Custom backend infrastructure for game studios who need matchmaking, leaderboards, in-game economy, live ops tooling, and player analytics -- built to scale with player count without the studio needing to become a distributed systems shop.
Game engines handle rendering and physics. They don't handle the server-side infrastructure that multiplayer games, live service games, and any game with social features require. We build that layer.
Real-time matchmaking that scales with concurrent player count without re-architecture
Leaderboards and ranking systems handling millions of entries with low-latency reads
In-game economy with virtual currency, item management, and transaction ledger
Live ops tooling so game designers can configure events, sales, and content drops without engineering involvement
RaftLabs builds custom game backend infrastructure for game studios -- real-time matchmaking systems, leaderboards and ranking engines, in-game economy and virtual currency management, live ops and event tooling, player analytics platforms, anti-cheat systems, and scalable game server orchestration. We build the backend infrastructure that game engines don't provide so studios can focus on gameplay rather than distributed systems engineering. Most game backend projects deliver in 10 to 16 weeks at a fixed, agreed cost.
Unity and Unreal handle the client-side experience well. What they don't provide is the server infrastructure for player matching, persistent world state, social features, economy management, and the live ops tooling that makes a game a live service rather than a shipped product.
Studios typically build this infrastructure incrementally -- a quick matchmaking prototype here, a Redis leaderboard there, a manually configured event system that only engineers can update. That approach creates technical debt that compounds as the player base grows and live service requirements increase. The matchmaking that worked at launch can't handle the concurrent player count at peak. The event system that required an engineer to update becomes a bottleneck for the game team's cadence.
We build the backend infrastructure properly from the start -- designed for the concurrency target, with the tooling the game team needs to operate the live service independently.
Prototype matchmaking built for early testing collapses at scale because the queue, server allocation, and latency logic were never designed for production concurrency. Every failed match is a player who leaves and may not return. Rebuilding the architecture to handle your actual peak load -- before launch, not after -- protects the first impression that determines a live service's long-term trajectory.
When every content drop, sale, or event requires an engineer to make a code change or database edit, the game team's operational cadence is limited by the engineering team's availability. Game designers should be able to configure and schedule events through an interface -- not wait in a ticket queue. The gap compounds as the live service matures and the content cadence increases.
An economy built without server-side validation and a transaction ledger is vulnerable to duplication exploits, purchase fraud, and balance sheet drift that the team cannot diagnose until it is visible in player behaviour. Restoring trust after an economy exploit is harder than building it correctly the first time. Server-authoritative economy processing with a full audit trail eliminates the class of exploit that client-side validation cannot catch.
Without event tracking from the game client, the team cannot see where players drop out, which economy sinks are working, or which game modes retain players longest. Design decisions made without this data are guesses that take a full release cycle to validate. An analytics platform built around your specific game's event schema gives the team data to iterate on a live game with confidence.
Skill-based matchmaking using ELO, MMR, or custom rating systems with configurable match parameters -- team size, game mode, region, and latency thresholds. Queue management with wait time estimation and queue abandonment handling. Session creation and player notification when a match is found. Server allocation requesting a game server from your orchestration layer for each match. Match history recording for post-match stat updates and the replay data your analytics team needs. The matchmaking system that operates correctly at the concurrent player count your game targets, not just at the level your prototype was tested at.
Global and segmented leaderboards supporting millions of entries with sub-50ms read latency for rank lookups. Time-windowed boards -- daily, weekly, seasonal, all-time -- with automatic rotation at period end. Friend leaderboards showing a player's rank relative to their social graph without scanning the global board. Score update pipeline handling high-frequency score submissions from active matches without leaderboard inconsistency. Tournament brackets and elimination structures for competitive events. The ranking infrastructure that scales to your player base without the latency creep that kills the experience at large scale.
Virtual currency system supporting multiple currency types -- premium (real money), earned, and event currencies -- with configurable earn rates, spend rules, and currency cap management. Item catalogue management with item attributes, bundle definitions, limited edition flags, and platform-specific pricing. Purchase processing with receipt validation for iOS App Store, Google Play, and Steam. Transaction ledger recording every economy event with the player, the item or currency, the timestamp, and the transaction type -- the audit trail that supports fraud investigation and economy balancing. Economy analytics showing daily active buyers, ARPU, conversion rate, and currency sink/source balance. The economy infrastructure that powers your monetisation without the risk of exploits undermining the currency value.
Live ops dashboard giving game designers and producers the ability to configure and schedule game events, limited-time offers, battle pass activations, and content drops without a code deploy or engineering involvement. A/B testing framework for economy changes, progression tuning, and UI experiments with the statistical significance monitoring your product team needs. Feature flag management for controlled rollouts to player segments -- the new content visible to QA before it's live to all players. Push notification and in-game messaging for event announcements and re-engagement campaigns. The live ops tooling that decouples the game team's operating cadence from the engineering team's deployment schedule.
Game event tracking capturing player actions -- session start/end, level completion, item purchase, match result, social interaction -- with the event schema designed for the specific analysis your game team does. Funnel analysis showing drop-off at each progression step so the design team can identify and fix the moments that lose players. Retention cohort analysis showing D1, D7, and D30 retention by acquisition channel, game version, and player segment. Economy health monitoring showing the balance between currency sources and sinks and the early warning signals of inflation or deflation. The analytics layer that gives your game team the data to make design decisions rather than guesses.
Server-authoritative game state for competitive game modes so the server validates actions rather than trusting client-reported outcomes -- eliminating the class of cheats that require only client modification. Anomaly detection flagging statistical outliers in player performance, economy behaviour, and progression speed for human review. Account security covering login anomaly detection, concurrent session management, and device fingerprinting for ban evasion detection. Cheat report intake and review workflow for community-reported cases. The game integrity layer that protects the competitive experience without requiring a dedicated anti-cheat engineering team.
We map your current backend architecture, your concurrent player targets, and the specific systems that are blocking launch or limiting your live service. We identify which systems to build, rebuild, or leave alone -- and document the scope and fixed cost before development starts.
We design the server topology, data layer, and API contracts for each backend system. Scale targets are defined as testable thresholds -- not aspirational numbers -- and the architecture is validated against those thresholds before a line of production code is written.
We build each backend system in prioritised order, with weekly builds your team can test against the game client. API documentation is maintained throughout so your client engineers are never blocked waiting for integration specs.
We support go-live with real-time monitoring, incident response, and capacity management during peak launch traffic. Post-launch, we hand over documentation and runbooks so your team can operate the backend independently, with an agreed support window for issues that surface after launch.
Frequently asked questions
Backend-as-a-service platforms are the right starting point for most studios -- they provide matchmaking, leaderboards, economy, and analytics at a low upfront cost and reasonable scale. Custom backend becomes the better choice when your matchmaking logic requires rating systems or match parameters the platform doesn't support, when your economy is complex enough that the platform's item and currency model creates workarounds, when your live ops cadence is limited by the platform's tooling, or when data ownership and analytics depth are priorities the platform's pricing or data export limitations constrain. We're honest about this -- if a BaaS would serve you well, we'll tell you. If you've hit the ceiling, we'll scope what a custom build looks like.
Launch day and peak event traffic are the scenarios that break backend infrastructure built for average load. We design for the target concurrent player count at the architecture level -- the matchmaking queue, the leaderboard, and the session management are all designed to scale horizontally so additional capacity can be added without re-architecture. Load testing against the concurrent player target is part of the delivery process before launch. For games with uncertain player counts, we build on auto-scaling cloud infrastructure so capacity expands automatically in response to demand.
Yes. The backend infrastructure we build is engine-agnostic -- it exposes APIs and SDKs that the game client calls, regardless of the engine the client is built in. We provide client-side integration code for your engine of choice. If your client already has partial backend integration (for example, a matchmaking client that talks to your existing system), we assess what can be migrated or replaced during discovery so the transition doesn't require a full client rewrite.
A backend covering matchmaking, leaderboards, player profiles, and basic analytics typically runs $35,000 to $75,000. A more complete live service infrastructure with in-game economy, live ops tooling, anti-cheat, and a full analytics platform typically runs $75,000 to $150,000. Fixed cost agreed before development starts.
Player profiles, session management, server orchestration
Skill-based matching, queue management, regional routing
Virtual currency, item catalogue, transaction ledger
Event tracking, retention analysis, economy health monitoring
What clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
I was pleased with RaftLabs team quality, consistency and execution.
01 / 02
Tell us your game type, your target concurrent player count, and which backend systems are blocking your launch or limiting your live service. We'll scope the right infrastructure and give you a fixed cost.
