Russian players on Gamelift get disconnected from gamesessions after 1 minute

Question

The game is hosted using Gamelift. In eu-central-1 location, the players playing from Russian Federation have sent many complaints that they always get disconected from the games after about 1 minute and are unable to play. No such complains have been sent from other countries. The problem does not appear to exist on other locations except the eu-central-1. It seems it works on ap-southeast-1. The problem is that many players from Russia want to play on European servers because of better ping. The game is very ping sensitive.

One player from Russia suggested that it may be due to sanctions but it appears that many other multiplayer games have players from Russia without problems.

Riku_Kobayashi · Answer

Hello.

Is traffic from Russia reaching GameLift servers?  
If traffic is reaching the fleet, it may be possible to identify the problem from the fleet logs or similar resources.  
Please check the fleet logs and other relevant information.  
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/gameliftservers/latest/developerguide/logging-server-messages.html

re:Post Agent · Answer

Based on the information available about Amazon GameLift, this disconnection issue is likely not related to GameLift itself, as GameLift does not implement region-specific player restrictions based on country of origin. The service is designed to handle player connections globally and focuses on optimizing player latency across regions.

Since you mention that Russian players can successfully connect to ap-southeast-1 but experience disconnections specifically in eu-central-1 after about 1 minute, this suggests a network routing or connectivity issue rather than a service-level restriction. Here are some potential causes to investigate:

1. **Network Path Issues**: There may be internet routing problems or peering issues between Russian ISPs and the eu-central-1 region specifically. You could use network monitoring tools to identify if there are widespread internet issues affecting connectivity between Russia and that particular AWS region.

2. **Player Latency Policies**: Review your queue configuration and player latency policies. If you have policies that disconnect players exceeding certain latency thresholds, Russian players might be experiencing latency spikes that trigger disconnections. However, this would typically prevent placement rather than cause mid-game disconnections.

3. **Game Server Logic**: Check your game server implementation for any timeout mechanisms or connection validation logic that might be inadvertently disconnecting players with higher or fluctuating latency.

4. **ISP or Regional Routing**: The issue could be related to how traffic is routed from Russia to eu-central-1 versus ap-southeast-1, which is outside of GameLift's control.

I recommend measuring player-to-server latency using UDP ping beacons to understand the actual latency Russian players experience to different regions, and monitoring for any latency spikes or packet loss that could explain the disconnections.  
**Sources**  
[Create a player latency policy - Amazon GameLift Servers](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/gameliftservers/latest/developerguide/queues-design-latency.html)  
[Fine-tuning player latency with Amazon GameLift Servers | AWS for Games Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/gametech/fine-tuning-player-latency-with-amazon-gamelift-servers/)

Russian players on Gamelift get disconnected from gamesessions after 1 minute

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