How Omeda migrated to Pragma and improved matchmaking

While Omeda’s previous backend provider allowed them to get the basics up and running, they quickly hit a wall where adding new online features became extremely slow and difficult.

With only a few months until the Predecessor global free-to-play launch, the Omeda team determined that their backend was not reliable nor customizable enough to enable them to confidently deliver the game that fans had patiently waited for. The team couldn’t build the custom matchmaker and a variety of meta game features they knew their player community needed. They were stuck with a ‘black box’ backend that was preventing them from building the game as envisioned. Also, without access to the backend source code, they couldn’t thoroughly test it, run it locally, and check for performance.

After thoroughly researching the landscape of backend providers, the team decided to partner up with Pragma on Predecessor for a few reasons:

1. •
   Complete extensibility, so that they could build everything they wanted for their loyal players.
2. •
   Full ownership, control and source code access, so they didn’t have to take risks with 3rd party dependencies, and so that they’d have the ability to make the changes they want when they want.
3. •
   The experience of the Pragma team and their hands-on support model, including pre-launch load testing and live ops, so that they could launch and run the game with confidence.

Co-Development

For their backend engine, live game hosting and co-development, the Omeda team worked closely with the Pragma, Amazon GameLift and Code Wizards teams. Importantly, to ensure a seamless cutover, they thoroughly and realistically load-tested their backend using Pragma’s standard - giving them the confidence that the game would stand up to more than 1M CCU.

After just 5 months, the new Pragma-powered backend was ready to go-live - a remarkable feat of teamwork, expertise and technology.

Cutover

On March 28, 2024 Predecessor released as free-to-play (F2P) with global cross-platform play support for Epic Games Store, Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. The Pragma-powered backend helps Omeda serve over 1 million players.

Player Love

The live-game cutover was seamless and did not disrupt the player’s experience, and it was followed by an increase in positive reviews and favorable comments from the player community. As an example, the new matchmaker that the Omeda team built on Pragma cut the average distance from highest to lowest player in a lobby by almost 70% and decreased average matchmaking queue times by 66%.