How Star Wars: Hunters got to the next level with Amazon GameLift (GAM308)

Introduction

• The video discusses the experiences of the Star Wars Hunters team at Zinga in using Amazon GameLift for their multiplayer game launch.
• The speakers are:
  • Christina, head of product for GameLift, who introduces the topic.
  • Arian, who talks about the requirements of a multiplayer game and how GameLift was used to address them.
  • Chris, who discusses the implementation journey and integration of GameLift into the Unreal engine and the team's platform services.
  • Steve, who provides recommendations for getting started with GameLift and its local development environment, GameLift Anywhere.

Multiplayer Game Requirements

• Players want a fair, low-latency, and responsive multiplayer experience.
• This requires:
  • Matchmaking to pair players of similar skill levels.
  • Authoritative game servers that can accurately simulate the game state for all players.
  • Geographically distributed servers to ensure low latency.

Choosing Amazon GameLift

• The team initially built a prototype with their own matchmaking and server orchestration, but decided to retire this solution in favor of GameLift.
• Key reasons for choosing GameLift:
  • Global presence and infrastructure.
  • Cost optimization features like Spot Instances.
  • Out-of-the-box matchmaking capabilities.

Using Amazon GameLift

• Flex Match rule sets: JSON files defining matchmaking rules.
• Config: Glues the rule sets to the downstream game servers.
• Game build: The game server binary and supporting files packaged for deployment.
• Game instances: Run multiple game server processes on a single instance.
• Fleets: Auto-scaling groups of game instances, with support for multi-region deployment and spot pricing.
• Game session queue: Routes players to the appropriate game server based on policy.

Metrics and Monitoring

• Track granular server metrics, matchmaking times, fleet utilization, and resource usage.
• Use tools like Prometheus, CloudWatch, and custom logging/reporting agents.
• Dashboards and alerts help identify and address issues.

Deployment Tooling

• "Fleet Deployer": An internal tool that abstracts away the complexity of GameLift resources.
• Enables non-engineers to easily deploy and manage game builds and configurations.
• Handles scheduled scale-ups, automatic shutdowns, and resource cleanup.

Launch Successes and Challenges

• Successful launch with no capacity issues, thanks to multi-region fleets and spot instances.
• Challenges with fine-tuning matchmaking rules, addressed through testing and iteration.
• Valuable support from the Amazon GameLift team throughout development and launch.

Recommendations

• Consider latency requirements and data needs for matchmaking.
• Determine appropriate instance types and game session capacity.
• Decide which GameLift integration points to leverage.
• Utilize GameLift Anywhere for local testing and development.