,
we continuously exchange feedback with the development
team at Google from testing early versions of the game
through to getting the final version certified and ready
for release.
All of this was incredibly helpful
as we basically got real-time feedback for any issues
that we were experiencing.
Also, we had previously onboarded
the original "Summoners War" to Google Play Games.
So integrating PGS was relatively easy as well,
as we had already passed the certification
stage using a similar UX flow.
Within the "Summoners War: Chronicles." development
studio, we have a team dedicated to multiplatform development
who are responsible for developing and optimizing
the various builds for each platform.
Aside from a few minor features that
need to be adjusted for optimization purposes,
such as the default FPS settings,
the game's main content is the same regardless
of which platform you're playing on.
In terms of QA, prior to the GPG launch,
we ran extensive tests due to the before-mentioned Vulkan
graphics issue.
But now, we just conduct our usual in-house QA
similar to what we do for mobile.
As much as mobile technology has advanced,
it's still behind PCs in terms of device specs.
So it was difficult for us to achieve
the level of performance that we really wanted
on lower-end mobile devices.
Crossplay allows us to support a wide range of environments,
from higher-end PC devices, to lower-end mobile devices.
And this allows us to provide the best possible gaming
experience to all of our users and let
them choose how to set their graphics, or their quality
settings.
Enabling crossplay is not a simple task,
and requires careful planning and execution
from the very beginning of the game development process.
And support is to start with early game design
considerations to measure how the gameplay mechanics will
work across those different platforms.
For example, we need to ensure that players on a different--
on different platforms are not at a disadvantage
due to differences in hardware or input devices.
Since the Unity engine supports a multi-platform development
environment, we are able to prepare
different builds for each platform
without any major problems.
And the Windows PC build is currently
available on Google Play games on PC, our in-house Hive
platform, and Steam.
And we're currently doing R&D to add support
for even more platforms in the future.
Another important aspect is to design the user experience
with cross-platform ability in mind.
For example, the game's interface
should be designed easily so that it's easy to navigate
and intuitive for players on all platforms.
UI should be designed for easy layout for different screen
sizes.
The challenge with going multi-platform
is having to add support for each platform's diverse input
systems.
"Summoners War: Chronicles" currently
supports keyboard, mouse, and game controller.
But we heard from our player base that a lot of them
want game controller support, as it's an essential feature that
allows players to enjoy the game on larger
screens such as tablets and foldable phones.
Unfortunately, this isn't currently supported
on Google Play Games.
But I have been told that the controller
supports will be coming soon, which is great news for us.
OK, as MMORPGs tend to require more time investment
from its players, we added autoplay support
so users can quickly progress within the game whilst
multitasking.
We found that users tend to lower the quality settings when
playing on mobile devices in order
to reduce overheating and network usage, even when
using a higher-end device.
And on PC, we were able to see--
we were able to create a more pleasant play environment
by supporting high-end graphics resources,
high-performance graphics options, and more
flexible input systems.
It's also important to ensure that various resolutions are
supported so that players can carry
on playing whilst performing other tasks
if they wish to do so.
ANDREW GIUGLIANO: Cool.
So let's talk a little bit more about how graphics
work on Google Play Games on PC, and how
Com2uS optimized their game for the best performance
on the platform.
But first, let's take a quick look
at how the game plays on mobile, Google Play Games on PC,
and their native PC build.
So you can see the recording on my right for all three form
factors.
And as we can see, Com2uS was able to create
a rich, immersive experience across all three builds.
With their PC versions, they are able to take advantage
of that extra space to create an even more immersive experience.
So now, let's discuss a little bit more
about the graphics stack on Google Play Games on PC.
For most compatible PC devices, we
use Vulkan as the first choice of graphics
API for the platform.
We understand that most mobile games on Android
are still using OpenGL ES.
So we provide ANGLE as the auto translation layer
so that those games will just work.
Also, as we announced last week, you
can get started on the platform with your arm
build, which you already use today for mobile.
However, our goal is to deliver a native performance
of your mobile game on PC.
So we recommend using Vulkan as well as building your game
in x86 64 to optimize your performance on the platform.
We expect that it should be easy to configure with most game
engines.
And with the Android app bundle, you
can simply add the extra API into your existing
build without having to worry about size.
So in fewer words, we want to make it easy for developers
to bring their mobile game and get started on the platform as
soon as possible.
However, we strongly recommend building an x86 64-bit version
of the game, and using Vulkan to get the most out
of the platform.
We'll also be covering this more in detail
during our next session at 3:00 PM here in this room.
And with that, let's take a closer look
at how Com2uS took this a step further
and optimized their game for "Summoner War: Chronicles",
which is actually a Vulkan-only game across form factors,
including mobile.
"Summoners War: Chronicles" was developed
by making major modifications to the Unity render pipeline.
In order to do this, Com2uS needed
to decide on a graphics API to use.
And among other reasons, they ended up
choosing Vulkan as its ability to serve multiple platforms.
The goal was to develop the game for cutting edge graphics
across all surfaces.
And Vulkan is an API that directly accesses hardware
and has the advantage of reducing
CPU overhead by enabling parallel processing using
multithreading.
Due to the nature of mobile MMORPGs,
high-device performance is required to be able
to simultaneously process data from multiple player--
to process data from multiple players.
And while 85% of Android devices support Vulkan,
it is a fair trade off to be able to maximize
our efforts on providing the best possible graphics quality.
With Vulkan, Com2uS implemented custom deferred rendering,
which allowed them to implement multi light
and various shading.
And with instancing implementation,
it increased the number of meshes, materials, and textures
that they could use in a scene.
If you're interested in hearing more detailed information
about Vulkan.
You shouldn't miss the session tomorrow
at 3:50 PM, where my colleague, Nate, will show you
more about Vulkan versus GLES performance.
So thank you for all-- yeah.
Thank you all for being here today.
It's been an honor and a pleasure
to share this story here with Giwon.
GIWON CHOI: Thank you once again for your time and attention.
I look forward to seeing the growth of Google Play Games
together with "Summoners War".
Thank you, everyone.
ANDREW GIUGLIANO: Thank you.