Case Study: Pocket Gems achieves scalable real-time multiplayer success with Google Cloud Platform

Pocket Gems Pioneering mobile games and entertainment

Pocket Gems, a San Francisco mobile games studio founded in 2009 with more than 300 million downloads across titles, set out to pioneer next‑generation synchronous, collaborative mobile games. The company needed a backend that could scale to hundreds of thousands of simultaneous players, support rapid A/B testing and player analytics, and let the team iterate quickly to create personalized, socially engaging experiences.

By building on Google Cloud Platform (App Engine and Cloud Datastore) Pocket Gems achieved highly available, on‑demand scalability and robust testing tools for War Dragons. The game supports large-scale synchronous play, generated top‑grossing placement in the iTunes App Store after launch, earned strong player reviews and a dedicated community, and helped establish Pocket Gems as a leader in real‑time mobile gameplay.

Pocket Gems

Harlan Crystal

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer