AWS announced a new package of services designed to get gaming companies to move any and all aspects of operations onto AWS servers from collaboration and compiling to live operations and centralized game analytics. The company announced its latest vertical offering at NVIDIA’s GTC 2022 conference.
The new services cover Cloud Game Development, Game Servers, Game Security, Live Operations, Game Analytics and Game AI and ML. The cloud development package includes workstations, build pipelines, version control and 3D world building services.
Alex Carberry, an infrastructure architect at Epic Games, said in a press release that his company has reduced client compiles by 75% after moving operations to AWS instances.
The new industry-specific offering includes infrastructure for session-based games, global game infrastructure and streaming services. Naomi Barnes, Live Operations Manager, Ubisoft Montréal, said in a press release that the Roller Champions development team has used Amazon GameLift, Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon ElastiCache to cut down on human cost as well as operational costs.
“We don’t need to have months of preparation of allocating servers or getting the bare metal servers in for databases,” she said.
Gaming companies can use the AWS AI & ML services to identify “toxic behaviors at scale,” among other tasks. The Cohort Modeler solution can identify groups within player communities, spot bad behavior and improve player experience, according to AWS.
Justin Davis, CEO of Spectrum Labs, has added his company’s Guardian for Games service to the new AWS offering and said in a press release that players will gravitate toward games with the best player experience and fewer toxic behaviors.
New services aim to streamline collaboration
AWS also launched several other solutions for game developers, including:
- Amazon GameSparks: a fully managed AWS service now in preview that makes it easy to build, optimize and scale game backend features
- AWS GameKit: an open-source solution that allows developers to deploy and customize game backend features directly from a game engine which is now in general availability
- Amazon Nimble Studio: A platform for creating a virtual game studio in hours, scale capacity on demand, and create content faster and more cost effectively
Bill Vass, vice president, AWS Engineering, said in a press release that game developers have used cloud services to build games faster, run them with continuous updates and increase the player base and play engagement.
“With the launch of AWS for Games and the new services and solutions announced today, customers can accelerate this transformation with solutions addressing the highest priority workloads and continue to push the boundaries in areas like game analytics, live operations, and artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Vass said.
AWS has worked with numerous gaming companies over the last 15 years, including Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, Gearbox Software, Riot Games, Behaviour Interactive, Warner Bros. Games, Ubisoft, The Pokémon Company International, SundayToz, Redhill Games, Gameloft and Kixeye.
