Plura is designed to be a secure and unintrusive way for game developers to generate more revenue. Follow the diagram below to learn how and why we do this.
- Step 1: The user starts playing your game and the game initiates Plura
- Step 2: The user's computer requests, computes, and returns WUs
- Step 3: Plura pays the developer for the computation
Step 1: The user starts playing your game and the game initiates Plura
Plura supports desktop and web-based games.
If the game is hosted on a website, like a Flash game, the developer only needs to include 1 line of iframe code. We will soon be releasing a Javascript API for dynamically controlling how this iframe is loaded, giving the developer control over starting, stopping, and controlling CPU usage in Plura. The iframe loads a Java web applet, which runs completely in memory. This applet is forcibly restricted from accessing the user's computer by the sandbox model provided by Sun.
If the game is a desktop application or a Java-based web applet, the developer can call Plura from within his own code. Plura is sandboxed here as well.
When the game initiates Plura, the user can continue to play without interruption. We recommend that developers choose to initiate Plura when the user's computer is idle.
Step 2: The user's computer requests, computes, and returns WUs
Once Plura is initiated, the user's computer will connect to Plura and request a WU. A WU is a work unit and it consists of data and computation instructions. The size of a WU typically ranges from 1k - 2mb.
WUs come from applications using Plura. The commercial and research groups that create these applications pay us to provide computing power for them. These applications perform a variety of tasks, such as seismic analysis, protein modeling, stock market modeling, etc.
After receiving the WU, the user's computer will perform the computation. The game developer can control how much of the user's CPU is devoted to computation by setting the % usage (either statically or dynamically). By doing so, the developer ensures that Plura doesn't interfere with gameplay. All computation is done in memory and doesn't touch the hard drive at all. Plura can't compromise the user's computer.
Once computation is complete, the result is sent back to Plura. The application that created the WU will use the result to solve whatever fascinating and challenging problem it's working on.
Step 3: Plura pays the developer for the computation
We record completion of the WU and that we owe the developer for this. The more WUs completed by a game, the more we pay the developer. You can use the following formula to estimate how much money your game could generate using Plura:
Monthly payment = $2.60 * # avg. simultaneous users * CPU % |
Note that payments depend on compute demand from our customers. As such, payments to affiliates can vary from month to month.