PARIS – November 18, 2008 – Akamai Technologies Limited, a subsidiary of Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced that Ankama, the developer of the massive multiplayer online role-playing game DOFUS, has chosen Akamai’s Electronic Software Delivery and Dynamic Site Accelerator solutions to handle the surge of gamers flocking to its online games and websites, and to address the traffic spikes following the release of updates on the DOFUS website.
Owing to the international success of its role-playing game DOFUS now has 10 million members worldwide. The French headquartered Ankama group, with over 300 employees worldwide, recognized its need to improve its download and response times on its online gaming websites in order to provide demanding gamers an excellent user experience.
Ankama’s main goal was to manage the dramatic spikes in website traffic that could occur whenever the company pushes out a DOFUS update. To handle these recurring load increases, Ankama sought a reliable partner who could meet this challenge successfully and thus, ensure the online distribution of its updates with the best possible quality and price ratio.
Akamai, a benchmark partner of top gaming publishers, recommended its Electronic Software Delivery solution, which allows all types of software to be delivered with optimum performance, making it easier for users to download online games from the Ankama website.
“After an initial one-month testing phase, Akamai’s download solution performed very well and accomplished its main goal – that was to handle massive traffic spikes for Ankama website and sometimes even exceeding 24 Gbps,” said Jerome Renoux, Major Account Executive of Digital Media at Akamai. “Our content routing capabilities combined with our strong commitment to service quality were also key factors that set us apart from our competitors. The performance was immediately reflected in the sharp rise in the number of game subscriptions recorded on Ankama’s DOFUS game website after implementing the Akamai’s solutions.”
After this conclusive trial period, Akamai subsequently recommended the Dynamic Site Accelerator solution, a unique service that accelerates the speed, scope and performance of websites featuring the richest interactive content. Akamai currently delivers 10-20% of all Internet traffic worldwide and has the largest web content delivery and acceleration platform, with more than 40,000 servers connected to 900 networks in 70 countries. The Akamai solutions mean that Ankama does not have to deploy its own global download platform or worry about possibly overloading its own platform when releasing new patches, upgrades and demos.
“We spent several months looking for a service provider to ensure optimal bandwidth quality for both normal everyday web traffic and dramatic load increases. Akamai was the only provider that was able to come up with an effective solution to this twofold issue. Since partnering with Akamai, our technical teams have been able to breathe more easily,” commented Thomas Bahon, Ankama’s Director of Products.
Bahon added, “The solutions deployed by Akamai live up to their promises and provide the quality of service that we want to offer our global gamers on a daily basis so that we can keep expanding internationally and secure our position as leader of France’s online gaming market. We needed a partner that could truly support us in achieving our ambitions. In addition to increasing the ease of installing download solutions for our users and the fact that Akamai now takes care of all our storage needs, we have observed a marked increase in the number of hits on our websites from online gamers and visitors ever since we set up this platform.”
About the ANKAMA Group
Founded by Anthony Roux, Camille Chafer, and Emmanuel Darras in Roubaix, France in 2001, ANKAMA is an independent group which produces digital creations and employs over 300 people. The international success of the group’s MMORPG DOFUS, with more than 10 million players, enabled ANKAMA to branch out into several related industries: online games, publishing, animations, web design, press, mobile phone services, video games for next gen’ consoles. ANKAMA is also currently developing Wakfu, a crossmedia project including animated series/video game/card games and comic books. Find out more on our official website: www.ankama-group.com
DOFUS
Treading a lush path between video game and animated cartoon, DOFUS brings a whole new dimension to online Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. With its manga-inspired graphics, gripping tactical game play and wild humor, DOFUS has created a unique style of its own for other MMORPGs to follow and currently boasts 10 million players worldwide. Find out more on the official website: www.dofus.com.
The Akamai Difference
Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering rich media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai’s services have been adopted by the world’s most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai’s global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.
