Server hosting and Backend

Hi, I made a multiplayer game using Unity and Photon Bolt. At this point I have a client and (headless) server build ready to go. My game is match-based so I need multiple instances of the server to be running at the same time.
I'm trying to upload my server build somewhere to get to next step, matchmaking and LiveOps but I'm quite lost with the number of options. If you are using one of these services right now I'd really like some advices/reviews.
Ultimately I guess I'd like my hosting service to be the same as the backend but I'm open to everything
This is what I have right now :

Playfab
- Hosting/Orchestrator + Complete backend
- Has a free tiers but not with the new "Multiplayer 2.0" feature.

Gamelift
- Hosting/Orchestrator + Complete backend
- Has a free tiers
- Doesn't support Unity 2019 yet ? I had a lot assembly errors while trying to setup the SDK (with 2019.2.8).

Nakama
- Open-source backend
- Use Docker for the Nakama server

ChiliConnect
- No free tiers

Multiplay
- Doesn't seem to be indie-oriented at all

GameSparks
- Has a free Development tiers but the Standard tiers seems too expensive for a solo dev like me.

I know this is a broad topic but I really can't find any good information on this anywhere.
Thanks in advance!

 

If you already have a functional server build, why do you need any of these? Writing your own master server is probably going to be no more difficult than integrating any of these.

 

I must say, it is mainly because I had no idea it was that complicated to integrate any backend as I've never done that part before. I'm now seriously considering making my own master server yeah.

 

I think I have a similar question. Is the creation of a "master server app" a typical design pattern? Is it not possible to write a single server in Unity (I'm using Mirror) that can host multiple games/rooms concurrently? Sorry, I'm pretty new to to multiplayer games and Unity/Mirror, etc...

I'd imagine a master server being pretty similar in many cases, like allowing to create "parties", then launch an instance of the actual game (using unique port) and redirecting all members of the party to that instance. Is that the idea? If that's how many do it, I'll follow that approach as well. Curious, if there might already be an open source project that work on this, or any examples?

 

It is hard to say how common different approaches are in the wild. That approach is discussed a lot on the forums, implying it actually is common. But networked games are often created by teams which aren't public about a lot of the technical details of how their networking architecture is actually implemented.

 

If you haven't already, make your way over to the BaaS Discord channel where this question is the primary topic.

The community brings together information from a wide range of game tech providers. And the various rooms are populated by dev teams that work on all these game backend services so you can get rapid support.

There is also a very helpful comparison sheet that compares the many options and lines them up on over 70 different dimensions.

Some of the questions you can ask are:

• How are all these BaaS platforms pricing their services?
• Do they have free trial versions for development?
• Are there API limits involved for us?
• What language and infrastructure dependencies do they have?
• What's the level of quality on their documentation and examples?
• What kinds of game analytics are available?
• Is there GDPR support?

...and plenty more.

You can join the BaaS community by following this invite link to their Discord channel:

https://discord.me/baas

You can view the BaaS technology comparison Google Sheet here:

https://bit.ly/2mwZwqu

My company Beamable is also a backend tech provider with heavy Unity integration. Give us a look at https://beamable.com as well. Maybe we can help!