Amazon GameLift Specialized2016年〜
A dedicated server hosting service for multiplayer games
What It Does
Amazon GameLift is a managed service for hosting and scaling dedicated game servers for multiplayer games. It provides player matchmaking, session management, and automatic server scaling to deliver low-latency gaming experiences.
Use Cases
It is used for hosting servers for real-time multiplayer games (FPS, battle royale, MOBA), building matchmaking systems, and deploying game servers globally.
Everyday Analogy
Think of it like a sports facility booking and management system. It automatically secures courts (servers) for matches (game sessions), matches participants (players) by skill level, and releases courts when matches end.
What Is GameLift?
Amazon GameLift is a service that automates game server deployment and operations. Upload your game server binary, and GameLift deploys it to instances and auto-scales based on player count. The FlexMatch matchmaking feature assigns players to appropriate sessions.
FlexMatch and Session Management
FlexMatch is a customizable matchmaking engine. You define rules in JSON for skill level, latency, team composition, and more to assign players to optimal matches. Game sessions are server processes that players connect to, automatically created and managed by GameLift. For design patterns and operational practices for FlexMatch and session management, technical books on Amazon provide detailed coverage.
Getting Started
Upload your game server build in the GameLift console and create a fleet. A fleet is a group of instances running your game servers. With GameLift Anywhere, you can also manage on-premises or other cloud servers through GameLift.
Things to Watch Out For
- GameLift is designed for real-time multiplayer games. It may be overkill for turn-based or single-player games
- Using Spot Instances can reduce costs by up to 70%, but failover design is needed to handle interruptions
