AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios Player profile Player ID: Roberta Lucca Classification: Marketer-in-Chief and Co-founder

Player history

Roberta Lucca, one of the original founders of Bossa Studios, is a computer scientist turned marketing expert turned entrepreneur. An experienced keynote speaker and angel investor, Roberta’s many accolades include; the Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech, the Top 30 Women in Games and Inspiring Fifty UK.

Player ID: Sylvain Cornillon Classification: Chief Technology Officer

Player history

Sylvain Cornillon is the Chief Technology Officer at Bossa Studios, where he’s been working closely with the founders to build highly original, off-the-wall games. With a background in programming and developing, an eye for creative and a flair for the unusual, Sylvain brings a steady hand to this successful indie studio.

Studio

London Founded Employees 51°52′N 0°08′E 2010 78 AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios Surgery shenanigans. Bread and fish. Game creativity redefined.

It started with the birth of social media. These platforms thrived as they enticed and enthralled millions and, as they evolved, they also introduced tech savvy users to the world of gaming. These early games populated throughout social media channels used gambling mechanics to keep people hooked, but lacked the depth of true gaming experiences. When Bossa Studios entered the fray, this creatively-driven indie studio saw an opportunity to make games that offered something different.

Founded in 2010 by Roberta Lucca, Bread, a game that follows a slice of bread’s Henrique Olifiers, Imre Jele and Ric Moore, journey to become toast, Bossa Studios this British video game developer set out has stuck to its vision of offering gamers to redefine the genre. And they succeeded, unique and unusual experiences. And those releasing innovative and hugely enjoyable games can now be enjoyed across a range titles that have not only won awards, but of platforms, from Android and iOS to cult followings. Xbox, PlayStation and PC. Today, the studio runs exclusively off AWS, having recently From Monstermind—which earned Bossa migrated the last of its technology stack Studios a BAFTA in 2012—to Surgeon to the AWS Cloud for increased stability Simulator, a surprise hit that evolved out and flexibility. of a 48-hour Global Game Jam session and went on to sell millions of copies, to I Am AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Roberta: “The name Bossa was rules around game creation and genre and feedback, so we can evolve our games inspired by the Bossa Nova” allocation. Our work is genre-defining. One to match what players want. of our biggest titles is I Am Bread, where We believe community is incredibly I’m from Brazil originally, and the word you undertake this slice of bread’s mission important. We have a strong community of ‘bossa’ in Portuguese refers to something to become toast—it has to avoid the jam, superfans who play all our games because that has a special flair or charm. That’s the water and other obstacles to get to the they’re different and fun. We’ve become “One of our biggest titles what defines our culture at Bossa toaster and win. Studios—a quirkiness and charm that we a company that embraces weirdness and is I Am Bread, where embed into all our games. We don’t come up with ideas from the humor, and brings new experiences to you undertake this slice top down, with the founders defining the gamers. Today, we have thousands of Bossa was created ten years ago when of bread’s mission to games that are made. Instead, we do game YouTubers and influencers playing our my co-founders and I saw an opportunity jams; we stop the company for a few days, games because they love the experiences become toast.” – to make games that were different from everybody goes into different teams and they get and because we value their role Roberta what people were playing at the time. We over two days they come up with a new in our community. It’s a really positive started with social games on Facebook game. Often we’d get anything from five to relationship, as they always get new games and have since launched more than 30 ten games out of a session. This creativity to play for their audiences and we have titles across mobile, VR, PC and console. has become part of our culture, and has them on side to share these experiences. As we’ve evolved, our games have evolved also shaped the way we engage with our This is what happened with Surgeon as well, but we’ve stayed true to our ethos community. We send these ideas on to Simulator seven years ago. of humor and not following the traditional influencers and their audiences for input AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Sylvain: “Everything comes from with influencers, streamers and YouTubers. improve on our processes and how we creativity” People would stream themselves playing build our games. Creativity defines the the game on platforms like Twitch, and core of our business, our games and our We held a game jam and out came the idea others would enjoy watching it, so they overall strategy. of Surgeon Simulator. A game that puts would then go and buy it. It’s still one of Surgeon Simulator really defined our patients into the operating room from a our most popular titles and it came as a brand and underscored the value we find first-person perspective and asks them complete surprise. The entire premise was in being creative. It’s driven us forward to figure out how to save the life of the still a prototype when it became a success. person lying on the table. It’s not as easy into developing games like I Am Bread, as it sounds, arms and legs have a tendency Creating games that aren’t derivative and and continuing to experiment with to fall off. The game was developed in are original and exciting is important to us. different ideas. only a few hours, but it started to trend We want to challenge ourselves and the on YouTube and we had to pivot quickly status quo. We want creativity to define to support it. Surgeon Simulator was a hit how we approach problems, how we AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Sylvain: “It’s taken us seven years to there was real potential. This happened at You can approach your surgery in Surgeon make a sequel” about the same time we decided to move Simulator 2 as if it’s going to be done the gameplay from a static hand above a properly, but things will always go wrong. We couldn’t find anything that made body, to a full body, first-person view. Then you just have to let go and do what it worth doing a sequel to Surgeon needs to be done to save the patient. The The new version of Surgeon Simulator Simulator—there had to be something moment I let go of my control freak allows you to create a co-operative more to the new game or it wasn’t going nature—that’s the moment in the game experience with your friends. We’ve to work. We thought of different ideas, that I love. Then, I’m just doing whatever extended the game from just being inside but they all felt derivative and it was really I can to keep the patient alive after the surgery, to moving around the whole of important to us that the new game be another player has pulled his arm off, or the hospital. There’s also an entire backend original. We wanted multiplayer, but we cut something important in half. All of where players can create more surgeries struggled to find a way of embedding the these elements have created a game that’s and levels for other players to enjoy. The physics and managing the complexities of different enough, where players can see game takes the physical comedy factor and multiplayer, so we didn’t move forward the value of having a sequel. with it for a while. Then, we started talking enhances it, with richer gameplay that’s to partners who were doing physics in more co-operative and exciting. multiplayer, did a prototype and realized AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Sylvain: “We don’t want a player’s and give us feedback. We use this feedback We have a strong moral stance around enjoyment to be interrupted by to determine which games we’re going to what we think is important in the gaming monetization” take into further development. With this space, so want to make sure we don’t take more in-depth process, we go through advantage of our players. We’re passionate The success of Surgeon Simulator really idea selection and balance ideas against about gaming and the excitement and confirmed the validity of our approach to risk. If we like what we see and recognize entertainment we provide to people, but design and creativity, and to games that its possibility, then we go through we believe fairness is important. It’s a big are very different in terms of storyline the prototype phase and put it onto thing for us. We don’t want monetization and gameplay. To really embed this into Bossa Presents. Based on feedback and mechanics to impede a person’s enjoyment our values and strategy, we’ve created responses, we narrow the ideas down and of the game—we want them to reinforce a website called Bossa Presents where identify which games will be the it. We want people to be happy to spend people can play our prototypes for free most successful. money and not have buyer’s remorse.

“Today, we have thousands of YouTubers and influencers playing our games because they love the experience they get.” – Roberta AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Roberta: “The biggest challenge is the Sylvain: The most challenging part of fight for attention” bringing a game title to market is not knowing whether players are going to The fight for attention keeps us awake respond to it, and if it’s going to be a at night. How can we ensure millions success. Are they going to think it’s worth of people know about our game when buying? Will they enjoy playing it? We’ve the world is consuming huge volumes had to learn where to push, how to invest of content every minute? We’re always and how to get customers committed looking at how we can cut through the to an idea. It’s all about interaction noise and create experiences that are with the community and deciding the special. Emotions are important to us— best approach. You need to give players they’re why we’ve mastered the laugh. updates, tell them what’s going to happen People want to come back and play our to a game and then commit to deadlines. games with their friends. That’s why we Some studios don’t talk until launch, some focus on creating games that are weird, talk about it early on—it’s about pegging wonderful and quirky, that grab attention the right approach and building a in this super busy world. relationship with the community.

WHAT IS I AM FISH? WHY SHOULD I BECOME FISH? WHERE IS MY FISH? It is the sequel to Bossa’s unexpectedly Because your journey to the ocean will Your fish starts out inside a goldfish bowl, toasty treat, I Am Bread. In this game be one filled with stories of joy, sorrow one that has been strategically placed on a players are in control of a goldfish that and elation. Because you will discover the window ledge so that your fish can see the has to navigate all sorts of challenging immense satisfaction of being able to take sea. And then your fish will die, repeatedly, situations in order to make its way back to the humble goldfish to a new life in the as you make your way across swimming the ocean. Because this is the dream of sea. That is why you should become fish. pools, trampolines, disco halls, roads and all goldfish… high wires while trying to keep your glass bowl from smashing before you get to your destination. AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios

Sylvain: “We wanted everything in already online. I am not exaggerating the cloud” when I say that the biggest problem in “AWS gave us the our move to remote working was finding opportunity to move We didn’t want to build our own people chairs. infrastructure; we wanted everything in away from having the cloud with a minimum number of to manage our own servers in-house and the ability to commit Sylvain: “A complete move to AWS” to infrastructure that works at a small infrastructure and In the beginning, we didn’t want to use scale. We’ve worked with AWS since the too many proprietary AWS technologies, to benefit from the beginning and we’ve lived through the so we could move platforms if we wanted evolution of its services. As soon as Docker latest thinking in an to. But the cost of maintaining other containers came into play, we created our integrated way.” - databases and services was so high— own version of Platform-as-a-Service so we were paying a cost now for what we Sylvain we could run multiple servers. We’re always might use later. So, we’ve completely looking for the kind of support that allows migrated to AWS databases, and the team us to run games in development, while is finalizing our move away from Google delivering on costs that are proportionate Cloud Platform and using Google to the game. If the games are successful, BigQuery. We’re now using Amazon we can scale; if not, they won’t cost us that DynamoDB for our backend database, much. AWS strikes the right balance of Amazon EKS for our services, Amazon services, automation and control. CloudFront for content delivery and AWS This says a lot about our relationship Fargate for serverless compute. Surgeon with AWS. We’re very careful about what Simulator 2 is logging its telemetry with decisions we make around technology— Amazon Kinesis via Amazon Redshift—an we only choose the solutions that are architecture designed in collaboration with right for us. We constantly question the the AWS Data Lab team. The microservices tools, engines and technology to make powering the online components for the sure they’re still the best fit for us. We game are using Kubernetes deployed to stay away from statements like ‘industry brand new EKS clusters that talk to one standard’—we only care what’s best for another via Amazon Simple Notification our games. AWS gave us the opportunity Service (SNS) and Amazon Simple Queue to move away from having to manage our Service (SQS). own infrastructure and to benefit from the One of our biggest tech moments this year latest thinking in an integrated way. was our move to Amazon EKS containers. We’ve designed our systems in such a way We shifted our entire backend to that they allow us to create new games Kubernetes, as it offers stable servers, is on backend technology that we’ve already easier to scale and is simpler to work with. built. This investment made it easy for us It was a huge move forward for Surgeon to transition to everyone working from Simulator 2 and the team is incredibly home during lockdown. We already had proud of it. The result is a very stable game our teams in place and our systems were for players. AWS IS HOW GAME TECH EDITION Volume 2 Bossa Studios At-a-Glance AWS Services used: Roberta: “We’re proud of to achieve your goals and always be ready people. If the gaming industry continues to being daring” to learn and experiment. under-represent certain people and beliefs, EKS CloudFront DynamoDB then it will be teaching the wrong things When I think about Bossa, I think about the I think entrepreneurs are half-scientists, to younger gamers. Games expose people words ‘bold’ and ‘creative’. We do genre- half-artists. You start by failing many times to experiences and shape worldviews, defining games, we take risks and we bring until you get to the point where you’ve particularly those of younger gamers. We mastered your art. Anyone starting a studio new ideas into the world. The chance of Amazon Amazon need to be part of that change, and the AWS Fargate failing multiple times is very high, but the Kinesis Redshift today needs to be patient and have high move towards diversity and inclusion in this vision holds us together. Games need to be resilience. You’ll learn so much—the right creative medium we all inhabit. people to hire, how to build a culture and bolder; they need to focus on diversity and how to refine your vision. Lead your team inclusion; they need to represent different

AWS Data SNS SQS Lab team

Key games:

(2015) (2020) (2021)

Fast fact:

Surgeon Simulator was developed in 48 hours, commercialized in three months, sold millions of copies and became a cult hit with dedicated gamer YouTube channels and countless Twitch streams.

Follow:

www.bossastudios.com

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@bossastudios