Corazón Games Improves Online Game Performance by 45%, Fosters Growth Using Optimal Database
 
 

Corazón Games Improves Online Game Performance by 45%, Fosters Growth Using Optimal Database

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Corazón Games S.A. de C.V., better known as Playful Play, is a Mexican company that develops social and mobile games. In partnership with Televisa Home Entertainment and Grupo Chespirito, Playful Play developed La Vecindad del Chavo (Chavo’s Neighborhood), a social game based on a popular Mexican television series that has been broadcast in Latin America for the past four decades.

The game was an instant success, attracting 1.1 million users just 40 days after it launched. The company originally used Oracle’s MySQL as its database foundation, but it could no longer support exponential growth in the number of users and game activity, such as gift exchanges or games levels.

Playful Play decided to upgrade its database, implementing Oracle’s MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition to improve performance and scalability. The new solution enabled Playful Play to process 10,000 queries per second and handle up to three million users each month without negative impact on the game’s performance.

Just five months after its launch, the game was comfortably supporting two million users, and was garnering 30,000 new subscribers each day―with room to grow.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Corazón Games S.A. de C.V.

  • “Oracle’s MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition helps us grow our business. It makes us more competitive because it provides the highest possible availability, which is essential for an online game that users play around the clock.” – Ricardo Rocha, Chief Executive Officer, Corazón Games S.A. de C.V.

  • Improve the company’s technology infrastructure to support its games and user growth without negatively impacting performance
  • Optimize the company’s growth with a database foundation that is stable, scalable, and provides high availability, while supporting new game development

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Deployed MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition as a database for the game La Vecindad del Chavo, processing more than 10,000 queries per minute and enabling user growth from 1 million to 3 million users per month
  • Improved the game’s performance by 45%, improving its profitability by enabling players to trade prizes and acquire game elements more easily
  • Enabled the company to increase the number of users without causing performance problems, and to launch English and Portuguese versions of the game, which will triple the user base
  • Optimized IT resources, such as the bandwidth needed per user, reducing bandwidth-related costs by 25% to 30% and reduced database administrators workload by 80%
  • Improved the company’s relationship with its players/customers by using MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition to improve the game’s functionality and provide 99.999% game availability
  • Used MySQL Cluster Manager to automate changes to the cluster configuration, eliminating the risk of manual errors and improving productivity
  • Attracted new advertisers to La Vecindad del Chavo, thanks to the game’s stability and steady improvement in user growth, which are vital for advertisers

Why Oracle

When first developing the game, Playful Play chose MySQL after evaluating various open source database options. As its need for higher performance and scalability grew, Playful Play did not hesitate to acquire another Oracle solution. “We chose MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition for its optimal performance and its scalability, which helps us grow our business. We know that our profitability would decline should the game’s performance falter, but with this solution, we are confident this will not happen,” said Ricardo Rocha, chief executive officer, Corazón Games S.A. de C.V.

Rocha underscored Oracle’s willingness to help a young company like Playful Play. “When we contacted the organization, Oracle was one of the few companies that replied and tried to help us immediately. We needed the game to respond quickly, and every minute was golden. Oracle sent specialists to our office in Monterrey to address our problems and help us improve the game with a robust and scalable infrastructure, when we needed it. That gave us a lot of confidence,” said Rocha.

Implementation Process

Playful Play implemented its Oracle software in one week, migrating the information of 1.1 million users of “La Vecindad del Chavo.” As Rocha noted, “We started to optimize queries, and at the same time we determined how the infrastructure needed to distribute data, which is replicated to the user’s computer.”

“We finished the implementation quickly and within budget. Oracle understood our business objectives and supported us throughout the implementation lifecycle,” Rocha said. “In addition, the Oracle MySQL team trained us, and we contracted for Oracle’s 24/7 training, which is delivered over the Web.”

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