Discussion Multiplayer options

I'm making a multiplayer game that will need similar networking as slither.io.

It will be free to play with income from ads.

I'm trying to decide the best way to do it. I need a good balance between:

1. ease of setup
2. cost
3. workability

I've narrowed it down to 3 options.

1. photon fusion in shared mode (cheapest)
2. photon fusion in server mode
3. fishnet with playflow server

Servers are more expensive but may do a better job.

Can anyone share with me they're thoughts as to which one is best for what I want?

If I missed any other good options please let me know!

Thanks!

 

I work on Photon, so I can only comment on our SDKs.

Fusion shared mode is good fit here if you go for mobile or WebGL.

This might even be a candidate for Quantum. It only needs to sync input and runs well on mobile and in WebGL.
It is likely a bit more effort to get started but you don't really have to think about networking, when using it. Once the frames are confirmed, this is the state on all clients for that frame (as it's deterministic).

 

Quantum does sound good except that I need at least 200 players per room, if not more. Plus it sounds expensive.

 

With this many players, Quantum is not an option. It's not that expensive when it fits the use case well and helps you create some things other network solutions can't as perfectly.
Fusion is likely the best basis (out of our options) then.

 

"Best" is a relative term. They all have pros and cons.

Fish is free and has fantastic support on Discord. 24/7 questions answered. That's priceless when it comes to networking. Top notch support.

If you are looking for a framework for multiple-servers and whatnot, check out FishMMO in the resources channel of the Fish Discord. Very well built multi-server/scene setup created by users on the Discord with constant development and it's free as well.

 

Another option is to use Unity Netcode for gameObjects + Azure web pubsub transport. Here's the quick setup video:

The transport uses azure web pubsub service, which is a realtime service supports websocket. The price is quite cheap, including free tier. The SKU for concurrent connection is in wide range, from 1000 to 100000. They can even support more by using multiple instances for more concurrent connections.