The Studio

Cofounded by Omer Simchoni, Gal Simchoni and Isaac Noah in 2022, Blue Duck Studios is dedicated to virtual reality (VR) game development.

Based in Tel-Aviv, the studio intends to rewrite the way games are played and is excited to unlock Virtual Reality's full potential, implement innovative yet intuitive mechanics, and pioneer the future of immersive playable experiences.

Its initial 2024 release, Gravity League, led the Meta Quest Store charts with its competitive free-to-play (F2P) eSport fitness VR experience with online leagues against real opponents from across the world.

When it came to its second release, We Are Soccer, after an initial premium release, the team at Blue Duck set its sights on transitioning the game to F2P to reach a massive new audience with its skill-based and team-based club soccer VR game.

The Challenge

Transitioning We Are Soccer to a F2P experience starts with a massive amount of work on the game's core gameplay loop, retention meta, and monetization, alongside its technical infrastructure to ensure it can scale cost-effectively when the game's player base increases.

Additionally, as a free-to-play game, every server cost matters. The studio needed optimal resource allocation and highly flexible scaling as to maximize server utilization and to minimize operational expenses of its cloud-related costs.

The Solution

Fortunately, what the team didn't have to worry about was its game server orchestration.

Thanks to its migration of Gravity League, the team at Blue Duck Studios knew it could count on Edgegap for a cost-effective, server-authoritative online experience.

In their words, "with We Are Soccer, delivering a smooth, large-scale multiplayer experience is critical;  and Edgegap has been a game-changer in making that happen," said Omer Simchoni, CEO of Blue Duck Studios.

"We've been using Edgegap's Smart Fleets and Sessions features to orchestrate our MMO servers, integrating them with our own custom scaling logic to decide exactly when new servers spin up and when idle ones shut down. Through the Fleets API, we dynamically scale servers up or down based on real-time player activity. For example, if a server crosses a player threshold, demand increases automatically; if it goes empty, demand drops.

Combined with our own client activity tracking and redirection systems, we've built an optimized, balanced, and fully automated MMO server management flow. New deployments are live within seconds, and the Sessions dashboard gives us constant visibility into server activity; something that proved invaluable during early development.

Edgegap's Unity plugin is another huge win. It completely streamlines the server build-to-host pipeline; including Docker containerization; so with just one click, we skip the manual Linux build, containerization, and upload steps. That alone has saved us countless hours.

Our Test Fleet setup makes rolling out updates painless. We can test new versions in isolation, then seamlessly transition them to production without affecting existing players. Edgegap automatically handles the gradual downscaling of old versions and upscaling of new ones, ensuring a smooth, disruption-free player experience," said Mr. Simchoni.

Conclusion

Blue Duck Studios' success with We Are Soccer demonstrates how the right infrastructure partner can transform a game's scalability and operational efficiency. By leveraging Edgegap's Smart Fleets, its Unity plugin, and automated scaling capabilities, the studio achieved a fully autonomous server management system that adapts to real-time player activity while minimizing costs; critical factors for a successful free-to-play transition.

The partnership freed Blue Duck Studios from infrastructure concerns, allowing them to focus entirely on game development, player retention, and monetization strategies. With server deployments happening in seconds, seamless updates, and intelligent resource allocation, Edgegap proved to be more than a hosting solution; it became an enabler of Blue Duck Studios' ambitious multiplayer vision.

As Omer from Blue Ducks mentions “In short; Edgegap doesn’t just handle server orchestration; it empowers us to focus on the game itself, confident that the infrastructure will scale, adapt, and perform exactly as we need it to.”

We couldn’t have said it better.