LEVEL 3'S CDN SUPPORTS HIGH-VOLUME TRAFFIC SPIKES FOR MULTI-PLAYER ONLINE GAME

Posted on: 22/07/2008

Level 3 Communications' Content Markets Group has announced that it has been selected by Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games, to be that company's exclusive provider of content delivery network (CDN) services for the Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures online game launch and ongoing content patching. Level 3's content delivery services enable Funcom to deliver game updates during times of extremely high-traffic volumes.

Under the terms of the agreement, Level 3 is delivering origin storage, caching and download services to provide potentially hundreds of gigabytes per second (Gbps) of on-demand capacity for game patch updates. Funcom's developers regularly update the Age of Conan as the game evolves. These updates are delivered with software patches to the online game via Level 3's CDN and need to be delivered smoothly to not interrupt the participation in the game by hundreds of thousands of players. During the first 60 days of the Age of Conan launch, the Level 3 CDN delivered over 2 petabytes (the equivalent of over 1 million high-quality online movies) of game patch updates to the Age of Conan players.

Level 3's content delivery network is designed to accommodate rich media content for large online audiences. Its CDN improves the speed and efficiency with which large-file, high-volume content traffic is delivered. The speed, quality and reliability that are delivered with these services are keys to providing the real-time user experience demanded by online gamers today.