The "Stop Killing Games" movement has brought forward, through legislative action in certain locations, players' desire for game preservation. Multiplayer games (and online games) represent a monumental challenge to preserve given that beyond locally hosted game assets and engine, they rely on components kept online by cloud services, alongside licenses for products and services with contractual, time-limited support. Those cloud providers and licenses (regardless of hardware type, be it cloud compute, bare metal, etc.) must be paid for. 

This article provides a breakdown and checklist of potential components to review when preparing for preservation and examines how just-in-time cloud compute services can enable players to cost-effectively pay for infrastructure once a game enters "sunset" preservation mode. 

Multiplayer Game Components Breakdown 

While each multiplayer game's infrastructure is unique, they break down into the following main categories: 

• Game Engine: Game engines like Unreal Engine 5 and Unity power the games themselves. Developers typically cannot redistribute engine modifications or open-source engine components due to licensing restrictions (though terms vary by engine). 

• Game Services - Player Data: Every character, item, and piece of progression is stored in a cloud-hosted database with automatic scaling, backups, and global availability. 

• Game Services – Social Features & Authentication: Cross-platform authentication, in-game chat and moderation, session search and management, parties, achievements, play reporting, and more. These are usually managed by game services companies, from free (with usage limits) services like Epic Online Services to paid platforms. 

• Game Services - In-game Purchase Validation: For games with economy, and whether with real life money or in-game currency, purchase validation is key to ensure the validity of a purchase for both the player and the game. This authoring works in tandem with a service provider taking charge of the payment.

• Server-Related Logic: Critical systems like authentication or finding and creating servers need to run in a secure, trusted environment before players connect to the game world. These lightweight functions are now managed by serverless cloud functions tied to cloud providers. 

• Matchmaking & Lobbies: Either through "browser lobbies" which ping all available servers and list them for users, or active matchmaking which seamlessly groups players and deploys game servers. 

• Game Server Hosting: Once players are grouped, they join a deployed game server hosted online by a provider (regardless of hardware, be it cloud compute, bare metal, or on-premises servers). Beyond the game server itself, it connects to platforms that enable scaling game servers, deployment location decision-making, security (DDoS protections), and much more. 

All of these components are built on specific platforms and services selected by developers for their intended use. This isn't like the simpler client-server architecture of earlier games; it's a complex web of interconnected services. 

Multiplayer Game Preservation – Checklist & Solutions 

There are two types of components: those whose products/features can be player-hosted, and those that should not be player-hosted as it would introduce security issues where the "host" could access player information like IP addresses or send malicious data. 

Either way, the entire backend infrastructure should be modified to ensure it is resilient and provides the option to swap services. Easier said than done, but feasible. Alternatively, ensuring that certain non-critical aspects of the backend such as game services (voice, chat, achievements, etc.) can be turned off is the strict minimum. 

Player-Hostable Components 

• Game: Game developers should deliver a final client for players to use, allowing players to run the game and connect to new platforms/services. This will be the "final" version of the game. Alternatively, developers can provide access to their game code and have the players themselves update and maintain the game. 

• Game – Assets & Data: If the game is maintained by the community, distributing updates (patches) and assets will be critical. Many services allow, with some engineering effort, nearly free access to CDN services through platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and others. 

• Game Services – Social Features (Voice & Chat): All features that don't have a direct security impact, such as voice and chat, can be shifted back to player hosting. While somewhat less polished, these were traditionally player-hosted, provided strong security protocols are implemented. Alternatively, both can be handled "externally" through services like Discord by implementing their SDK, which are often already used by players who avoid in-game services. 

Preferably Cloud-Hosted Components 

• Game Services - Player Data: As this database handles every player's inventory and progression, providing the option to manipulate it is far from ideal even if possible. Given the unlikelihood of having that database need to be scaled in sunset mode, the costs of managed databases are negligible – a community-paid service that is paid for monthly without commitment is a solid option. Edgegap provides cost-effective fully managed databases, which means it doesn't require DevOps or development input, without yearly commitment and whose billing can be paid for by a community-backed payments through the developer's account. 

• Server Logic: Nowadays powered by serverless cloud functions, these require servers to function, though the compute required is limited. While they could be hosted by players, if that player's server goes down, everything else attached to it goes down. It is simple to use a fully managed cloud serverless platform like Edgegap's managed infrastructure. 

• Game Services – Authentication: While a simple username/password authentication that bypasses the third-party system and works with a cloud-hosted database is an option, it introduces vulnerabilities where the owner of the database can manipulate this information. Moving authentication to a free service, like Epic Online Service or Steamworks, is a solid alternative. 

• Game Services - In-game Purchase Validation: Cloud is required to validate the purchase, alongside collaborating with the payment provider to ensure it is kept up to date.

• Matchmaking & Lobbies: Switching to player-hosted lobbies which can tap into server logic serverless functions is an option. Epic Online Services provides a free alternative. In terms of player experience, matchmaking with logic remains a far better end-user experience. Edgegap offers an extremely cost-effective matchmaking solution (approximately $22/month as of 2025) which provides matchmaking and hosting, alongside lobby browser functionality. 

• Game Server: Providing the player with a full game client to self-host is challenging – it means the entire networking infrastructure (netcode, authentication, matchmaking/lobbies, game server) needs to be changed to peer-to-peer; a massive development endeavor for games likely lacking resources. Additionally, player-hosted game servers are notoriously insecure and allow for the host to access player data and send malicious data as game servers can be decompiled and modified. As such, the best alternative is to continue cloud hosting but using just-in-time orchestration like Edgegap's. This means Edgegap can deploy game servers to all of its hundreds of locations worldwide, keeping the game distributed globally, and thanks to its container-based game servers that can be fractioned, keeping it extremely low-cost - approximately $0.00115/min. per Dedicated vCPU pro-rated. As it is just-in-time, players can pay only for their online play time, like they would with "rent-a-server" services, but seamlessly part of the game's experience through in-game billing tied to the developer's account. 

Key Takeaways for Developers 

Game preservation is a complex challenge, but with proper planning and the right mix of community involvement and cost-effective cloud services, developers can ensure their games remain playable long after official support ends.  

In short, make sure to: 

• Plan for preservation during development: Building modular, service-agnostic infrastructure makes future transitions easier. 

• Identify critical vs. optional components: Determine which features are essential for the core game experience versus nice-to-have social features. 

• Consider hybrid approaches: Some components can be player-hosted while others require cloud infrastructure for security and reliability. 

• Budget for ongoing costs: Even in preservation mode, some infrastructure costs are unavoidable, but just-in-time services can minimize these expenses. 

• Engage your community: Player communities are often willing to contribute financially to preserve games they care about.