GoKawiilHi, I'm Glenn Fiedler, a professional game programmer with more than 25 years experience. I'm a world expert in game netcode and the author of gafferongames.com and mas-bandwidth.com.
Just recently on June 15th, 2026, Amazon made this announcement:
Starting today, Amazon GameLift Servers provides network bandwidth in and out of AWS at no additional charge for all instance types from generation 6 and later, including On-Demand and Spot, with no commitment required. You now pay only for your Amazon GameLift Servers instance hours; all network bandwidth is free.
Multiplayer game servers generate continuous network traffic to connected players, making bandwidth one of the most unpredictable cost components for game studio customers. With free network bandwidth included, Amazon GameLift Servers eliminates this cost, giving you the simplicity of bare-metal hosting with the global reach of AWS.
Free network bandwidth applies with no enrollment, pricing agreement, or configuration change required. Existing customers on eligible fleets receive the benefit immediately. It is now available in all Amazon GameLift Servers supported regions, except China.
My first thought when reading this announcement was this article on The Onion:
Thinking the awesomeness of this announcement was self-evident, I posted this announcement to Hacker News the day it was made... and it got a single upvote.
It seems that outside of my specialty, multiplayer games, the absolutely massive ramifications of this announcement need a bit of explaining before people actually get it.
... continue reading