Joining us this week is Olivier Avaro, Founder & CEO Blacknut.
About Blacknut
Blacknut aims to fundamentally change the video game industry by creating a service where users can access a vast catalog of curated games, play without limit across all devices, and no longer have the need for dedicated hardware, all for a simple subscription.
Using the latest cloud computing technology, Blacknut digitizes video games, delivering them through the cloud directly to smart devices such as televisions, tablets, and phones or through devices like set-top boxes and dongles.
Highlights:
- Working at a Gaming Company
- Game Streaming and Experience
- Elimination of H/W Limitations for Modern Games
- Delivery of Game from Cloud vs Edge
- More than 50% of 5G traffic expected to be Gaming
- Edge/Cloud Infrastructure Requirements
- Virtualized Game Platform
- Challenges in Building the Blacknut Platform
Time Tracking
- 1 min 18 sec: Introduction of Guest
- Background on Olivier and Blacknut
- 3 min 01 sec: Gamers and Gaming Companies
- 4 min 21 sec: Game Streaming Platform Overview
- Elimination of Various H/W for Simple Gaming Access
- 5 min 48 sec: Virtual Desktops for Games?
- Processing power in the cloud and not locally
- Stream is a video stream
- Issues: Latency, Jitter, Bandwidth Issues
- 7 min 48 sec: Changes Power of Device for Gaming
- Everything can be a gaming console
- No Downloads, installs – Just Click and Play
- 12 min 10 sec: Latency and Distance for Gaming Servers
- Networks always remain a challenge for hard-core games
- 60% of Europeans playing games online (access, discovery and game options are primary concern)
- How manage backend to meet scale?
- Either build own cloud and leverage public clouds
- 16 min 30 sec: Platform Neutral or Specific Vendor?
- Select best cloud provider by country so don’t lock in to one vendor
- 19 min 57 sec: What makes an infrastructure attractive for an edge?
- Capability, Global, and Cost
- Distribution Networks and Bandwidths
- 23 min 42 sec: Blacknut providers service (SaaS) – Is tech available outside service?
- B to C only w/ over 300 games
- Looking into additional services for B to B as well
- 25 min 30 sec: Technology Challenges
- Optimization across various clouds/edges
- Density – # of games on given infrastructure
- Distributed Storage? Game distribution AI
- 30 min 09 sec: Wrap-Up
Podcast Guest: Olivier Avaro, Founder & CEO of Blacknut
Olivier began his career at Orange where he researched on video compression technology. Olivier has been instrumental in managing the MPEG Systems standardization group in ISO. His outstanding contribution ultimately paved the way for the MP4 file format, one of the most popular outcome of his work. Olivier then spun-off technology from Orange and co-founded Streamezzo. The company published an Open Mobile Development platform that allows to easily create Rich Mobile Applications working on all major mobile operating systems. The company was successfully acquired by Amdocs in 2010. As the new Vice President at Amdocs, Olivier initiated a number of intrapreneurial projects, out of which several new companies and business units were created. In 2014, Olivier launched his own private equity fund ‘Skyrods’ which financed a number of innovative start-ups. One of them captures his full attention today: Blacknut, a leading cloud gaming service provider created in 2016.