Generate Amazon GameLift pricing estimates - Amazon GameLift
Estimate managed hosting

Generate Amazon GameLift pricing estimates

With AWS Pricing Calculator, you can create a pricing estimate for Amazon GameLift. You don't need an AWS account or in-depth knowledge of AWS to use the calculator.

AWS Pricing Calculator calculator guides you through the decisions that affect service costs to give you an idea of how much Amazon GameLift might cost for your game project. If you're not yet sure how you plan to use Amazon GameLift, then use the default values to generate an estimate. When planning for production usage, the calculator can help you test out potential scenarios and generate more accurate estimates.

You can use AWS Pricing Calculator to generate estimates for the following Amazon GameLift hosting options:

Estimate Amazon GameLift managed hosting

This option provides a cost estimate for hosting your games on Amazon GameLift managed servers, including the costs for server instance usage and data transfer. With Amazon GameLift managed hosting, there is no additional cost for FlexMatch matchmaking.

If you are hosting or plan to host game servers in more than one AWS Region or on more than one instance type, create an estimate for each Region and instance type.

Amazon GameLift instances

This section helps you estimate the type and number of compute resources that you need to host game sessions for your players. Amazon GameLift uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances to manage game servers. In Amazon GameLift, you deploy a fleet of instances with a specific instance type and operating system. If you have or plan to have multiple fleets, create an estimate for each fleet.

To get started, open the Configure Amazon GameLift page of AWS Pricing Calculator. Add a Description, choose a Region, and then choose Estimate Amazon GameLift hosting (Instance + Data Transfer Out). Under Amazon GameLift instances, complete the following fields:

  • Peak concurrent players (peak CCU)

    This is the maximum number of players who can connect to your game servers at the same time. This field indicates how much hosting capacity Amazon GameLift needs to meet peak player demand. Enter the daily peak number of players that you expect to host using instances in your chosen AWS Region.

    For example, if you want to let 1,000 players connect to your game at any one time, keep the default value of 1000.

  • Average CCU per hour as a percentage of peak daily CCU

    This is the average number of concurrent players per hour over a 24-hour period. We use this value to estimate the amount of sustained hosting capacity that Amazon GameLift needs to maintain for your players. If you're not sure what percentage value to use, keep the default value of 50 percent. For games with stable player demand, we recommend entering a value of 70 percent.

    For example, if your game has an average hourly CCU of 6,000 and a peak CCU of 10,000, then enter the value of 60 percent.

  • Game sessions per instance

    This is the number of game sessions that each of your game server instances can host concurrently. Factors that can affect this number include the resource requirements of your game server, the number of players to host in each game session, and player performance expectations. If you know the number of concurrent game sessions for your game, then enter that value. Alternatively, keep the default value of 20.

  • Players per game session

    This is the average number of players who connect to a game session, as defined in your game design. If you have game modes with different number of players, estimate an average number of players per game session across your entire game. The default value is 8.

  • Instance idle buffer %

    This is the percentage of unused hosting capacity to maintain in reserve to handle sudden spikes in player demand. Buffer size is a percentage of the total number of instances in a fleet. The default value is 10 percent.

    For example, with a 20 percent idle buffer, a fleet supporting players with 100 active instances maintains 20 idle instances.

  • Spot instance %

    Amazon GameLift fleets can use a combination of On-Demand Instances and Spot Instances. While On-Demand Instances offer more reliable availability, Spot Instances offer a highly cost-efficient alternative. We recommend using a combination to optimize both cost savings and availability. For information about how Amazon GameLift uses Spot Instances, see On-Demand Instances versus Spot Instances.

    For this field, enter the percentage of Spot Instances to maintain in a fleet. We recommend a Spot Instance percentage between 50 and 85 percent. The default value is 50 percent.

    For example, if you deploy a fleet with 100 instances and specify 40 percent, Amazon GameLift works to maintain 60 On-Demand Instances and 40 Spot Instances.

  • Instance type

    Amazon GameLift fleets can use a range of Amazon EC2 instance types that vary in computing power, memory, storage, and networking capabilities. When you configure a Amazon GameLift fleet, choose an instance type that best fits your game's needs. For information about selecting an instance type with Amazon GameLift, see Choose compute resources for a managed fleet.

    If you know the instance type that you're using or plan to use in your Amazon GameLift fleet, choose that type. If you're not sure what type to choose, consider choosing c5.large. This is a high-availability type with average size and capabilities.

  • Operating system

    This field specifies the operating system that your game servers run on—either Linux or Windows. The default value is Linux.

Data transfer out (DTO)

This section helps you estimate the cost for traffic between your game clients and the game servers. Data transfer fees apply to outbound traffic only. Inbound data transfer has no cost.

On the Configure Amazon GameLift page of AWS Pricing Calculator, expand Data transfer out (DTO), and then complete the following fields:

  • DTO estimate type

    You can choose to estimate DTO in either of the following two ways, depending on how you track data transfer for your game.

    • Per month (in GB) – If you track monthly traffic for your game servers, choose this type.

    • Per player – If you track data transfer by player, choose this type. This is the default type.

      In the following field, you estimate per-player DTO based on the number of player hours that you calculated in the previous section.

  • DTO per month (in GB)

    If you chose the Per month (in GB) DTO estimate type, then enter your estimated monthly DTO usage in GB from each instance, per Region.

  • DTO per player

    If you chose the Per player DTO estimate type, then enter your game's estimated DTO usage per player in KB/sec. The default value is 4.

When you're done configuring your Amazon GameLift pricing estimate, choose Add to my estimate. For more information about creating and managing estimates in AWS Pricing Calculator, see Create an estimate, configure a service, and add more services in the AWS Pricing Calculator User Guide.