BUILD, BUY, CO-DEV OR AI - 30 Years of Backend Evolution Through a Veteran's Eyes

As a 20-year Sony veteran who worked on connecting the PS1 and PS2 online, I watched multiplayer backend services transform from the era of dial-up and hosting your own servers to the modern cloud services. The technology isn't the only thing that evolved - the way we build games has changed too. We have shifted from in-house engineering to a "film model" of co-development. With GenAI joining the scene, we’re evolving again. In this session, we will explore the continual evolution of backend engineering, and look to the future. We will examine why AI is the industry's newest "intern," how our teams will interact with it, using practices like Spec Driven Development, and how we will work in harmony to accelerate development. Crucially, we will discuss why the core knowledge, understanding, and IP of your code must ultimately remain in the hands of human developers and your studio.