Clients cases – Case Study: TapNation 
"Google Cloud has significantly improved how we scale, refine, and manage our games. From real-time analytics with BigQuery to the well-integrated cloud infrastructure powered by Compute Engine and Cloud SQL, every aspect of our operations is now data-driven and highly efficient. The integration of AI and automation has allowed us to streamline game development and player engagement, while Web3 capabilities are helping us explore innovative revenue models. Thanks to Google Cloud, we can confidently expand the possibilities of mobile gaming while keeping costs under control."
TapNation is a leading mobile game publisher, with 50+ titles generating over 1.5 billion downloads. Founded in 2019, the company has rapidly grown by leveraging AI, machine learning, and data-driven insights to optimize game performance, monetization, and user engagement. TapNation continuously refines and scales its games through A/B testing, KPI analysis, and automation, advancing mobile gaming experiences by helping developers create engaging and profitable experiences.
To sustain its rapid growth, TapNation needed a robust, cloud-based infrastructure capable of supporting millions of players while keeping costs under control. The company faced several key challenges:
To solve these challenges, TapNation turned to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for a growth-ready and cost-effective infrastructure.
At TapNation, every player’s action fuels smarter decisions. With millions of users engaging daily, real-time insights are key to optimizing gameplay, engagement, and monetization. TapNation’s analytics suite connects Firebase, Google Analytics, and BigQuery, transforming raw data into actionable insights:
BigQuery serves as the backbone of TapNation’s data-driven strategy, allowing teams to quickly process and analyze complex datasets. Looker’s BI dashboards provide clear, real-time insights, helping developers make informed decisions.
For monetization, BigQuery and Google Ads work together to optimize user acquisition, ad placements, and in-app purchases, ensuring the right players find the right games.
To deliver low-latency gameplay and high availability, TapNation relies on a scalable cloud architecture powered by Google Cloud. This infrastructure supports millions of players while ensuring efficient operations and cost control.
TapNation manages its game infrastructure using Compute Engine, which hosts game servers to provide fast processing and minimal latency. To handle traffic spikes, Load Balancing evenly distributes player requests across multiple servers, preventing service interruptions and lag.
To optimize performance further, Memory Store enables fast caching, improving database response times for real-time interactions. Cloud SQL manages structured game data, while BigQuery powers large-scale analytics, helping TapNation extract valuable insights from player behavior.
For event-driven game mechanics, Pub/Sub processes real-time game events, triggering instant responses to keep gameplay dynamic. Artifact Registry securely stores the Docker images, while Cloud Storage serves as a CDN endpoint for the game builds before they are pushed to the stores.
On the web side, App Engine supports TapNation’s internal game management tools, integrating smoothly with BigQuery and Cloud SQL for efficient data handling.
As TapNation expands into blockchain-powered gaming, the company is introducing Web3 technologies to enable incentive-driven gaming experiences. Players can earn, store, and trade digital assets within their games using an in-game wallet, with transactions secured via smart contracts on Tezos, Polkadot, and other blockchain networks.
Google Cloud supports this next-generation gaming model with:
With Web3 integrations, TapNation is creating new revenue opportunities, boosting player engagement, and a flexible gaming ecosystem.
TapNation leverages Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and Gemini AI to automate key aspects of game development, customer support, and workflow optimization. By integrating AI-driven content generation, automation, and predictive analytics, TapNation enhances both game production efficiency and player experience.
TapNation uses AI to fine-tune game mechanics, automate marketing strategies, and personalize player interactions—cutting manual work and accelerating game improvements for smarter player experiences
TapNation uses GitLab as a self-managed instance to simplify code versioning, CI/CD automation, and project management. Integrated with Jenkins and Docker, GitLab facilitates automated builds, testing, and deployments, ensuring smooth and rapid feature updates.
GitLab is also tightly connected with Google Cloud, where it automates infrastructure deployment via Artifact Registry and Compute Engine. Additionally, it plays a role in data pipelines, orchestrating job scheduling and feeding data into BigQuery for analytics.
With this setup, TapNation enables efficient game development, automated cloud infrastructure, and data-driven decision-making, all while maintaining control over large-scale projects
TapNation operates as a data-first gaming company, leveraging Google Cloud’s analytics and AI tools to optimize every stage of game development and publishing. By analyzing market trends with BigQuery and Looker, the company identifies the most promising game concepts before launch. Continuous A/B testing allows TapNation to refine game mechanics, ensuring the best possible player experience. Predictive analytics help optimize monetization strategies, balancing in-app purchases and ad revenue to maximize profitability while maintaining player engagement.
By leveraging Google Cloud’s solutions, TapNation has:
With Google Cloud, TapNation has built a future-proof gaming ecosystem that supports rapid growth and evolution.
As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Cloudfresh has been instrumental in optimizing TapNation’s cloud infrastructure and ensuring cost efficiency. Through their partnership, TapNation benefits from technical support, billing discounts, and expert consulting to maximize its cloud potential.
Cloudfresh provides Google Cloud support, helping TapNation implement flexible and high-capacity cloud solutions tailored to its gaming needs. Additionally, TapNation receives billing discounts and support for both Google Cloud and Google Workspace, allowing the company to manage cloud expenses effectively while maintaining high-performance operations.
With Cloudfresh’s expertise, TapNation is well-positioned for long-term expansion, backed by a dynamic, AI-powered, and data-driven cloud ecosystem.
TapNation continues to expand its AI and Web3 capabilities using Google Cloud to drive the next phase of growth. The company is deepening its use of AI-driven automation, particularly with Vertex AI, to further optimize game performance and predictive analytics. Additionally, the company is refining its cloud cost optimization strategies by leveraging advanced monitoring and resource management tools.
As TapNation strengthens its blockchain integrations, it aims to enhance Web3-enabled gaming with new smart contract-based economies. By continually adopting advanced cloud and AI solutions, TapNation is set to remain a leader in the mobile gaming industry, delivering innovative, engaging, and profitable experiences for players worldwide.
“Achieving that kind of efficiency with traditional infrastructure would require an enormous investment. For instance, 52 seconds to process 2.82 TB of data. This level of efficiency is our everyday reality now. Imagine pulling 3 terabytes of data from storage, running a complex query, and getting a result in under a minute — this is the power BigQuery brings to the table.”
"Google is truly a reliable leader in the field of cloud computing. We can meet the needs of our projects using GCP services, all while getting all the necessary tools for tracking. Migrating a portion of our infrastructure from bare metal to the cloud is fast and trouble-free. The professionalism and technical expertise of the Cloudfresh team support us during the implementation of new solutions, and that is genuinely valuable."
"The migration marked a significant milestone, empowering our teams to leverage cloud technology's scalability, flexibility, and security to propel the business forward. This migration journey underscored the importance of comprehensive planning, ongoing training, and community engagement. Monitoring and optimization post-migration proved crucial, as did keeping a close eye on expenses. Now, we're starting the new chapter by teaming up with Cloudfresh to maximize our Google Cloud experience."
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