Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Amazon GameLift Streams, which enables developers to deliver high-fidelity, low-latency game experiences to players.
The players can enjoy the GameLift Streams games on virtually any device with a browser. With GameLift Streams, game developers no longer need to spend time and resources modifying their games for streaming or building their own streaming infrastructure.
Players around the world can begin playing games in seconds instead of waiting minutes for streams or hours for downloads. The new capability opens opportunities for developers to reach more players around the world, expand monetization opportunities, and grow revenues.
“GameLift Streams is a fully managed capability that allows developers to stream high fidelity experiences to kind of any device. All you need is a web RTC enabled html5 browser, and you can play games on that,” said Chris Lee, general manager and head of Immersive Technology at AWS, in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s going to unlock a huge amount of opportunity for developers to control their own destiny and experiment with their own distribution channels and find new ways to get their games into the hands of players.”
Players around the world can begin playing games in seconds instead of waiting minutes for streams or hours for downloads. Amazon GameLift Streams is a new capability of Amazon GameLift, the AWS service that empowers developers to build and deliver the world’s most demanding games. The new streaming capability opens opportunities for developers to deliver new experiences to more players, helping them grow engagement and sales of their games.
“Historically, with things like Amazon Luna, the cloud games have been more subscription services that developers could put their games in and then be distributed as part of that subscription,” Lee said. “We’re just building a capability that makes it very easy, with little to no modification of your game, to upload your game to AWS and start streaming it to players around the world. So in this case there, there is really a capability to make it easier for you as a game developer or game publisher to create your own stream distribution.”
Only Amazon GameLift Streams enables developers to upload their game content onto fully-managed GPU instances in the cloud and start streaming in minutes, with little or no modification of their code.
Game developers can stream triple-A, double-A, and iIndie games to players’ PCs, phones, tablets, smart TVs, or any device with a WebRTC-enabled browser.
Running on the world’s most extensive cloud network, Amazon GameLift Streams can deliver 1080p and 60 frames-per-second game play just a few seconds after starting a stream.
Developers have the broadest set of streaming infrastructure options for their ideal price performance, and can stream from six AWS Regions to deliver low-latency game play around the world.
Amazon GameLift Streams allows developers to flexibly scale their streaming capacity up or down, so they only reserve and pay for the capacity they need to meet player demand.
“My personal opinion is that this will be transformative over the years. I don’t know when the industry swings over. But what I would say is this technology will be transformative, similar to the way video streaming was for video distribution instead of DVDs,” said Lee.
Customers already using Amazon GameLift Streams include Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc., Jackbox Games, Ludeo, and Xsolla. Lee said more than 750 million people play games running on AWS every month. And he said Amazon GameLift Streams can help the game industry transform billions of everyday devices around the world into gaming machines without rebuilding game code or managing your own infrastructure.
Amazon GameLift Streams makes it simple for developers to launch game streaming capabilities and meet player expectations without having to invest millions of dollars in infrastructure and software development.
In just a few clicks, developers can upload games built with any 3D engine to AWS and provision streaming capacity in specific AWS regions. Developers can then use the SDK to integrate with their existing identity services, storefronts, game loaders, and websites, or newly created experiences such as playable demos, and begin streaming to players.
The devs can monitor active streams and usage from within the AWS console, and can seamlessly scale their streaming infrastructure across multiple regions on the AWS global network to reach more players around the world with low-latency game play. Game developers can also take advantage of on-demand scaling to match player demand, choose from a selection of GPU instances that offer a range of price performance, and rely on the built-in security of AWS to protect their intellectual property.
Stream games with little or no modification of code
With support for Windows, Linux, and Proton runtimes, Amazon GameLift Streams enables developers to avoid the expense and complexity of rebuilding game code required by other streaming providers.
Amazon GameLift Streams supports Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and any browser enabled with the WebRTC open protocol, ensuring compatibility with the latest devices used by players.
Jackbox Games has developed more than 50 hit party games over the last decade, such as Quiplash, Trivia Murder Party, Fibbage, and Quixort. While these games have developed a loyal fan base on traditional gaming platforms like PCs and consoles, Jackbox has been eager to reach a broader audience that loves party games, but may not be traditional gamers.
With Amazon GameLift Streams, Jackbox Games can provide the full game experience to people gathered in front of smart TVs or using other devices. The flexibility of Amazon GameLift Streams will also unlock new monetization opportunities for Jackbox and provide the ability to add previously infeasible features that will delight players around the world.
This means it’s more like a self-serve way for developers to reach their players. As an example, Jack Box Games makes party games for the TV. They bundle games together and make them available as a package via the app stores.
“One of the things that game of streams allows them to do is be able to distribute their games individually or packaged as they see fit, and they can distribute them to directly to smart TVs,” Lee said. “So they’re going to be launching this capability and it allows them to do new things, like monetize the content differently.They have an ad supported experience where you’ll watch some ads on your TV, and then you’ll be able to play Jack Box Games, and they control it. They build it with this capability. They build their own kind of ad data channel, and then they’re able to kind of experiment with these types of models.”
Directly reach and engage players with new distribution channels
Amazon GameLift Streams empowers developers to create their own game streaming services, storefronts, or subscription offerings to foster direct relationships with players. They can create excitement for new games and breathe new life into back catalogs by enabling play within seconds from game launchers, influencer videos, web browsers, and smart TVs.
Xsolla, the video game commerce company, is partnering with AWS and using Amazon GameLift Streams for Xsolla Cloud Gaming. Xsolla’s customizable solution enables game developers to deliver high-quality PC and mobile gaming experiences directly to browsers using a pay-as-you-go monetization model.
By integrating Amazon GameLift Streams, Xsolla enhances its cloud gaming capabilities without the need to build proprietary infrastructure. This allows for scalable deployment, seamless platform integrations, value-added features such as a virtual gamepad, and customized pricing options.
Stream on-demand game demos
With Amazon GameLift Streams, game developers can grow their fan bases by offering game demos that are playable in a few seconds on websites, in advertisements, or during live influencer streams. This capability allows potential players to immediately engage with games, helping drive interest and adoption. Game companies can also integrate playable demos into existing game stores for play while the full purchased game is downloading.
Amazon also said that Ludeo is pioneering frictionless game discovery with instantly playable game highlights. Amazon GameLift Streams has been critical to bringing Ludeo’s technology to the growing global gaming audience, including communities on YouTube, X, Reddit and Steam. Its recent Hitman World of Assassination campaign on YouTube featured playable demos powered by Amazon GameLift Streams, delivering engagement rates five times higher than standard campaigns with videos or static ads.
Ludeo’s campaign also earned an overall conversion rate of 20% from click-to-play to store, demonstrating the powerful connection between interactive content and purchase intent.
As far as game streaming goes, Lee said, “I think we are at this inflection point with the industry where the it has had some tough years and we have these new technologies. I think right now game streaming is at this really great inflection point where we’re going to start seeing a lot of innovation and business model.”
“Ludeo built their platform on top of GameList Streams. And so their goal is to become the Tiktok of gaming with these playable game highlights. They found that engagement was like five times higher when you could just jump in and stream with other players,” Lee said. “And they had a 40 times better conversion rate on getting someone to purchase Hitman, from viewing that on YouTube to converting to purchasing that game after you tried it on the game stream, which is incredible. The games industry is trying to find ways to get their games into the hands of more players and to generate more revenue. I think game game streaming is going to be one of those places we’re going to see a ton of innovation and iteration around the business model of games.”
Accelerate game testing
Amazon GameLift Streams also helps game developers accelerate their development lifecycle by cutting down the time, cost, and security risks of game play testing. Developers can collect feedback on new content, features, and game play modes from their internal testers and most loyal players without losing control of their code. Instead of requiring testers to repeatedly spend hours downloading and installing, developers can securely distribute game builds for more efficient, standardized testing operations. Internal and external testers receive test game builds more quickly, speeding up the overall testing process. Streaming to testers also reduces the risk of code and IP theft, because game builds are not installed locally.
Stream online virtual worlds to extend game brands
Amazon GameLift Streams also enables game companies to stream immersive virtual words built around their game universes and characters. These experiences enable players, fans, and customers on any device to immediately connect with brands in new ways, opening new avenues for interactive marketing and consumer engagement.
Japan’s Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. uses Amazon GameLift Streams to stream an immersive metaverse platform to fans of its Gundam franchise. Fans can access the platform’s interactive experiences and 3D graphics from standard PCs, eliminating the need for high-end gaming hardware. They can explore the environment, participate in virtual live events, access exclusive merchandise through virtual shops, try out mini-games, and interact in real-time with other community members. By implementing Amazon GameLift Streams, Bandai Namco Entertainment will continue to innovate engaging experiences on its metaverse platform.
Expanding the Amazon GameLift service
Amazon GameLift Streams is a new capability of Amazon GameLift, a fully managed service on AWS empowering developers to build and deliver the world’s most demanding games. Amazon GameLift also includes Amazon GameLift Servers, which is already used by hundreds of game developers around the world, such as Ubisoft, Zynga, WB Games, and Meta, and has been benchmark tested to support up to 100 million concurrent users for a single game.
Lee said that the company has been running the GameLift Streams technology for about a year privately. Now it’s ready to roll out broadly. It helps that the internet is getting faster, with technologies like WiFi 7 and Comcast’s low-latency network starting to roll out across the cable infrastructure in the U.S.
“We’ve learned a lot and we’ve talked to customers,” Lee said. “AWS has built this amazing infrastructure around the world that we leverage with very low latency. On top of that, we’ve created the most flexibility that game developers have ever had with their game streaming by making it easy. And then we also offer them a ton of choice for how they want to manage their experience and manage costs.”
The company offers three operating systems: Windows, Linux and the Proton operating system that Valve released for the Steam Deck.
