Report · March 1, 2024

The True Cost of Building a Mobile Game Backend: Spring 2024

Published by Metaplay

Summary

This analysis examines the financial and operational implications of developing in-house backend technology for mobile games-as-a-service. As the industry shifts toward complex live-service models, the technical demands for scaling and maintenance have increased significantly. While third-party game engines have become the industry standard for front-end development, many studios continue to build proprietary backend systems, often overlooking the substantial long-term resource investment required to sustain them. The findings are based on a survey of 125 senior executives and technical leads at United States-based game studios with at least 50 employees. Conducted in April 2024, the research captures data from a broad range of genres, though strategy and shooter developers represent the largest segments. The methodology focused on quantifying the "human cost" of internal tech, including team size, development duration, and average compensation for backend engineers. Data reveals that the average leading US mobile studio employs 52 developers for 36 months to build and run an internal backend. With a mean annual salary of $138,864 per person, the total estimated cost for a studio to develop its own backend tech reaches approximately $21.6 million. Beyond direct financial outlays, the research highlights significant "hidden costs" associated with redeploying gameplay programmers to internal tech projects. Nearly half of the surveyed studios reported that such redeployments slowed game development, while one-third experienced increased employee crunch and higher turnover rates. The conclusion suggests that the "build vs. buy" decision is a critical strategic pivot point for modern studios. While proprietary systems offer customization, the high financial burden and negative impact on staff morale and game production timelines often outweigh the benefits. Case studies indicate that adopting external, extensible backend solutions can provide the same level of granular control and LiveOps support as top-tier internal tools while allowing studios to focus resources on core gameplay and revenue-generating features.

From the report

001 metaplay.io FOREWORD: TEEMU HAILA External tech in game development Once upon a time, game developers would build their own game engine before they could start making games on it. Now, third-party game engines like Unity, Godot and Unreal give us access to next-level tech and tooling that, realistically, we wouldn’t have been able to replicate unless we’d spent hundreds of person-years working on it ourselves. Importantly, this also means we can focus our time and energy on more useful things elsewhere, like core game development, while drastically saving on cost. All the signs are pointing to backend tech following suit. When making games is harder than ever, it’s a welcome landscape shift. The challenge in front of us today is that games now really are much more than games. We’re deep into the era of games-as-a-service - and the technical demands of building, scaling, operating and maintaining a live service game are heavier than ever. On top of that, running in-house backend tech is wildly expensive. As a company which has spent almost four years focused on building backend tech for mobile games, we wanted to find out just how pricey it is for large game developers and publishers to build their own. Even we had to do a double-take when we saw the data, particularly at the previously hidden, human costs it highlights in addition to the purely financial ones. To accompany this research, (to be released May 22nd) to the technical ingredients a game needs to hit the top-grossing charts in 2024, and how studios should approach the decision to build those ingredients in- house, or buy them from experts somewhere else. we've compiled an in-depth guide // the_true_cost_of_building_a_mobile_game_backend.pdf Teemu Haila Metaplay Co-Founder & CPO

THE SURVEY Putting a price on internal tech To put a price on the decision to build your own backend, we surveyed 125 leading game developers at US game studios on the resources they invest in backend tech and tooling development. The methodology The research fieldwork took place between 23rd and 26th April 2024. The 125 respondents all work at game development companies with a minimum of 50 staff in the United States (US), and are all c-level executives or tech team leads. The online survey was conducted by Atomik Research, an independent creative market research agency that employs MRS-certified researchers and abides to the MRS code. The questions Data was gathered on The genres of games the studio madZ How long the studio had been building internal tools and tecR How many people at the studio were working on internal tools and tecR The average salary of a backend tech develope^ The impact of re-deploying game programmers to work on internal tech For the first time, the answers have enabled us to put a concrete estimate on the cost of a studio’s decision to build their own backend - and the results are eye-watering. 002 metaplay.io // the_true_cost_of_building_a_mobile_game_backend.pdf

On average across leading US mobile game studios, spend building and running their studio’s in house backend tech, at a salary of 52 developers 36 months $138,864 per person, per year. That makes the cost of a  studio’s decision to build their own  backend tech a startling $21,662,784. 003 metaplay.io // the_true_cost_of_building_a_mobile_game_backend.pdf

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QUESTION 03 What genre of mobile games does your studio develop? The studios surveyed developed a wide variety of mobile games, giving validity to the results and not skewing heavily towards any particular type of game. Top-tier mobile game studios in the US which require a backend for online services are most likely to be developing strategy games (58%) and shooters (57%). They’re least likely to be working on hypercasual (22%) and card collecting games (18%). This is in line to what we’re accustomed to seeing in the app stores: online games, often with a deep meta, need backends that can help developers with social features and LiveOps. Genres that are categorised by mostly single-player games, like Hypercasual and Trivia/Word, are less in need of a backend due to lack of a need for online services or regular LiveOps. As mentioned at the outset, LiveOps, and online and social features, are increasingly a requirement of successful games today. The recent emergence of ‘hybridcasual’ games from the hypercasual genre is testament to that. One would expect that if we were to run this survey again in a few years’ time, even the genres classified by mostly single- player games would by that point have implemented online and social features in order to keep up with the market. Number of studios developing games in said genre Strategy Shooter Action (Battle Royale, MOBA) Sports Arcade Puzzle / Match Simulation / Racing Kids Casino RPG Trivia / Word Hypercasual CCG Other 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 005 metaplay.io // the_true_cost_of_building_a_mobile_game_backend.pdf

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