Edgegap Transformed Multiplayer Games Performance

Edgegap provides a tailored orchestration platform designed to reduce online gaming latency through edge computing, helping studios deliver consistently high-performance multiplayer experiences anywhere in the world. As an Akamai Qualified Compute Partner, Edgegap builds on Akamai’s massively distributed cloud to eliminate latency for end users, scale instantly up to 14 million concurrent users in less than 60 minutes, and support unpredictable global demand, such as during game launches. Combining its orchestration technology with Akamai Cloud enables Edgegap to offer near-zero gameplay latency, automated global scaling, and a pay-as-you-go model — helping studios boost player online experiences and retention while keeping infrastructure costs under control.

Edgegap was founded to solve one of gaming’s hardest technical problems: delivering real-time multiplayer experiences to players spread across continents, devices, and networks. Mathieu Duperré, CEO and founder of Edgegap, said he created the company with the idea of leveraging a highly distributed infrastructure to improve players’ experiences.

The company focused on what Duperré described as “the plumbing for multiplayer games,” handling the invisible complexity behind live play. Players might be connecting from different countries, ISPs, and devices, and centralized public clouds often introduce unavoidable latency. Edgegap’s mission was to minimize those connection issues while abstracting infrastructure complexity away from developers.

Today, Edgegap supports millions of players per day worldwide, helping thousands of studios deliver smoother online gameplay and better business outcomes. According to Duperré, the studios that Edgegap serves see less churn, which translates into higher revenues.

Even with Edgegap’s platform, latency remained one of the biggest threats to player satisfaction and loyalty. Philip Côté, CTO of Edgegap, explained that most public cloud data centers are still concentrated in a small number of regions. As player populations spread outward, those farther from centralized data centers experience lag.

Since these outer-region players are often the first to disengage, Côté underscored that studios risk losing up to 34% of their players due to latency every time a player logs in. Worse, gamers frequently blame publishers or developers for poor performance, turning a networking issue into a brand and reputation problem.

For studios with limited infrastructure expertise, solving this problem internally is a massive challenge shifting precious resources away from game development. It’s why Edgegap provides dedicated tools for game engines and netcode, alongside the ability to deploy game servers from a simple API call. All of this removes the burden of integration and minimizes DevOps workload of server provisioning, security, patching, and maintenance.

Edgegap’s platform relies on automated orchestration trained on massive volumes of historical and real-time data. Its patented and proprietary user-server decision-making engine evaluates player location, session context, device type, and live network conditions to determine where game servers should be deployed for optimal performance.

To make this approach viable at scale, Edgegap needed a cloud partner with unparalleled geographic reach. Vincent Archambault, CSO of Edgegap, said the gaming industry had long been using centralized data centers, but distributed cloud represents the future. “Akamai Cloud aligns perfectly with Edgegap’s focus on getting closer to players for better multiplayer experiences,” he explained.

Akamai also gives Edgegap the flexibility to deploy instantly, wherever players appear. Duperré said the sheer number of locations and edge sites, combined with Akamai’s brand reputation, provide peace of mind to Edgegap’s largest customers.

As an Akamai Qualified Compute Partner, Edgegap leverages multiple Akamai cloud solutions to power its globally distributed, latency-optimized gaming platform.

• CPU: Provides globally distributed compute resources deployed close to players for lower latency and improved gameplay performance.
• Clusters: Edgegap’s matchmaking system runs on Akamai Cloud’s clusters to deliver seamless logic-based grouping of players.
• NodeBalancers: Distributes traffic efficiently across game servers to maintain performance and reliability during traffic spikes.
• Block Storage: Supports fast, persistent storage for game server workloads.
• Object Storage: Enables scalable storage for assets, logs, and game data.
• LKE: Managed Kubernetes Engine: Powers containerized orchestration and automated scaling across Akamai Cloud.
• Backups: Protects critical game infrastructure and data with reliable recovery options.

Akamai’s broad global distribution allows Edgegap to tap into locations wherever demand emerges. Côté shared a launch scenario that illustrated the value of distributed cloud orchestration. A game studio expected most of its players to come from New York after a major U.S. marketing push. What it did not anticipate was an Australian streamer popularizing the game overnight.

Côté called the customer days after launch to explain that all players had been served from Asia for two days. Instead of struggling with lag or downtime, Edgegap automatically spun up servers in Australia using Akamai Cloud locations. Players experienced smooth gameplay with no noticeable latency.

“This outcome would not have been possible with traditional centralized deployments. With Akamai Cloud and Edgegap’s orchestration, infrastructure followed and enabled players in real time,” Côté underscored. “Akamai Cloud eliminates the need to transport game data from one server to another, thereby reducing latency,” added Duperré.

Beyond performance, Edgegap helps studios reduce operational overhead. Akamai’s on-demand model means studios pay only for servers in use. “Once a game session ends, customers do not have to pay for idle infrastructure,” Côté said.

Côté also emphasized Akamai’s ease of use. “Deploying new servers is simple, the CPUs are high quality, pricing is competitive, and uptime meets our strict standards.”

As Archambault explained, Akamai further enables Edgegap to expand its service offerings, integrating additional capabilities such as databases as a service when studios need them. 

The partnership extends beyond infrastructure. Managing a single global partnership instead of multiple regional providers further reduces complexity. “Akamai’s worldwide presence allows us to manage one relationship while still deploying close to players everywhere,” Côté said. “We also have direct access to Akamai experts and can influence product roadmaps and new site locations, reinforcing the long-term strategic value of the collaboration.”

With Akamai, Edgegap delivers automated, near-zero-latency multiplayer experiences at global scale while simplifying operations for game studios. The partnership allows Edgegap to focus on its core mission: reducing latency and making multiplayer infrastructure invisible to developers.

“Akamai’s global distribution means studios can be closer to users everywhere, which ultimately leads to better multiplayer experiences for players around the world,” concluded Archambault.