Gaming Studio AWS Cost Optimization
- 45%
- Monthly Cost Reduction ($22K saved)
- $265K
- Annual Savings Achieved
- Real-time
- Cost Visibility & Alerting
- Zero
- Performance Impact
About the Client
An indie gaming studio running multiplayer game servers on AWS facing unsustainable cloud costs. Their monthly AWS bill had grown significantly as their player base expanded, threatening the studio’s profitability.
The Challenge
Monthly AWS bill exceeded $50,000 with no visibility into cost drivers or optimization opportunities
Development instances running 24/7 including weekends when no one was working
Oversized EC2 instances provisioned based on guesswork rather than actual utilization data
Terabytes of old game assets stored in S3 Standard tier despite being rarely accessed
No Reserved Instance coverage meant paying full on-demand prices for predictable workloads
The Solution
ConsultingCrafts performed comprehensive AWS cost optimization - right-sizing instances, implementing spot instances, and optimizing storage.
Technical Implementation
Analyzed 3 months of CloudWatch metrics and Cost Explorer data to identify right-sizing opportunities
Implemented EC2 Spot Instances for game build servers achieving 70% cost reduction on compute
Configured S3 Intelligent-Tiering for game assets with lifecycle policies moving old data to Glacier
Set up AWS Instance Scheduler to automatically stop dev/test environments outside business hours
Purchased 1-year Reserved Instances for production workloads with predictable usage patterns
Created Cost Explorer dashboards with budget alerts and weekly cost anomaly reports
Results & Business Impact
- 45%
- Monthly Cost Reduction ($22K saved)
- $265K
- Annual Savings Achieved
- Real-time
- Cost Visibility & Alerting
- Zero
- Performance Impact
Technology Stack
- AWS
- EC2 Spot
- S3 Intelligent-Tiering
- Cost Explorer
- Auto Scaling
- Reserved Instances
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