Amazon GameLift solutions - Amazon GameLift
Hosting optionsAmazon GameLift FlexMatch for matchmakingAmazon GameLift FleetIQ for self-managed Amazon EC2 hostingAmazon GameLift Realtime Servers with customizable server logic
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Amazon GameLift solutions

Amazon GameLift offers a range of solutions for developers who are building session-based multiplayer games.

Amazon GameLift hosting options

When working with the Amazon GameLift service to operate your game servers, you have several options for where and how your game servers are hosted. Whether you want to use hosting resources you already have, such as on-premises hardware, or want to set up fully managed cloud-based hosting with Amazon GameLift, you can use Amazon GameLift tooling to build a seamless hosting experience for your players.

Managed EC2

Managed EC2

With Amazon GameLift managed EC2 hosting, you can offload most of the work of managing your game servers. Choose compute resources from a wide selection of Amazon EC2 instance types. Integrate your game projects to work with Amazon GameLift features and let Amazon GameLift handle the details. For more about Amazon GameLift managed hosting, see How Amazon GameLift works.

Start developing an Amazon GameLift managed hosting solution for your game.

Key features

  • Host multiplayer games that run on Amazon Linux or Windows Server operating systems.

  • Provide low-latency gameplay experiences to your players, wherever they are. Deploy game servers globally across any of the Amazon Web Services Regions and Local Zones that Amazon GameLift supports. For a complete list, see Amazon GameLift service locations.

  • Use Amazon GameLift intelligent game session placement so that players always get the best possible hosted player experience. You can rely on Amazon GameLift decision-making, or you can customize around placement criteria such as cost, player latency, and geographic locations.

  • Choose how to scale your hosting resources to meet player demand. Manage capacity manually or set up automatic scaling. With target-based auto scaling, you can maintain a dynamically sized buffer of idle capacity, which helps you control costs while ensuring that new players can get into games with minimal waiting.

  • Let Amazon GameLift deploy and manage your cloud-based game servers. Amazon GameLift creates resources as you need them, installs your game server software, and automatically starts processes to host game sessions for players. Set up custom health tracking and let Amazon GameLift detect and resolve poor-performing resources.

  • Take advantage of Amazon GameLift monitoring capabilities to assess performance and usage. You can track metrics on factors such as hardware performance, game session placement efficiency, and server process life cycles. You can track active game sessions and player sessions to observe usage over time. You can also download and store game session logs.

  • For production hosting, automate your game hosting resource management and deployments using Amazon CloudFormation templates for Amazon GameLift and the Amazon Cloud Development Kit (Amazon CDK). Take advantage of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools and services such as Amazon CodePipeline.

Amazon GameLift FlexMatch for matchmaking

Use Amazon GameLift FlexMatch to build custom rule sets to define multiplayer matches for your game. FlexMatch uses rule sets to compare compatible players for each match and provide players with the ideal multiplayer experience.

For more information about FlexMatch, see What is Amazon GameLift FlexMatch?

Key features

  • Balance match creation speed and match quality.

  • Match players or teams based on defined characteristics.

  • Define rules to place players into matches based on latency.

Amazon GameLift FleetIQ for self-managed Amazon EC2 hosting

Use Amazon GameLift FleetIQ to work directly with your hosting resources in Amazon EC2 and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling. This provides the benefit of Amazon GameLift optimizations for inexpensive, resilient game hosting. This solution is for game developers who need more flexibility than what fully managed Amazon GameLift solutions provide.

For information about how Amazon GameLift FleetIQ works with Amazon EC2 and EC2 Auto Scaling for game hosting, see the Amazon GameLift FleetIQ Developer Guide.

Key features

  • Get optimized Spot Instance balancing using the FleetIQ algorithm.

  • Use player routing features to manage your game server resources efficiently, and provide a better player experience for joining games.

  • Automatically scale hosting capacity based on player usage.

  • Directly manage Amazon EC2 instances in your own Amazon Web Services account.

  • Use any of the supported game server executable formats, including Windows, Linux, containers, and Kubernetes.

Amazon GameLift Realtime Servers with customizable server logic

Use Realtime Servers to stand up games that don't need custom-built game servers. This lightweight server solution provides game servers that you can configure to fit your game. You can host Realtime Servers using an Amazon GameLift managed hosting solution.

For more information about Amazon GameLift hosting with Realtime Servers, see Integrating games with Amazon GameLift Realtime Servers.

Key features

  • Use Amazon GameLift management features, including auto scaling, multi-location queues, and game session placement.

  • Use Amazon GameLift hosting resources and choose the type of Amazon computing hardware for your fleets.

  • Take advantage of a full network stack for game client and server interaction.

  • Get core game server functionality with customizable server logic.

  • Make live updates to Realtime configurations and server logic.