Amazon GameLift release notes - Amazon GameLift
SDK versionsRelease notes
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Amazon GameLift release notes

The Amazon GameLift release notes provide details about new features, updates, and fixes related to the service.

SDK versions

The following tables list all Amazon GameLift releases with SDK version information. There is no requirement to use comparable SDKs for your game server and client integrations. However, earlier versions of one SDK may not fully support the latest features in another.

For more information about Amazon GameLift SDKs, see Development support with Amazon GameLift.

To get the latest Amazon GameLift SDKs, see the Amazon GameLift SDKs download site.

Current version

Service release Amazon SDK Server SDK Realtime client SDK
C# C# plugin for Unity C++ C++ plugin for Unreal Go
2023-12-14 1.11.225 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
Service release Amazon SDK Server SDK Realtime client SDK
C# C# plugin for Unity C++ C++ plugin for Unreal Go
2023-04-20 1.11.63 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
2023-01-31 1.10.21 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
2022-08-25 1.9.333 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
2021-10-28 1.9.133 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
2021-06-03 1.8.168 or later 4.0.2 3.4.2 3.4.0 1.2.0
2021-03-23 1.8.168 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.3 1.1.0
2021-03-16 1.8.163 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.3 1.1.0
2021-02-09 1.8.139 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.3 1.1.0
2020-12-22 1.8.95 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.3 1.1.0
2020-11-24 1.8.95 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.2 1.1.0
2020-11-11 1.8.36 or later 4.0.2 3.4.1 3.3.2 1.1.0
2020-09-17 1.8.36 or later 4.0.1 3.4.1 3.3.2 1.1.0
2020-08-27 1.7.310 or later 4.0.0 3.4.0 3.3.1 1.1.0
2020-04-16 1.7.310 or later 4.0.0 3.4.0 3.3.1 1.1.0
2020-04-02 1.7.310 or later 3.4.0 3.4.0 1.1.0
2019-12-19 1.7.249 or later 3.4.0 3.4.0 1.1.0
2019-11-14 1.7.210 or later 3.4.0 3.4.0 1.1.0
2019-10-24 1.7.210 or later 3.4.0 3.4.0 1.1.0
2019-09-03 1.7.175 or later 3.4.0 3.4.0 1.1.0
2019-07-09 1.7.140 or later 3.3.0 3.3.0 1.0.0
2019-04-25 1.7.91 or later 3.3.0 3.3.0 1.0.0
2019-03-07 1.7.65 or later 3.3.0 3.3.0
2019-02-07 1.7.45 or later 3.3.0 3.3.0
2018-12-14 1.6.20 or later 3.3.0 3.3.0
2018-09-27 1.6.20 or later 3.2.1 3.2.1
2018-06-14 1.4.47 or later 3.2.1 3.2.1
2018-05-10 1.4.47 or later 3.2.1 3.2.1
2018-02-15 1.3.58 or later 3.2.1 3.2.1
2018-02-08 1.3.52 or later 3.2.0 3.2.0
2017-09-01 1.1.43 or later 3.1.7 3.1.7
2017-08-16 1.1.31 or later 3.1.7 3.1.7
2017-05-16 1.0.122 or later 3.1.5 3.1.5
2017-04-11 1.0.103 or later 3.1.5 3.1.5
2017-02-21 1.0.72 or later 3.1.5 3.1.5
2016-11-18 1.0.31 or later 3.1.0
2016-10-13 1.0.17 or later 3.1.0
2016-09-01 0.14.9 or later 3.1.0
2016-08-04 0.12.16 or later 3.0.7

Release notes

The following release notes are in chronological order, with the latest updates listed first. Amazon GameLift was first released in 2016. For release notes dated earlier than those listed here, see the release date links in SDK versions.

You can now manage your entire Amazon GameLift resource stack using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools. These tools include Amazon CloudFormation, and also third-party tools such as Terraform and Pulumi. With this added support, you can now focus on building your game, and leverage dev-Ops strategies to take care of resource management, continuous integration and deployment to your customers.

You can also now provision and configure all Amazon GameLift resources types by using the Amazon Cloud Control API. You can continue to work with resources using the Amazon GameLift APIs or the Amazon CloudFormation templates for Amazon GameLift.

For details about the Amazon GameLift resources available through IaC, see the https://docs.amazonaws.cn/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/AWS_GameLift.html.

In addition, you can now automatically scale your fleets using Amazon CloudFormation templates or the Amazon Cloud Control API by using the new Fleet property: ScalingPolicies.

The Cloud Control API gives developers a standard set of APIs to create, read, update, delete, and list resources (CRUDL) across hundreds of Amazon services and multiple third-party tools like Terraform and Pulumi.

Learn more:

You've already been able to set game properties when creating game sessions, and to search game sessions for specified properties. Now you can also add and update these properties in an active game session.

For example, your players vote on a map that they want to play on. Your game client calls UpdateGameSession to modify a GameProperty value to {"Key": "map", "Value":"jungle"}. Your game then implements the new map for the players in the game session.

Game administrators can also retrieve useful data from game properties by using the SearchGameSessions operation. For example, administrators can list game sessions that have a Status value of ACTIVE and this game property: {"Key": "map", "Value":"desert"}.

Learn more:

The new Amazon GameLift console is now the default experience for customers in all regions, including China. It includes these improvements:

  • Improved navigation – The new navigation pane facilitates navigation between Amazon GameLift resources.

  • Amazon GameLift landing page – The new landing page provides links to helpful documentation, displays a high-level overview of Amazon GameLift, and provides support through links to documentation, frequently asked questions, and Amazon Web Services re:Post.

  • Improved Amazon CloudWatch metrics – Amazon GameLift metrics are now available in both the Amazon GameLift console and your CloudWatch dashboards. This update also includes new metrics for performance, utilization, hardware, and player sessions.

You can now track hardware performance metrics for your Amazon GameLift managed EC2 fleets. Metrics include EC2 instance metrics for CPU utilization, network traffic volume, and disk read/write activity. For Amazon GameLift, these metrics describe all active instances in a fleet location. You can view these fleet hardware metrics using an Amazon CloudWatch dashboard in the Amazon Web Services Management Console. You can also view them in the Amazon GameLift console in fleet details.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.11.87

If you use Amazon GameLift FleetIQ for game hosting, you can now prevent game session placements on instances that are currently draining. Draining instances are flagged for shutdown, but they can still be selected to host new game sessions if no other hosting resources are available. With this new feature, you can exclude the use of draining instances entirely.

Use this feature when calling ClaimGameServer to find available game servers. Add the new FilterOption parameter and set allowed instance statuses to ACTIVE only. In response, Amazon GameLift FleetIQ looks only at active instances when searching for and claiming an available game server.

Learn more:

Amazon GameLift customers can now use Amazon Billing cost allocation tags to organize their game hosting costs. You can assign cost allocation tags to individual Amazon GameLift EC2 fleet resources to track how your fleets are contributing to the overall hosting costs.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.11.63

Amazon GameLift customers can now use the Windows Server 2016 operating system to host their game servers. This operating system is available in all Amazon Web Services Regions. Customers can use the newer Windows operating system and continue to receive critical security updates as Microsoft ends its support for Windows Server 2012 in October 2023.

Starting today, new customers who require a Windows runtime environment must specify Windows Server 2016 when creating new game server builds for hosting. Existing customers can continue to create new builds and fleets with Windows Server 2012 but must complete migration with Windows Server 2016 before the Microsoft end of support date on October 10, 2023.

This update includes the following service changes:

  • When creating a game server build using Amazon GameLift SDK or CLI commands, you must now explicitly set the operating system. There is no longer a default value. To deploy your game server on Windows Server 2016, use the value WINDOWS_2016.

  • When creating a game server build using the Amazon GameLift console, you must select an operating system from the available values. If you're an existing customer with active Windows Server 2012 fleets, you can choose either WINDOWS_2012 or WINDOWS_2016.

Learn more:

The new Amazon GameLift console includes these improvements:

  • Improved navigation – The new navigation pane facilitates navigation between Amazon GameLift resources.

  • Amazon GameLift landing page – The new landing page provides links to helpful documentation, displays a high-level overview of Amazon GameLift, and provides support through links to documentation, frequently asked questions, and Amazon Web Services re:Post.

  • Improved Amazon CloudWatch metrics – Amazon GameLift metrics are now available in both the Amazon GameLift console and your CloudWatch dashboards. This update also includes new metrics for performance, utilization, and player sessions.

Learn more:

Server Side Encryption ((SSE)) for SNS topics encrypts your sensitive data at rest. SSE uses Amazon Key Management Service (Amazon KMS) keys to protect the contents of your SNS topics.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Server SDK 5.0.0 for Go

Learn more:

The new Amazon GameLift console includes these improvements:

  • Improved navigation – The new navigation pane facilitates navigation between Amazon GameLift resources.

  • Amazon GameLift landing page – The new landing page provides links to helpful documentation, displays a high-level overview of Amazon GameLift, and provides support through links to documentation, frequently asked questions, and Amazon Web Services re:Post.

  • Improved Amazon CloudWatch metrics – Amazon GameLift metrics are now available in both the Amazon GameLift console and your CloudWatch dashboards. This update also includes new metrics for performance, utilization, and player sessions.

Learn more:

FlexMatch users now have access to the following features:

  • Compound rule – Added support for compound matchmaking rules for matches of 40 or fewer players. You can now use logical statements to create a compound rule to form a match. Without a compound rule in your rule set, to form a match, all the rules in the rule set must be true. With compound rules, you can choose which rules to apply using the following logical operators: and, or, not, and xor.

  • Flexible team selection – Updated matchmaking property expressions to support selecting a subset of all available teams.

  • Longer string lists – Increased the maximum number of strings from 10 to 100 in a list of strings of player attribute values.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.9.133

Amazon GameLift is now available in the Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region. Game developers can now deploy instances in Osaka using GameLift multi-Region fleet.

You can now use Graviton2-hosted game servers, based on the Arm-based processor architecture, to achieve increased performance at a lower cost when compared to the equivalent Intel-based compute options.

Highlights:

  • Amazon GameLift is now available in the Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region.

  • Amazon GameLift FleetIQ game server groups can now be configured to manage the Graviton2 instance families c6g, m6g, and r6g.

Learn more:

The Amazon GameLift plugin for Unity version 1.0.0 contains libraries and native UI that makes it easier to access Amazon GameLift resources and integrate Amazon GameLift into your Unity game. You can use the Amazon GameLift plugin for Unity to access Amazon GameLift APIs and deploy Amazon CloudFormation templates for common gaming scenarios. The plugin also includes a sample game that works with the sample scenarios. You can use Amazon GameLift Local to see messages passed between the game client and the game server to learn how a typical game interacts with Amazon GameLift.

The plugin for Unity supports Unity 2019.4 LTS and 2020.3 LTS.

Highlights:

  • Build, run, and modify a sample game with different scenarios, or create your own.

  • Deploy sample Amazon CloudFormation scenarios for typical game scenarios including auth only, single-Region fleet, multi-Region fleets with queue and custom matchmaker, Spot Fleets with queue and custom matchmaker, and FlexMatch.

Learn more:

You can use the batchDistance rule type to specify a string or numeric attribute, bringing a host of benefits to each segment.

Highlights:

  • For large matches (>40 players), instead of evenly balancing players by skill only, you can now get that same balance based on skill, modes, and maps. Ensure that everyone in the match is in a skill band, band multiple numeric attributes such as league or play style, and group according to string attributes such as map or game mode. You can also create expansions over time. For example, you can create an expansion to allow a greater skill level range to enter the match the longer the player is waiting.

    For matches under 40 players, you can use a new simplified rules expression.

Updated SDK versions: Realtime Client SDK 1.2.0, Server SDK 3.4.0 for Unreal

With this latest SDK update, you can now integrate IL2CPP into your mobile applications that use the RTS Client SDK and follow best practices with frameworks. You can also now build the Amazon GameLift Server SDK for Unreal Version 4.26. This update contains components that integrate with your Windows or Linux game server, including C++ and C# versions of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK, Amazon GameLift Local, and an Unreal Engine plugin.

Highlights:

  • Added support for IL2CPP in the RTS Client SDK and for building the native libraries as frameworks, so you can build RTS clients for the latest mobile devices.

  • You can use DescribePlayerSessions() to get information for a single player session, for all player sessions in a game session, or for all player sessions associated with a single player ID.

  • Created Server SDK support for Unreal version 4.26.

  • The existing C# SDK, version 4.0.2, has been verified compatible with Unity 2020.3. No SDK updates were required.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.168

You can now use events to monitor game session placement activity for a game session queue. Create an Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topic to publish event notifications, or set up event tracking using CloudWatch Events.

Highlights:

  • For each queue, you can set a custom text string to be included in all event messaging.

  • When using an Amazon SNS topic, you can set additional access conditions that limit publishing to specific queues.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.163

Amazon GameLift managed hosting is now available in 21 Amazon Regions. The new Regions are Cape Town (af-south-1), Bahrain (me-south-1), Hong Kong (ap-east-1), Milan (eu-south-1), Paris (eu-west-3), and Stockholm (eu-north-1).

With the new Amazon GameLift multi-location fleets feature, you can now set up a single fleet to host your game servers in any or all of 20 Amazon GameLift-supported Regions (Beijing Region excepted). This feature aims to significantly reduce the work required to set up and maintain Amazon GameLift hosting resources globally. Multi-location fleets can be created in the following Amazon Regions: us-east-1 (N. Virginia), us-west-2 (Oregon), eu-central-1 (Frankfurt), eu-west-1 (Ireland), ap-southeast-2 (Sydney), ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo), and ap-northeast-2 (Seoul). In all other Regions, you can continue to set up single-location fleets as needed. All fleets that were created before this release are single-location fleets. Using multi-location fleets does not affect your hosting costs. Amazon GameLift pricing is based on the type, location, and volume of instances that you use. (For more information, see Amazon GameLift pricing.) Amazon CloudFormation support for multi-location fleets will be available soon.

Note

Multi-location fleets are not available in the China Regions. Amazon GameLift resources that reside in China Regions cannot interact with or be used by resources in other Amazon GameLift Regions.

Highlights:

  • With a multi-location fleet, explicitly add a list of remote locations. Amazon GameLift deploys instances of the same type and configuration, including the build and runtime configuration, to the fleet's home Region and all added locations.

  • Adjust capacity settings and scaling for each location independently. Auto-scaling policies apply to an entire fleet, but you can turn them on or off by location.

  • Start new game sessions at specific fleet locations. When using game session queues or matchmaking to place game sessions, you can now prioritize where new game sessions start by location, hosting cost, and player latency.

  • Get hosting metrics in the Amazon GameLift console, aggregated for all locations in a fleet or broken out by each fleet location.

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.139

This release includes the following updates:

  • Amazon GameLift FleetIQ game server groups can now be configured to manage the AMD instance families C5a, M5a, and R5a. The supported Amazon EC2 instance types, as listed for the GameServerGroup InstanceDefinition, now include the following:

    • c5a.large, c5a.xlarge, c5a.2xlarge, c5a.4xlarge, c5a.8xlarge, c5a.12xlarge, c5a.16xlarge, c5a.24xlarge

    • m5a.large, m5a.xlarge, m5a.2xlarge, m5a.4xlarge, m5a.8xlarge, m5a.12xlarge, m5a.16xlarge, m5a.24xlarge

    • r5a.large, r5a.xlarge, r5a.2xlarge, r5a.4xlarge, r5a.8xlarge, r5a.12xlarge, r5a.16xlarge, r5a.24xlarge

    Note: AMD instances for FleetIQ are currently not available for use in the China (Beijing) Amazon Region. See Feature availability and implementation differences in China.

  • Amazon GameLift managed game hosting now supports AMD instances in the China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet. The new AMD instance families include M5a and R5a. Supported EC2 instance types, as listed for fleet InstanceType, now include the following:

    • m5a.large, m5a.xlarge, m5a.2xlarge, m5a.4xlarge, m5a.8xlarge, m5a.12xlarge, m5a.16xlarge, m5a.24xlarge

    • r5a.large, r5a.xlarge, r5a.2xlarge, r5a.4xlarge, r5a.8xlarge, r5a.12xlarge, r5a.16xlarge, r5a.24xlarge

  • Amazon GameLift FlexMatch can now be used as a standalone matchmaking solution in the China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet. Customers can create a FlexMatch matchmaker in the Beijing Region and configure the FlexMatchMode parameter to STANDALONE. For more information about FlexMatch, either with Amazon GameLift managed hosting or with a non-Amazon GameLift hosting solution, in the Amazon GameLift FlexMatch Developer Guide.

  • When setting up event notifications for Amazon GameLift FlexMatch, you can now designate an Amazon SNS FIFO topic as the notification target. For more information, see:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon GameLift Server SDK 4.0.2, Unreal plugin version 3.3.3

The latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK contains the following components:

  • The updated Unreal plugin has been updated for compatibility with Unreal Engine 4.25. The API was not changed.

  • The existing C# SDK, version 4.0.2, has been verified compatible with Unity 2020. No SDK updates were required.

Download the latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK at Amazon GameLift getting started.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.95

Amazon GameLift FlexMatch is a customizable matchmaking service for multiplayer games. Initially designed for users of Amazon GameLift managed hosting, FlexMatch can now be integrated into games that use other hosting systems, including peer-to-peer, proprietary on-premises computing, and cloud compute primitive types. Games that use Amazon GameLift FleetIQ for game hosting on Amazon EC2 can now implement matchmaking with FlexMatch.

FlexMatch provides a robust matchmaking algorithm and rules language that gives you wide latitude to customize the matchmaking process so that players are matched together based on key player characteristics and reported latency. In addition, FlexMatch offers a matchmaking request workflow that supports features such as player parties, player acceptance, and match backfill. When you use FlexMatch with Amazon GameLift managed hosting or Realtime Servers, the matchmaker automatically uses Amazon GameLift to find hosting resources and start a new game session for newly formed matches. When using FlexMatch as a standalone service, the matchmaker delivers match results back to your game, which can then start a new game session using your hosting solution.

API operations for FlexMatch are part of the Amazon GameLift service API, which is included in the Amazon SDK and the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI). This release includes these updates to support standalone matchmaking:

  • The API resource MatchmakingConfiguration has the following changes:

    • New property, FlexMatchMode indicates whether the matchmaker is being used with Amazon GameLift managed hosting or as standalone matchmaking.

    • Property GameSessionQueueArns is not required when FlexMatchMode is set to standalone.

    • These properties are not used with standalone matchmaking: AdditionalPlayerCount, BackfillMode, GameProperties, GameSessionData.

  • The automatic backfill feature is not available with standalone matchmaking.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.95

The list of Amazon EC2 instance types supported by Amazon GameLift now includes three new instance families: C5a, M5a, and R5a. These families consist of AMD compute-optimized instances that are powered by AMD EPYC processors running at frequencies up to 3.3. GHz. The AMD instances are x86 compatible; games that are currently running on Amazon GameLift can be deployed to AMD instance types without alteration. The new instances are available in the following Amazon Regions: US East (N. Virginia and Ohio), US West (Oregon and N. California), Central Canada (Montreal), South America (Sao Paulo), EU Central (Frankfurt), EU West (London and Ireland), Asia Pacific South (Mumbai), Asia Pacific Northeast (Seoul and Tokyo), and Asia Pacific Southeast (Singapore and Sydney).

The new AMD instances include:

  • c5a.large, c5a.xlarge, c5a.2xlarge, c5a.4xlarge, c5a.8xlarge, c5a.12xlarge, c5a.16xlarge, c5a.24xlarge

  • m5a.large, m5a.xlarge, m5a.2xlarge, m5a.4xlarge, m5a.8xlarge, m5a.12xlarge, m5a.16xlarge, m5a.24xlarge

  • r5a.large, r5a.xlarge, r5a.2xlarge, r5a.4xlarge, r5a.8xlarge, r5a.12xlarge, r5a.16xlarge, r5a.24xlarge

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon GameLift Server SDK 4.0.2

The new Server SDK version 4.0.2 fixes a known issue with the API operation StartMatchBackfill(). This operation now returns a correct response to a match backfill request.

The issue did not affect the match backfill process, and there is no change to how this feature works. The issue may have impacted log messaging and error handling for match backfill requests.

Download the latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK at Amazon GameLift getting started.

FlexMatch users can now adjust the following default behaviors for the matchmaking process. These customizations are set in a matchmaking rule set. There are no changes to the Amazon GameLift SDKs.

  • Prioritize backfill tickets: You can choose to raise or lower how match backfill tickets are prioritized when searching for acceptable matches. Prioritizing backfill tickets is useful when the auto-backfill feature is enabled. Use the algorithm property backfillPriority.

  • Pre-sort to optimize match consistency and efficiency: Configure your matchmaker to pre-sort the ticket pool before batching tickets for evaluation. By pre-sorting tickets based on key player attributes, your resulting matches tend to have players who are more similar in those attributes. You can also boost efficiency in the evaluation process by pre-sorting on the same attributes that are used in match rules. Use the algorithm property sortByAttributes with the strategy property set to "sorted".

  • Adjust how expansion wait times are triggered: Choose between triggering expansions based on the age of the newest (default) or oldest ticket in an incomplete match. Triggering on the oldest ticket tends to complete matches faster, while triggering on the newest ticket leads to higher match quality. Use the algorithm property expansionAgeSelection.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon GameLift Server SDK 4.0.1

The new Server SDK contains the following updates:

Download the latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK at Amazon GameLift getting started.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.8.36

The Amazon GameLift FleetIQ solution for low-cost, cloud-based game hosting on Amazon EC2 is now generally available. Amazon GameLift FleetIQ gives developers the ability to host game servers directly on Amazon EC2 Spot Instances by optimizing their viability for game hosting. Game developers can use Amazon GameLift FleetIQ with new games or to supplement capacity for existing games. This solution supports the use of containers or other Amazon services such as Amazon Shield and Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS).

This general availability release includes the following updates to the Amazon GameLift FleetIQ solution:

  • New API operation DescribeGameServerInstances returns information, including status, on all active instances for a Amazon GameLift FleetIQ game server group.

  • New balancing strategy, ON_DEMAND_ONLY, configures a game server group to use On-Demand Instances only. You can update a game server group's balancing strategy at any time, making it possible to switch between using Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances as needed.

  • The following preview elements have been dropped for general availability:

    • Use of custom sort keys for game server resources. Game servers can be sorted based on registration timestamp.

    • Tagging for game server resources.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon GameLift Server SDK 4.0.0, Amazon GameLift Local 1.0.5

The latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK contains the following updated components:

  • C# SDK version 4.0.0 updated for Unity 2019.

  • Unreal plugin version 3.3.1 updated for Unreal Engine versions 4.22, 4.23, and 4.24.

  • Amazon GameLift Local version 1.0.5 updated to test integrations that use the C# server SDK version 4.0.0.

Download the latest version of the Amazon GameLift Server SDK at Amazon GameLift getting started.

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.7.310

The Amazon GameLift FleetIQ feature optimizes the viability of low-cost Spot Instances for use with game hosting. This feature is now extended for customers who want to manage their hosting resources directly rather than through the managed Amazon GameLift service. This solution supports the use of containers or other Amazon services such as Amazon Shield and Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS).

Learn more:

GameTech blog post on Amazon GameLift FleetIQ

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.7.249

You can now take advantage of Amazon resource management tools with Amazon GameLift resources. In particular, all key Amazon GameLift resources—builds, scripts, fleets, game session queues, matchmaking configurations, and matchmaking rule sets—are now assigned Amazon Resource Name (ARN) values. A resource ARN provides a consistent identifier that is unique across all Amazon Regions. They can be used to create resource-specific Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions policies. Resources are now assigned an ARN and also the pre-existing resource identifier, which is not Region-specific.

In addition, Amazon GameLift resources now support tagging. You can use tags to organize resources, create IAM permissions policies to manage access to groups of resources, customize Amazon cost breakdowns, etc. When managing tags for Amazon GameLift resources, use the Amazon GameLift API actions TagResource(), UntagResource(), and ListTagsForResource().

Learn more:

Updated SDK versions: Amazon SDK 1.7.210

Amazon CloudFormation templates for Amazon GameLift

Amazon GameLift resources can now be created and managed through Amazon CloudFormation. The existing Amazon CloudFormation build and fleet templates have been updated to align with the current resources, and new templates are now available for scripts, queues, matchmaking configurations, and matchmaking rule sets. Amazon CloudFormation templates greatly simplify the task of managing groups of related Amazon resources, particularly when deploying games across multiple Regions.

Learn more: