Mobilityware: App Management and Distribution at scale for the gaming industry

Overview

MobilityWare is one of mobile gaming’s leading publishers of card and puzzle games. With our headquarters in the heart of Orange County and a brand new studio in Utah, they dedicated to our mission of bringing joy to others one game at a time.

Ever since their flagship title Solitaire hit the Apple App Store on the day it opened in 2008, MobilityWare has been entertaining gamers around the world. With a product portfolio that includes beloved hits such as FreeCell, MONOPOLY Solitaire, Spades, Hearts, Mahjong, and Bubble Shooter Pop, our games have been downloaded over 400 MILLION times.

MobilityWare has been named one of Built in LA’s Best Places to Work for two years in a row and we’ve been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Orange County five times by the Orange County Business Journal and OC Register. While they are proud to be the company behind some of mobile gaming’s most popular titles, their most important achievement is creating a work environment that encourages professional growth and prioritizes the wellness of all of their team members.

Meet Matt Miller

Before MobilityWare, Matt worked as a Senior Java Developer at VerysVerys. Now he is the Lead Site Reliability Engineer at MobilityWare, being working with Applivery App Distribution for more than 2 years.

What brought you to Applivery?

A couple of years ago, we were working with HockeyApp for the management of their app distribution lifecycle. After the acquisition by Microsoft and the switch to AppCenter, we decided to take a look at other alternatives in the market and also considered building our own internal solution. After a deep research and comparing with many other options out there, we finally decided to move into Applivery.

During the testing phase of the platform, we realized that there were some feature gaps and requirements that were not fully covered, but at all times we had the support of the Applivery technical team to resolve those gaps and implement the functionality that was needed in record time.

How do you use Applivery today? Did we solve a critical problem?

MobilityWare develops multiple game suites and deploys more than 5.000 different versions and variants of their apps every month. These apps are distributed across the teams within the studio. Having multiple groups in the studio that work on different apps on different times with different requirements is a bit of a challenge so MobilityWare relied on Applivery to fully automate Apps deployment to the teams, creating multiple publications for each of those groups so that the new versions could be funnelled in a controlled way. CI/CD integration is key for Mobilityware in order to really automate the deployment process and avoid any human interaction. Advanced users management and segmented distributions are very important tools to be able to deliver the right versions to each team and team member in an instant and automated way. Do you use Applivery in combination with any other products? MobilityWare uses Applivery in combination with Atlassian Bitbucket for the source control and Jetbrains TeamCity for the management of the CI/CD pipeline and the generation of the artefacts that are deployed automatically to Applivery for both iOS and Android apps.

Why did Mobilityware choose us?

The beta testing helps identify product issues, gather user feedback, improve quality, user experience, and increase customer satisfaction, leading to a more successful product launch and long-term success. It also help us save money and time by catching and fixing problems before the product goes live.

The Applivery’s automated deploy allows faster and more efficient software releases, reducing manual errors and increasing productivity. It also enables continuous delivery and helps to achieve consistent, reliable, and scalable deployments, leading to improved software quality and faster time-to-market. Additionally, automated deployment reduces the risk of downtime.

The Applivery’s CI & CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment) reduces development cycle time, improves quality, and enables faster delivery of features and fixes. It also automates testing and deployment processes, increases collaboration, and allows for rapid feedback, leading to higher customer satisfaction. Additionally, CI & CD help us to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced gaming development industry.