Why is buying CCU necessary for Photon Server

Hello,

What am I getting for buying the CCU for the Photon Server? I thought it is all about me self-hosting everything: the game server and master server.

Thank you!

Comments

  • Are you referring to why there are 500 and unl. CCU licenses?
    Or is your question geared towards why you have to pay for server licenses at all?
  • FrostyMixi
    edited March 2018
    I am referring to the 500 and unl. CCU licenses. Why isn't there just one license, if I do the hosting by myself anyways? Which means I also need to handle the traffic, no matter how many players are concurrently online.

    I thought the CCU was only necessary for cloud services where you, the Photon service, do the hosting.

    Thanks!
  • Depending on your game and server specs, you might not be able to get more than 500 users on one machine. In that case you can benefit from the lower priced 500 ccu license.
  • This simply means I have to redirect anyone I can't handle on my servers, to use Photon's cloud servers? So let's say my server can handle 100 players. But the count of players who wish to play the game is 300. So the rest 200 will use Photon cloud?

    Thanks!
  • Photon Server and Photon Cloud are completely separate. There is no automatic transition from one to the other. You could build that into your client, but this seems like a very unusual case.

    If you have e.g. 1 machine running Photon Server and that machine is at it's CCU limit (due to bandwidth, CPU, ...), you will have to add more machines running Photon Server and distribute users between them.

    What is your reason for using Photon Server? You need server side code?
  • As a side question...Do I have to purchase the Photon Server license for each machine I plan to deploy the server on?

    I understand I need to distribute users between them, but why does the 500 CCU license matter at all? Isn't the CCU limit based on the performance of the machine, that Photon Server is running on? How does the 500 CCU plan help me? It simply gives me an opportunity to use one of your machines that does handle 500 CCU? How can you be sure that it does, if this CCU is based on performance, and hence, the game.

    Currently, Photon Cloud has its limitations for my use case. I would like the players to be able to create LAN servers, and their own dedicated servers, which are then listed by a master server. I would also like to have a semi-authoritative solution for the game where no actual client is a host (as is the case with cloud). Host migration is not that important.
    Is it even possible to let other people rent servers and run the game headless there? Or each new machine requires another plan? If it does then why? All of the traffic moves only through my own hosted servers, no?

    Thanks!
  • Yes, you need one license "seat" per machine you are running Photon Server on.
    So e.g. to use the 500 CCU license on 3 machines this would be 3 * 95 USD per month.
    You can then have up to 500 CCU on each machine - i.e. a total of 1500.
    The CCU limit per machine is based on the license AND the performance of the machine - whichever gets hit first. With the unl. ccu license, it is only the performance of the machine that limits CCU.
    With Photon Server, you always do the hosting. With the license you get the usage rights to run Photon.

    Also meaning, this does not suit your use case of users hosting game servers. Our model is simply not designed for that use case.

    Or each new machine requires another plan? If it does then why? All of the traffic moves only through my own hosted servers, no?

    Because we need to charge something for the years of development that already went into Photon. And also to keep us being able to fix bugs, improve the software, provide support etc.
  • Thank you!

    I finally understand how it works. You really cleared it up for me.