Project Xandata is a competitive 3v3 FPS where latency fairness is a core part of the game experience. When every millisecond of advantage matters, players in the same region should get the same connection quality. On AWS, Secret 6 found that wasn't reliably the case.
The problem: wildly varying latency from the same region
Running on AWS, Secret 6 saw latency values that varied significantly between players connecting from the same region. In a twitch-reflex competitive FPS, that kind of inconsistency isn't just a technical complaint — it's a fairness issue that players notice immediately and don't forgive.
The team also faced a cost problem. AWS pricing for their workload was not sustainable for a studio at their scale, and they were paying for reliability they weren't getting.
Switching to Gameye: consistent regional performance
Moving to Gameye's bare metal infrastructure resolved the latency variance. Because sessions run on dedicated hardware rather than shared cloud instances, the network performance is consistent and predictable across players in the same region.
"When we're connecting to Gameye servers, there's not been a problem with the ISPs. Nobody has a lag advantage."
Gene Gacho, Technical Director, Secret 6
Results
- 50% reduction in server costs compared to AWS.
- Consistent latency across players in the same region — eliminating the unfair match conditions that affected the previous setup.
- API-driven session management gave the team direct control over capacity and placement without manual infrastructure work.
For a competitive title where match integrity is the product, infrastructure that delivers consistent network conditions isn't optional. Project Xandata runs on Gameye because it's the setup that gets out of the way and lets the game be fair.