Bullieverse

The Challenge

Bullieverse was preparing to launch Necrodemic, a multiplayer online game with ambitions to serve a global player base. The technical requirements were demanding: real-time multiplayer sessions needed sub-100ms latency regardless of player location, GPU-intensive game servers had to scale elastically to match unpredictable demand patterns, and the entire infrastructure needed to remain cost-efficient as the player base grew.

The existing setup relied on statically provisioned GPU instances across a limited number of regions. During peak hours, players experienced matchmaking delays and latency spikes. During off-peak periods, expensive GPU instances sat idle, burning through budget. Bullieverse needed a partner who understood both the gaming domain and AWS infrastructure at depth.

Key technical challenges included:

• Global latency requirements: Players across North America, Europe, and Asia needed consistent sub-100ms round-trip times for competitive gameplay.
• GPU cost management: On-demand GPU instances were consuming a disproportionate share of operational budget with utilization rates below 40%.
• Unpredictable demand: Player counts could spike 5-10x during events, game updates, and marketing campaigns.
• Security concerns: As a Web3-integrated game, Necrodemic required hardened infrastructure against DDoS attacks and unauthorized access.

The Solution

Remangu designed and implemented a comprehensive multiplayer infrastructure platform built on AWS, optimized specifically for the demands of real-time gaming at global scale.

Intelligent Matchmaking with AWS GameLift

We deployed AWS GameLift as the core matchmaking and game server management layer. GameLift FlexMatch was configured with custom matchmaking rules that balanced player skill, latency, and server availability. Game sessions were automatically placed in the region closest to the majority of matched players, minimizing average latency across the session.

GameLift’s server management capabilities handled the lifecycle of game server processes, automatically replacing unhealthy instances and distributing player load across available capacity. This eliminated the need for Bullieverse to build and maintain custom orchestration logic.

Infrastructure as Code with Terraform

The entire infrastructure was codified using Terraform modules, enabling repeatable deployments across regions and environments. We built custom Terraform modules for:

• GameLift fleet configurations with per-region tuning
• VPC networking with optimized routing for game traffic
• CloudWatch dashboards and alarm configurations
• IAM policies following least-privilege principles
• S3 bucket configurations for game assets and replay storage

This approach allowed Bullieverse to spin up new regions in hours rather than weeks, and ensured that every environment was consistent and auditable.

Real-Time Analytics with Amazon Redshift

Player behavior analytics were critical for both game balancing and infrastructure optimization. We built a real-time analytics pipeline that streamed game telemetry from servers into Amazon Redshift, providing Bullieverse with dashboards showing:

• Player distribution by region and time of day
• Session duration and engagement patterns
• Server performance metrics correlated with player experience
• Cost attribution per region and game mode

These insights fed directly into scaling policies, allowing the infrastructure to anticipate demand rather than merely react to it.

Cost-Optimized Auto-Scaling

EC2 Auto Scaling was configured with a multi-layered strategy combining scheduled scaling, target tracking, and predictive scaling. We implemented a spot instance strategy for non-session-critical workloads and used a mix of on-demand and spot capacity for game servers with GameLift’s built-in spot instance support.

CloudWatch metrics were used to drive scaling decisions based on player queue depth, average session latency, and GPU utilization rather than simple CPU thresholds. This ensured that scaling actions were tied to actual player experience rather than infrastructure metrics alone.

The Results

The new infrastructure delivered measurable improvements across every dimension Bullieverse cared about.

40% reduction in GPU costs was achieved through a combination of right-sized instance types informed by actual utilization data, spot instance integration where GameLift’s queue-based architecture allowed graceful handling of spot interruptions, and predictive scaling that reduced over-provisioning during off-peak hours.

Global low-latency gameplay became a reality with multi-region GameLift deployments across US East, EU West, and AP Southeast. Player-facing latency dropped below 80ms for over 95% of sessions, and matchmaking times decreased by 60% thanks to intelligent region-aware placement.

Elastic auto-scaling handled a 7x traffic spike during Necrodemic’s launch event without manual intervention. The infrastructure scaled from baseline to peak capacity in under 4 minutes and scaled back down within 15 minutes of demand subsiding, avoiding unnecessary spend.

Enhanced security posture was achieved through VPC isolation, encrypted data in transit and at rest, IAM policies scoped to minimum required permissions, and regular security audits automated through AWS Config rules.