5 ms·

Lumberyard and Amazon GameLift and Twitch for Games on AWS

114 points by jeffbarr 11y ago

jdub 11y ago
I asked Jeff Barr if there were any plans to build an open source community around the Lumberyard code. Answer: "Yes, I believe so!" Whoa. https://twitter.com/jdub/status/696975443606396928 https://twitter.com/jdub/status/696975443606396928
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gfodor 11y ago
Uh. It's late, so I might not be processing this right, but this might be the most insanely amazing thing I've seen Amazon do, or maybe any technology company. They just, from what I can tell: a) Commoditized game engines b) Released an open source game engine that can build AAA games c) Are going to bootstrap an open source community around the game engine while supporting it d) Are not forcing the use of any of their services to develop games with this engine As someone who has been working in VR the last year or two I've been saying for a while that it's going to be important that we see a rise of open source in game engine technology the way we've seen it with the web before we really have arrived at having VR be the next platform. This has felt more like a dream than a real possibility: I didn't in my wildest dreams think we'd see an open source modern game engine anytime in the next 5 years since I assumed it'd have to be developed from scratch. And here we are having Amazon put this out, which might very well overturn the entire industry overnight.
- greggman 11y ago
  As pointed out elsewhere it's not open source.
- abrookewood 11y ago
  IT IS NOT OPEN SOURCE - though you do get read access to the source code. You're right that you aren't forced to use their services, but you are also NOT permitted to use other cloud providers. So, it's either AWS or your own hardware. Still, this does seem rather amazing. One thing you left out is that there are no revenue sharing requirements either. You're not even required to use this for game development - you can use it to build movies, training simulations etc.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Not sure what you mean by a? It's not open source. It's not open source. They are forcing you to either use their services or your own hardware if you want to use any sort of backend.
- kayoone 11y ago
  a) Arguably Epic Games or even Unity did this earlier b) it is not open source c) it is not open source d) they are forcing you to use AWS for multiplayer servers and that kind of stuff, which makes sense because otherwise they would not make money
greggman 11y ago
Maybe Amazon is serious but I personally doubt it. If you really want to be the next big engine you need large support teams. Dev rel people, tech support people, you need to organize conferences, constantly put up tutorials, evangelize, etc.. Maybe Amazon will do that but most tech companies that barf out an open source engine have generally not really committed to support them past the 2 or 3 engineers that started them and who will only continue to support them for 6 months until either they get bored or until their boss tells them to get back to their real job Of course if Amazon is serious and they actually have a budget for 100s of people on the teams supporting this then great!
- jdub 11y ago
  They might not put 100s on it (MVP, MVP, MVP), but they have traditionally done very good work in developer relations, technical support, documentation, example code, etc. This doesn't seem like a half-arsed project at all. I imagine it's a strategic move.
- rplnt 11y ago
  I was under the impression the engine itself is not theirs, i.e. not being developed by them internally. I.e. Crytek will work on the engine as usual, Amazon will take care of cloud stuff.
- m12k 11y ago
  That's sort of the vibe I'm getting too - they're dipping their toes in, but not investing too much until they've gauged developer interest. If they'd been really committed to this, they'd have outright bought Crytek instead of just keeping them alive by licensing their engine.
  - SXX 11y ago
    Crytek is likely one of few companies that is nearly impossible to buy as it's privately owned family business. Almost like Valve that isn't most expensive company exist, but unlikely going to be sold ever.
    - 11y ago
forrestthewoods 11y ago
"$1.50 per month for every 1000 daily active users." I'm not sure what that means precisely. But any interpretation seems prohibitively expensive. (That's for GameLift)
- jdub 11y ago
  That'd be $1500/mo for 1,000,000 daily active users, right? (Which doesn't include infrastructure costs.) That doesn't sound prohibitively expensive...
  - abrookewood 11y ago
    It sounds completely reasonable to me ...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - forrestthewoods 11y ago
    You're off by 30x. It's $45,000 per month for 1 million DAU. Here's an example from the horse's mouth. "10,000 DAU (10,000 / 1000) * $1.50 * 30 = $450" http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift/pricing/
    - jdub 11y ago
      Ouch, yes: It's $1.50 PER DAY per 1000 daily active users. (I think everyone is so used to AWS prices being per month...)
- jon-wood 11y ago
  If you can't extract more that $1.50 a month from a 1000 active users then you should probably pack it in and try something else.
  - dantiberian 11y ago
    You also pay for the EC2 instances on top of that.
renownedmedia 11y ago
Note: This isn't Open Source, though the source code is available. > Q. Is Lumberyard “open source”? > No. We make the source code available to enable you to fully customize your game, but your rights are limited by the Lumberyard Service Terms. For example, you may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code, or use it to release your own game engine. What's really interesting is that you can't use Lumberyard to communicate with game servers if they are hosted on a competing cloud platform; only AWS or server hardware you own: > Q. Can my game use an alternate web service instead of AWS? > No. If your game servers use a non-AWS alternate web service, we obviously don’t make any money, and it’s more difficult for us to support future development of Lumberyard. By “alternate web service” we mean any non-AWS web service that is similar to or can act as a replacement for Amazon EC2, Amazon Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 Container Service, or Amazon GameLift. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game servers.
- gadders 11y ago
  Did you think they were giving the game engine away out of altruism? They obviously want to have someone create the next World of Warcraft tied to AWS.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    That'll never happen and it's very unlikely to be their intention. Any game on a similar scale/scope as World of Warcraft doesn't need such atrocious license terms. UE and Source both have much more reasonable license terms and smaller-scoped games will go with Unity unless they build their own engine. My guess on what they are probably looking for is probably desperate indie or small-size studios that want something bigger than unity, they'll give a bunch of AWS credit to them in order to try lock them in. Even that is a long shot. Edit: Had another read through this. Honestly I still don't see what the attraction is. There's bigger names out there with better engines and more favorable agreements. Edit 2: Mixed up engines.
    - themartorana 11y ago
thrckpo 11y ago
This seems to be a fork of an old version of CryEngine
- tristanj 11y ago
  Makes sense. There were rumors last year that Amazon spent $50-70 million to license CryEngine from the near-bankrupt Crytek. http://kotaku.com/sources-amazon-spent-big-bucks-on-cryteks-engine-1696008878 http://kotaku.com/sources-amazon-spent-big-bucks-on-cryteks-...
  - saddestcatever 11y ago
    Is it just me, or does $50m seem like a deal in terms of buying a top-end video game framework that will compete with the likes of unity and unreal?
girvo 11y ago
I'm guessing this is to take on what Microsoft has been doing Azure? https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/microsoft-azure-back-end-for-gaming-10548 https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/microsoft-a... that sort of thing? It's a great idea, because I think there's room for improvement in this space!
- ggambetta 11y ago
  It's interesting to see what's happening in the cloud-backed gaming space. We're working on similar ideas at http://improbable.io http://improbable.io but with more emphasis on persistent and unsharded worlds. I have the feeling that Lumberyard/Gamelift does "scaling" in the sense of "adding more shards", not "adding more compute power to the single unsharded world".
pjc50 11y ago
It's not open source, but games tend not to be anyway. It's certainly a very impressive development as Amazon are the most trusted "PaaS" vendor even if they're not the cheapest. (have Amazon ever shut down any of the AWS services?)
- alexbilbie 11y ago
  SimpleDB is the only service I can think of that they've shut down since I've used the service
  - jdub 11y ago
    SimpleDB is still operating. In fact, I imagine it'll get way more popular alongside Lambda.
  - jhspaybar 11y ago
    It is deprecated, and they've moved people away from it when possible, but last I heard it was still "on" for the folks who wouldn't move. They just won't let anyone else in.
dustingetz 11y ago
Can I use GameLift client SDK for browser games? It doesn't look like it but can't find a clear answer. (Also GameLift server SDK is Windows only, requires visual studio http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gamelift/latest/developerguide/setting-up-prerequisites.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gamelift/latest/developerguide/se...)
soowd 11y ago
Might want to check the ToS also for Lumberyard as there's some interesting terms. https://twitter.com/XenosNS/status/697069050837475328 https://twitter.com/XenosNS/status/697069050837475328

114 points by jeffbarr 11y ago

jdub 11y ago

I asked Jeff Barr if there were any plans to build an open source community around the Lumberyard code. Answer: "Yes, I believe so!" Whoa. https://twitter.com/jdub/status/696975443606396928 https://twitter.com/jdub/status/696975443606396928

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gfodor 11y ago

Uh. It's late, so I might not be processing this right, but this might be the most insanely amazing thing I've seen Amazon do, or maybe any technology company. They just, from what I can tell: a) Commoditized game engines b) Released an open source game engine that can build AAA games c) Are going to bootstrap an open source community around the game engine while supporting it d) Are not forcing the use of any of their services to develop games with this engine As someone who has been working in VR the last year or two I've been saying for a while that it's going to be important that we see a rise of open source in game engine technology the way we've seen it with the web before we really have arrived at having VR be the next platform. This has felt more like a dream than a real possibility: I didn't in my wildest dreams think we'd see an open source modern game engine anytime in the next 5 years since I assumed it'd have to be developed from scratch. And here we are having Amazon put this out, which might very well overturn the entire industry overnight.

greggman 11y ago
As pointed out elsewhere it's not open source.
abrookewood 11y ago
IT IS NOT OPEN SOURCE - though you do get read access to the source code. You're right that you aren't forced to use their services, but you are also NOT permitted to use other cloud providers. So, it's either AWS or your own hardware. Still, this does seem rather amazing. One thing you left out is that there are no revenue sharing requirements either. You're not even required to use this for game development - you can use it to build movies, training simulations etc.
serge2k 11y ago
Not sure what you mean by a? It's not open source. It's not open source. They are forcing you to either use their services or your own hardware if you want to use any sort of backend.
kayoone 11y ago
a) Arguably Epic Games or even Unity did this earlier b) it is not open source c) it is not open source d) they are forcing you to use AWS for multiplayer servers and that kind of stuff, which makes sense because otherwise they would not make money

greggman 11y ago

Maybe Amazon is serious but I personally doubt it. If you really want to be the next big engine you need large support teams. Dev rel people, tech support people, you need to organize conferences, constantly put up tutorials, evangelize, etc.. Maybe Amazon will do that but most tech companies that barf out an open source engine have generally not really committed to support them past the 2 or 3 engineers that started them and who will only continue to support them for 6 months until either they get bored or until their boss tells them to get back to their real job Of course if Amazon is serious and they actually have a budget for 100s of people on the teams supporting this then great!

jdub 11y ago
They might not put 100s on it (MVP, MVP, MVP), but they have traditionally done very good work in developer relations, technical support, documentation, example code, etc. This doesn't seem like a half-arsed project at all. I imagine it's a strategic move.
rplnt 11y ago
I was under the impression the engine itself is not theirs, i.e. not being developed by them internally. I.e. Crytek will work on the engine as usual, Amazon will take care of cloud stuff.
m12k 11y ago
That's sort of the vibe I'm getting too - they're dipping their toes in, but not investing too much until they've gauged developer interest. If they'd been really committed to this, they'd have outright bought Crytek instead of just keeping them alive by licensing their engine.
- SXX 11y ago
  Crytek is likely one of few companies that is nearly impossible to buy as it's privately owned family business. Almost like Valve that isn't most expensive company exist, but unlikely going to be sold ever.
  - 11y ago

forrestthewoods 11y ago

"$1.50 per month for every 1000 daily active users." I'm not sure what that means precisely. But any interpretation seems prohibitively expensive. (That's for GameLift)

jdub 11y ago
That'd be $1500/mo for 1,000,000 daily active users, right? (Which doesn't include infrastructure costs.) That doesn't sound prohibitively expensive...
- abrookewood 11y ago
  It sounds completely reasonable to me ...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  You're off by 30x. It's $45,000 per month for 1 million DAU. Here's an example from the horse's mouth. "10,000 DAU (10,000 / 1000) * $1.50 * 30 = $450" http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift/pricing/
  - jdub 11y ago
    Ouch, yes: It's $1.50 PER DAY per 1000 daily active users. (I think everyone is so used to AWS prices being per month...)
jon-wood 11y ago
If you can't extract more that $1.50 a month from a 1000 active users then you should probably pack it in and try something else.
- dantiberian 11y ago
  You also pay for the EC2 instances on top of that.

renownedmedia 11y ago

Note: This isn't Open Source, though the source code is available. > Q. Is Lumberyard “open source”? > No. We make the source code available to enable you to fully customize your game, but your rights are limited by the Lumberyard Service Terms. For example, you may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code, or use it to release your own game engine. What's really interesting is that you can't use Lumberyard to communicate with game servers if they are hosted on a competing cloud platform; only AWS or server hardware you own: > Q. Can my game use an alternate web service instead of AWS? > No. If your game servers use a non-AWS alternate web service, we obviously don’t make any money, and it’s more difficult for us to support future development of Lumberyard. By “alternate web service” we mean any non-AWS web service that is similar to or can act as a replacement for Amazon EC2, Amazon Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 Container Service, or Amazon GameLift. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game servers.

gadders 11y ago
Did you think they were giving the game engine away out of altruism? They obviously want to have someone create the next World of Warcraft tied to AWS.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  That'll never happen and it's very unlikely to be their intention. Any game on a similar scale/scope as World of Warcraft doesn't need such atrocious license terms. UE and Source both have much more reasonable license terms and smaller-scoped games will go with Unity unless they build their own engine. My guess on what they are probably looking for is probably desperate indie or small-size studios that want something bigger than unity, they'll give a bunch of AWS credit to them in order to try lock them in. Even that is a long shot. Edit: Had another read through this. Honestly I still don't see what the attraction is. There's bigger names out there with better engines and more favorable agreements. Edit 2: Mixed up engines.
  - themartorana 11y ago

thrckpo 11y ago

This seems to be a fork of an old version of CryEngine

tristanj 11y ago
Makes sense. There were rumors last year that Amazon spent $50-70 million to license CryEngine from the near-bankrupt Crytek. http://kotaku.com/sources-amazon-spent-big-bucks-on-cryteks-engine-1696008878 http://kotaku.com/sources-amazon-spent-big-bucks-on-cryteks-...
- saddestcatever 11y ago
  Is it just me, or does $50m seem like a deal in terms of buying a top-end video game framework that will compete with the likes of unity and unreal?

girvo 11y ago

I'm guessing this is to take on what Microsoft has been doing Azure? https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/microsoft-azure-back-end-for-gaming-10548 https://mva.microsoft.com/en-us/training-courses/microsoft-a... that sort of thing? It's a great idea, because I think there's room for improvement in this space!

ggambetta 11y ago
It's interesting to see what's happening in the cloud-backed gaming space. We're working on similar ideas at http://improbable.io http://improbable.io but with more emphasis on persistent and unsharded worlds. I have the feeling that Lumberyard/Gamelift does "scaling" in the sense of "adding more shards", not "adding more compute power to the single unsharded world".

pjc50 11y ago

It's not open source, but games tend not to be anyway. It's certainly a very impressive development as Amazon are the most trusted "PaaS" vendor even if they're not the cheapest. (have Amazon ever shut down any of the AWS services?)

alexbilbie 11y ago
SimpleDB is the only service I can think of that they've shut down since I've used the service
- jdub 11y ago
  SimpleDB is still operating. In fact, I imagine it'll get way more popular alongside Lambda.
- jhspaybar 11y ago
  It is deprecated, and they've moved people away from it when possible, but last I heard it was still "on" for the folks who wouldn't move. They just won't let anyone else in.

dustingetz 11y ago

Can I use GameLift client SDK for browser games? It doesn't look like it but can't find a clear answer. (Also GameLift server SDK is Windows only, requires visual studio http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gamelift/latest/developerguide/setting-up-prerequisites.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gamelift/latest/developerguide/se...)

soowd 11y ago

Might want to check the ToS also for Lumberyard as there's some interesting terms. https://twitter.com/XenosNS/status/697069050837475328 https://twitter.com/XenosNS/status/697069050837475328