What is Amazon GameLift?
You can use Amazon GameLift to deploy, operate, and scale dedicated, low-cost servers in the cloud for session-based multiplayer games. Built on AWS global computing infrastructure, Amazon GameLift helps deliver high-performance, high-reliability game servers while dynamically scaling your resource usage to meet worldwide player demand.
Amazon GameLift features
Amazon GameLift supports these use cases and more:
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Deploy your own custom multiplayer game servers to the cloud for hosting.
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Run low cost hosting resources using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
Spot Instances. -
Automatically scale the amount of hosting resources that your game needs based on usage.
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Manage your Amazon EC2 compute resources all in one place using Amazon GameLift FleetIQ.
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Match players in multiplayer games with Amazon GameLift FlexMatch.
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Iteratively test your game server and client builds with Amazon GameLift Anywhere.
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Use your own hardware while managing it all in one place with Amazon GameLift Anywhere.
Tip
To try out Amazon GameLift game server hosting, see Getting started with Amazon GameLift.
Amazon GameLift solutions
Amazon GameLift solutions for game developers
Amazon GameLift hosting options
When working with the Amazon GameLift service to operate your game servers, you have several options for where and how to deploy your game server resources. 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.
Amazon GameLift managed hosting
With Amazon GameLift managed EC2 hosting, you can offload most of the work of managing your game servers. Choose the compute resources you need 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
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Host multiplayer games that run on Amazon Linux or Windows Server operating systems.
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Provide low-latency gameplay experiences to your players, wherever they are. Deploy game servers globally across any of the AWS Regions and Local Zones that Amazon GameLift supports. For a complete list, see Amazon GameLift service locations.
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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.
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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 sizeed buffer of idle capacity, which helps you control costs while ensuring that new players can get into games with minimal waiting.
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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.
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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.
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For production hosting, automate your game hosting resource management and deployments using AWS CloudFormation templates for Amazon GameLift and the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK). Take advantage of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools and services such as AWS CodePipeline.
Amazon GameLift hybrid hosting
Use the Amazon GameLift service with a combination of Amazon GameLift managed hosting and Anywhere self-managed hosting. A hybrid approach lets you build the solution you need right now while also preparing for where you need to be in the future. Common scenarios where a hybrid solution makes sense include:
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Expand your hosting solution to the AWS Cloud. Supplement the capabilities of your existing hosting solution (on-premises hardware or other cloud-based hosting) by adding Amazon GameLift managed hosting. With managed hosting, you can increase your hosting capacity or add "burst" capacity to rapidly scale up and pay only for resources when you need them. You can also take advantage of the Amazon GameLift service's global footprint to reach more players around the world and provide the low-latency multiplayer experience they expect.
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Prepare for migration to cloud-based hosting. If you're considering or planning to migrate to the AWS Cloud (instead of upgrading your own hardware), a hybrid hosting solution is an easy way for you to make the transition as gradually as you need to.
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Boost latency for players in locations beyond those serviced by Amazon GameLift. If you're already using Amazon GameLift managed hosting, you might need to support players in certain situations. For example, you might want to reach players in unusually remote locations or significantly reduce latency to those areas. Add custom hosting locations and use Amazon GameLift Anywhere to manage those locations along with your managed hosting resources.
Start developing an Amazon GameLift hybrid hosting solution for your game.
Key features
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Use the same game client and server components with both managed and self-managed hosting resources. Provide a unified player experience across all hosting resources.
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Use the same FlexMatch matchmakers to place matches across all hosting resources.
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Centrally manage your hybrid hosting resources together while you deploy them across the globe.
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As player demand fluctuates, manage game session loads seamlessly across managed and self-managed resources.
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With the Amazon GameLift Agent, you can use the same tooling to manage game server life cycles on all types of hosting resources.
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Gather game and player metrics and logs across all hosting resources. Take advantage of Amazon GameLift features and other AWS services to combine data and develop cohesive observability solutions.
Amazon GameLift Anywhere hosting
Use Amazon GameLift Anywhere fleets with Amazon GameLift game session management, including matchmaking, to host your custom game servers wherever you want to. Anywhere fleets are particularly useful as test environments for rapid, iterative game development. Set up an Anywhere fleet for your own local workstation or a set of cloud-based hosting resources. For production hosting, you might use a hybrid approach with Anywhere fleets for your on-premises hardware supplemented by Amazon GameLift managed fleets.
For more information about testing with Anywhere, see Set up local testing with Amazon GameLift Anywhere. For more information about setting up an Anywhere fleet, see Setting up Amazon GameLift fleets.
Start developing an Amazon GameLift Anywhere hosting solution for your game.
Key features
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Perform fast, iterative testing as you develop your multiplayer games.
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Use Amazon GameLift tools to manage game servers that are hosted on your own hardware.
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Take advantage of available hardware that is closest to your players, anywhere.
Amazon GameLift FlexMatch for matchmaking
Use 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
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Balance match creation speed and match quality.
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Match players or teams based on defined characteristics.
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Define rules to place players into matches based on latency.
Amazon GameLift FleetIQ for hosting on Amazon EC2
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
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Get optimized Spot Instance balancing using the FleetIQ algorithm.
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Use player routing features to manage your game server resources efficiently, and provide a better player experience for joining games.
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Automatically scale hosting capacity based on player usage.
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Directly manage Amazon EC2 instances in your own AWS account.
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Use any of the supported game server executable formats, including Windows, Linux, containers, and Kubernetes.
Amazon GameLift with Realtime Servers
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
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Use Amazon GameLift management features, including auto scaling, multi-location queues, and game session placement.
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Use Amazon GameLift hosting resources and choose the type of AWS computing hardware for your fleets.
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Take advantage of a full network stack for game client and server interaction.
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Get core game server functionality with customizable server logic.
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Make live updates to Realtime configurations and server logic.
Accessing Amazon GameLift
Use these tools to work with Amazon GameLift.
- Amazon GameLift SDKs
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The Amazon GameLift SDKs contain the libraries needed to communicate with Amazon GameLift from your game clients, game servers, and game services. For more information, see Development support with Amazon GameLift.
- Amazon GameLift Realtime Client SDK
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The Realtime Client SDK enables a game client to connect to the Realtime server, join game sessions, and stay in sync with other players. Download the SDK
and learn more about making API calls with the Realtime Servers client API (C#). - Amazon GameLift console
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Use the AWS Management Console for Amazon GameLift
to manage your game deployments, configure resources, and track player usage and performance metrics. The Amazon GameLift console provides a GUI alternative to managing resources programmatically with the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). - AWS CLI
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Use this command line tool to make calls to the AWS SDK, including the Amazon GameLift API. For information about using the AWS CLI, see Getting started with the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.
Pricing for Amazon GameLift
Amazon GameLift charges for instances by duration of use, and for bandwidth by quantity of data
transferred. For a complete list of charges and prices for Amazon GameLift, see Amazon GameLift Pricing
For information about calculating the cost of hosting your games or matchmaking with
Amazon GameLift, see Generating Amazon GameLift pricing estimates,
which describes how to use the AWS Pricing Calculator