On the heels of the XP Game Developer Conference in Toronto, where our own Benjamin Denis spoke on the How to improve the gaming experience with strategic partners panel, he gives his thoughts on how game developers need to stop looking at suppliers as just that and start looking at them as Strategic Partners.

Service providers are more than a simple piece of the puzzle; we can help understand the whole board! Not all service providers (the dreaded ”S” word) are strategic partners. But when you find a quality partner, like everyone that was on this Montreal  exclusive panel, there is much more to gain than simply an exchange of services. We can do more than extinguish fires at the end of your production! A strong and clear relationship with your strategic partner of choice will  ensure you stay  on top with a faster production and better understanding of the processes. 

Involving Strategic partners earlier will power up your planning 

With Edgegap, you don’t need to plan where you will need coverage as we unlock all regions at once. You don’t need to build an in-house reporting tool for QA and early adopters. The strategic partner offering allows studios to deviate from the traditional roadmap in any case. In one case, you’ll be able to soft/beta launch in multiple regions at once and test faster. In the other case, you’ll be able to gather data and act way quicker in balancing and debugging your game while engaging with players. In both cases, your soft launch strategy has been completely flipped on it’s head with the features proposed by your strategic partners. Onboarding strategic partners early in production will give you the information and tools to plan and optimize your production. 

 More speed, fewer roadblocks, more fun! 

Strategic partners are all about speeding up the production process, but it’s not always about working more. It’s about working smarter. More workforce, more speed! But there’s more: strategic partners are experts at their craft, and chances are the problem that you’re facing, they solved it many times before. It’s not only about the problem that you’re facing; it’s also about the issues and challenges that your Strategic partners will steer you away from.

Ahead of the curve and already looking over the next hill! 

When was the last time you attended an Edgecomputing convention or tested out the newest and unreleased MOCAP suit? Probably never or a long time ago! But good news, your strategic partner does it almost every week. It’s not always about speed; it’s also to make sure that you’re one step ahead of the competition with the latest and most up-to-date technologies. Thus allowing game studios to do what they are good at, making a one-of-a-kind games.

Benjamin has been shredding latency with Edgegap for 2 years and he coins himself as a video game lover and passionate networker. He wants to convert his passion into a better gamer experience. If you enjoyed his piece and want to discover more about the reality of a strategic partner, contact him on Linkedin  or by e-mail.