Google LLC said today its managed game server hosting and scaling service Game Servers is now generally available for production workloads.

Launched in beta in March, Game Servers is a service that helps to simplify the management of global, multicluster game server fleets. The service is based on an open-source game server hosting and scaling project built on Kubernetes, called Agones, which Google created along with Ubisoft Entertainment SA in 2018.

Game Servers is meant to make it easier for developers to host massive multiplayer games such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. Typically, games developers use lots of dedicated servers to host multiplayer experiences, but hosting and scaling these fleets of servers can be challenging at the best of times.

That’s because millions of players all around the world are connected at once, communicating with each other and interacting with the same environment in real time. These environments therefore need extremely low latency to work properly.

One of the advantages of Game Servers is that it provides various kinds of scaling controls, such as automated timed scaling for expected peak hours in different regions of the world. Developers can also reserve capacity for planned events across specific dates and time ranges. So, if a game developer is launching a new expansion for a popular title, it can ramp up the number of servers to be provisioned ahead of the expected increase in the number of players.

Rob Martin, Google Cloud Games’ chief architect, said in a blog post that Game Servers currently supports cluster than run on the company’s Google Kubernetes Engine. Google is still working on adding the ability to run clusters on other clouds or in on-premises data centers, but once it adds this multicloud and hybrid support, developers will be better able to leverage Game Servers’ scaling tools and optimize deployment costs.

Martin said Google is making Game Servers available for free until the end of the year, but customers will still be billed for the underlying use of Kubernetes clusters.

The gaming industry is a big opportunity for Google Cloud, and one that makes sense for the company because it can also provide various collaboration services such as YouTube as a streaming partner for live broadcasts and e-sports events.

Google already has a presence here. It’s the preferred cloud provider for Activision Blizzard Inc.’s game hosting infrastructure, and YouTube is its exclusive streaming partner. Google also works closely with Massive Entertainment, a Swedish games studio owned by Ubisoft, and Japanese game companies DeNA Co. Ltd. and Colopl Inc.

Still, the company is still behind rival public cloud infrastructure platforms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE.

“Gaming is a key workload that IaaS vendors want to have as it creates high levels of utilization,” Mueller said. “High utilization means more scale and greater economies of scale. It’s good to see more options for game developers too. Google is playing along its Anthos value proposition and will likely make Game Server the first multicloud gaming platform. But that has to be delivered first.”

Image: Google