Let GameLift do the heavy-lifting of deploying and managing dedicated game servers so you can focus on developing games. GameLift reduces the burden of scaling servers with fluctuating player demand while providing low latency and low cost. The example architecture describes this process. A game session request is sent after platform and player authentication. GameLift FlexMatch searches for like-minded players to join the game, creates a matchmaking ticket, and places players into the matching process. The match is determined and the matchmaker passes the information to the GameLift game session placement queue. A search occurs for an available fleet instance that provides the lowest latency to the player. The fleet instance is notified of the intent to begin a game, which exposes an IP address, and the chosen server listens on a particular IP port. The IP address and port are returned to the game when the match is set up. The match is created and allows matchmaking results to be passed back to the game. The game has the IP address and port to contact, and a session token for the GameLift game server. The game now makes a connection to the GameLift game server assigned to the player’s match, players arrive, and fun begins for the players.

GameLift provides the flexibility specific to your needs. You can choose to use GameLift FleetIQ to onboard server workloads to the cloud using your existing tools or software, independent of adopting any other managed GameLift features. Gradually moving live games or launching new games to the cloud with the cost savings of EC2 Spot instances possible only with GameLift FleetIQ. You can save on cost, speed time to market, and deliver a reliable player experience. It locates the optimal available game server to host a game session that provides players an optimal gameplay experience. For game hosting, the best resources deliver the highest hosting viability at a low cost. GameLift FleetIQ enables this by allowing only optimal instances types in the Autoscaling group and placing new game sessions effectively across the group's available resources.

Peer-to-Peer and listen servers are often viewed as a low-latent, cost-effective solution for games. However, they can create poor player experiences with host interruptions and dependencies on your players having good internet connections. GameLift customers like Ubisoft, Behaviour Interactive, and Illfonic migrated their P2P or listen server infrastructure to GameLift to achieve low cost and low latency dedicated game servers.

Match players based on rules you define with Amazon GameLift FlexMatch. Whether you choose to build your matchmaking based on player skill, latency, or custom criteria, FlexMatch’s simple but powerful rules language makes it easy to quickly create robust player matchmaking. FlexMatch pairs the matchmaking service with a customizable rules engine. Once a match is formed, FlexMatch hands the match details to a queue of your choice. The queue searches for available hosting resources on your Amazon GameLift fleets and starts a new game session for the match.