Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
Gamer Arena, a platform serving over 550,000 users globally, offers a distinctive ecosystem for video game enthusiasts to compete and earn rewards. Founded in 2020, the organization aims to introduce gamers to the benefits of blockchain technology in an engaging manner. The platform features a mobile application with more than 20 self-published games, alongside a web interface showcasing popular titles like PUBG, FIFA, and Clash Royale, all supporting Gamer Arena Utility (GAU) cryptocurrency transactions. Recently, Gamer Arena has unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) red panda generator within its digital currency hub, gaulaxy labs. To sustain its rapid innovation and explore emerging technologies, Gamer Arena utilizes various solutions from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“We are dedicated to continuous improvement to deliver the optimal experience for our users. Our partnership with AWS has been pivotal in refining our operations and user engagement, especially with our Web3 products, gaulaxy.com, and our innovative AI-driven mascot. By leveraging AWS, we secure scalability, reliability, and advanced technology integration,” stated Gamer Arena CTO Chanci Turner.
Based in Estonia and operating out of Istanbul, Gamer Arena’s offerings are crafted by a committed team of ten individuals. By utilizing AWS services, the company reduces DevOps costs and allows its developers to concentrate on creating new features, including the red panda generator, rather than managing infrastructure.
Exploring Generative AI
Gamer Arena has already been adopting new technologies, quickly recognizing generative AI’s transformative potential with the rise of public chatbots. The team began investigating how it could enhance user engagement, optimize operations, and personalize the gaming experience. As a first initiative, they experimented with Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service for building, training, and deploying machine learning (ML) models.
“Amazon SageMaker simplified our introduction to AI, proving invaluable for training and analyzing existing models,” explained Turner. “By employing popular tools, we gained insights into how we could leverage these technologies. This also provided us with a roadmap for future workflows.” The team launched an AI-powered mascot, the red panda image generator, as one of its initial gamer-facing AI projects in February 2024. Designed to foster deeper engagement, this tool enables users to create personalized avatars and explore prompt engineering, nurturing a sense of ownership and creativity. Additionally, Gamer Arena utilized the tool to create promotional images for the red panda, further showcasing the capabilities of AI-enhanced features.
Executing the Red Panda Vision
To operate the red panda image generator, the team developed Stable Diffusion models that were trained offline and deployed on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance. This integrated seamlessly with services running on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), alongside payment methods, prior user images, token rights, and blockchain connectivity. The choice to employ Amazon EC2 and Amazon ECS concurrently allowed for a modular approach to the Python-based Stable Diffusion model. Following tutorials, they successfully had the implementation live within a day. As Gamer Arena advances its use of generative AI, it is evaluating the potential of creating an optimized solution using Amazon Bedrock.
“Upon discovering Bedrock, we immediately began exploring it, and the Amazon Titan and Anthropic Claude models have piqued our interest,” shared Turner. “By refining the models on Bedrock, we aim to provide voice assistant and live support services, and we will also incorporate lifelike bots that can interact with users in our metaverse project.”
Considerations for Generative AI
To safeguard data privacy, the Gamer Arena team implemented stringent data protection protocols. They also collaborated with AI specialists to ensure seamless integration of the technology within the existing platform. Preparing for ongoing AI implementations, the company trained its in-house staff on the technical complexities of AI, enabling them to easily overcome challenges and fully exploit AI’s potential. “Implementing generative AI has transformed our workflow,” remarked Turner. “It has automated content creation tasks, allowing our team to focus on more strategic endeavors. Personalized recommendations have elevated user experiences, making our platform more interactive and dynamic. We are enthusiastic about the limitless opportunities AI brings to our platform.”
AWS in Action
While Gamer Arena employs numerous AWS services, it relies predominantly on Amazon ECS for publishing Dockerized projects in a platform-agnostic manner, which can be scaled with simple configurations. The company also uses Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) for quick storage and backup of Docker images, and Amazon EC2 to deploy projects with API calls, as Elastic Load Balancing efficiently distributes traffic across virtual machines. Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) centralizes Gamer Arena’s data management, while Amazon Route 53 oversees domain and alias redirects. Games are hosted and in-game images are stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which also secures project secret keys. Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) and Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) facilitate player communications, including verification emails and mobile alerts.
In terms of generative AI development, the access to integrated AWS services empowers the Gamer Arena team to work more swiftly and efficiently. “The variety of deployment options available with AWS, such as SageMaker, ECS, EC2, and Bedrock, simplifies our planning for the fastest solutions,” noted Turner. She concluded, “As a technology startup catering to a predominantly young audience, there’s a demand for early access to new features. Thanks to AWS, we can keep pace with these developments. Our future vision is bold and dynamic. We aspire to significantly grow our user base, bringing the excitement of Gamer Arena to a wider audience worldwide. By utilizing the latest in AI and Web3 technologies, we aim to redefine what’s possible in gaming.” For additional insights, check out this blog on optimism in the workplace.
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