What changes are you making?

We added public pricing and the ability to launch your game without having to sign a paper agreement. A new free Development pricing tier replaces our old Indie & Student Programme. We have also updated our Usage Limits (formerly called the Fair Usage Policy) to be simpler and easier to understand.

If you’re an existing customer from before February 19th, 2019, then your pricing does not change. Some support and usage limits will change.

What changes are you making to pricing?

Previously, any customer pushing their game to live was first required to sign a bespoke live commercial service agreement. Now, customers can self-service and launch live games without signing paper.

There are three pricing tiers, Development, Standard, and Enterprise. The Development tier is perfect for developers who want to evaluate the GameSparks service and are in early stages of development with up to 10 concurrent players. Use of the GameSparks preview environment is free for customers in the Development tier. The Standard tier is meant for more complex or larger games that you want to publish to live, up to 1,000 concurrent players. Standard tier is $299 per game per month, which includes up to 37,375 MAU; MAU above this limit are $0.008 per additional MAU. Customers expecting more than 1,000 concurrent players or who need multiple developer environments should contact us for Enterprise tier pricing.

What happens to my current game?

If you have a signed Live Services Addendum or other bespoke commercial agreement with us, then your pricing and support are not affected, and the updated Usage Limits replace the old Fair Usage Policy.

If you are in the Indie & Student Programme, pricing for your games in development and live games are not affected. You can continue to use GameSparks for free up to 100,000 MAU. Support is limited to documentation, forums and tutorials, and the updated Usage Limits replace the old Fair Usage Policy.

What changes are you making to support?

All pricing tiers have access to GameSparks documentation, forums and tutorials. You can access online ticket support by upgrading your game to the Standard tier or Enterprise tier. To access online ticket support while in development, sign up to the Standard tier.

What are the changes to Usage Limits?

We have updated our Usage Limits (formerly called the Fair Use Policy) to make them easier to understand and more straightforward for you to implement in your game. Based on the tier, there are limits on concurrent players, API requests per second, storage, and Cloud Code execution times. If your game exceeds a usage limit, the GameSparks API will return a limit exceeded response to allow you to handle the error in your game gracefully. If you need increased usage limits, please contact us.

When do the changes take effect?

The updated usage limits apply beginning February 19th, 2019. New pricing will be billed beginning March 1, 2019. Please contact us if you have further questions.

My game is already using Matchmaking and Realtime, will I continue to be able to use them?

Live games which are already using Matchmaking and Realtime can continue to use the features. If you have a game in development and plan to use Matchmaking and Realtime, please contact us for more information.

How do I know if my game has reached the concurrent users (CCU) limit?

GameSparks uses the number of open WebSocket connections to your game for calculating how many CCUs you’ve consumed relative to your limit. WebSocket connections are generated from player connections and any open Admin Screens. You have visibility into the CCU for your game in the GameSparks Portal under Analytics/Overview as “Active Players (now)”. You will know if you have hit your CCU limit if you see SERVICE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED messages in your script.log collection.

How do I know if my game has reached the API Request limit?

The following are counted as API requests: client calls made through SDK or REST calls; calls from Cloud Code via Spark.Requests or Spark.sendRequest; calls from Realtime scripts via RTSession.newRequest. If the sum of API requests in a second exceeds your limit (by default 10 per second in preview, 100 per second in live), those requests will not be processed by GameSparks and an error response will be returned. You will know if you have hit your API Request limit if you see SERVICE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED messages in your script.log collection.

When should I use the Preview or Live environment?

Preview is a limited capacity environment designed to support only development and functional testing. The Preview environment is not intended for load, automated or play testing. Players should not connect to Preview at any time in your game’s lifecycle.

Live is scalable environment which is intended to support live games. If you are running a load test, playtest, performing QA, soft launching your game, or fully launching your game, you should use the Live environment. You can make your game available in Live by creating a snapshot of your game’s configuration and code and then publishing it. To learn more read our Development Process Guide.

How do I request a service limit increase?

Contact us to request a limit increase by raising a support ticket with a Type of “Service Limits Increase Request”. To help us, please tell us the limit you are looking to have increased, to what value, and the reasoning behind your request. It can take a few business days to process requests so please help us by providing as much detail upfront as possible.