You keep control. We take the 3am page.
A dedicated 24x7x365 GameOps layer that protects revenue, shortens response, holds launches and keeps your engineers on the roadmap, without building the full operating model in-house.
Build internally
- Fixed headcount
- Shift coverage
- Management overhead
- Tooling burden
- Burnout risk
Zumidian model
- Expert coverage
- Runbook response
- Operational Analytics
- Launch support
- Month to month, no commitment
The core question: how do you keep control without carrying the whole internal burden?
Estimate your true cost of building in-house.
Every studio's number is different: headcount, market, tooling and scope all move it. The figures elsewhere on this page are illustrations; your inputs are the answer.
Model your internal build
Adjust the assumptions for your studio.
Every studio's number is different: headcount, market, tooling and scope all move it. That's what this calculator is for; the figures elsewhere on this page are illustrations, your inputs are the answer.
Full coverage needs 3 shifts plus weekends, holidays, and redundancy, realistically 6 to 8.
Senior DevOps / SRE / LiveOps engineers in gaming hubs command $120K to $200K+ base.
Benefits, taxes, equity, equipment, and stipends. 35% is conservative for US/EU studios.
Monitoring, paging, dashboards, runbook platforms, log retention, and probe networks.
Shift roles are hard to fill and keep. Replacement cost is commonly 6 to 9 months of salary.
Your estimate
Direct savings only. Engineering velocity, retention, faster incident recovery, and fewer launch fire drills represent additional unquantified value. Directional estimate, not a formal quote. Actual pricing varies by studio size, launch timeline, and scope. Assumptions are calibrated for US / Western European studios.
Smaller team? Your real cost isn’t headcount. It’s your developers on call every night after launch.
Which parts of a 24x7x365 operating model do you actually need to own?
Live games need GameOps; that part isn't in question. Internal coverage is a permanent operating model: shifts, management, runbooks, tooling, training, reporting, retention, escalation paths, key-person dependency and burnout mitigation. The question is how much of it has to be yours.
Coverage gaps
Nights, weekends, vacations, holidays and unexpected peaks are hard to cover consistently.
Escalation delays
Resolution depends on who is available, how fast they respond and how much context they have.
Key-person dependency
Critical knowledge sits with a few people instead of a repeatable system.
Fatigue
On-call pressure, night and weekend coverage, and engineers pulled from roadmap work.
Internal build
A fixed cost you carry through the quiet months too.
Fixed costs regardless of demand. Difficult to scale for launches and spikes. Capital and management attention tied to non-core operations.
Zumidian model
Month to month, and it scales with your launch calendar.
A predictable monthly cost. Scale support around launches, updates and incidents. Internal teams stay on product and player value.
A fully loaded internal build runs $600K to $1.4M+ a year.
Cost is the part a CFO can check, but it is not the whole argument. The rest is a faster response at 3am, a launch window that holds, and engineers who are not pulled off the roadmap to sit on a bridge call.
$600K to $1.4M+
What a genuine internal 24x7x365 GameOps build costs per year, fully loaded, quoted conservatively. Model your own assumptions in the calculator above.
$300K
Zumidian's four core services together, at $25,000 a month: Incident Management, Operational Analytics, Launch Stability & Release Operations and Ping Monitoring. That is the most they cost; most studios start with fewer and pay less. White Label Operations and Legacy Game Management are scoped and priced separately. The Game Operations Review sets the scope and the price. See all six services.
Month to month, no long-term commitment; we have to earn the engagement every month. An annual commitment is available at a better rate, but the model doesn't depend on locking you in.
Internal build versus the Zumidian model, line by line
| Capability | Internal build | Zumidian model |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Requires hiring, scheduling, management and retention. | Included as a dedicated layer. |
| Incident response | Often depends on escalation paths and on-call availability. | Resolution-focused, runbook-driven response. |
| Tools | Internal implementation and maintenance burden. | Works with existing tools, workflows and processes. |
| Launch support | Requires surge staffing and release coordination. | Built into launch, deployment and post-release support. |
| Cost profile | Fixed internal cost structure. | Predictable monthly cost, month to month, no long-term commitment. |
| Team focus | Engineers can be pulled into firefighting. | Internal teams stay on product and roadmap. |
The numbers behind the business case
The case isn't built on more tools or more alerts. It's built on faster response, faster recovery and stability in the moments where player impact and revenue exposure are highest.
Mean time to acknowledge. A human assessing severity and player impact, not an auto-acknowledgement.
Mean time from alert to the resolving action being applied.
Mean time to verified recovery, confirmed against real player-facing signals.
226,378 alerts · 21 customer environments · every alert of every severity · one denominator · 1 Jan 2024 to 31 May 2026 · How we measure
Frequently asked questions
Should a studio build 24x7x365 game operations in-house or outsource it?
It depends on scale and predictability. Large publishers with steady, high-volume demand can justify the fixed cost of a full internal team; many studios in early or mid-stage live service cannot. The practical question is whether you need to own the entire operating model internally, or whether you need reliable access to a proven operating layer that extends your team.
How much does 24x7x365 game operations cost?
There's no single number: the cost depends on headcount, salary market, region, tooling, redundancy and how many titles the team covers. A genuine fully loaded GameOps function lands between $600K and $1.4M+ per year, fully loaded and quoted conservatively, and can run well beyond that at scale. Zumidian's cost calculator on this page models your specific assumptions. By comparison, Zumidian's services can be purchased individually, and the four core services together cost $25,000 a month ($300,000 a year). That is the most they cost, and most studios start with fewer and pay less; White Label Operations and Legacy Game Management are priced separately. Even at the full core price, direct savings are typically several hundred thousand dollars a year before the indirect savings from reduced engineering disruption. Engagements are month to month with no long-term commitment; an annual commitment is available at a preferential rate.
We already have monitoring and on-call. Do we still need GameOps?
Monitoring tells you something is wrong; it does not resolve the incident. On-call is not the same as continuous coverage. The gap is usually qualified response, structured action within approved boundaries, and verified recovery, which is what a dedicated GameOps layer provides after the alert fires.
What does an outsourced game operations provider actually do?
A provider like Zumidian works inside your existing tools, dashboards, alerts, and runbooks rather than replacing them. The workflow is continuous: monitor the live environment, qualify incidents by severity and player impact, act through approved procedures, verify recovery, and improve runbooks and thresholds after each incident, all without removing internal control.
Does outsourcing game operations require a long-term contract?
Not with Zumidian. Engagements are month-to-month with no long-term commitment; the model is designed so the provider has to earn the engagement every month. A 12-month commitment is available at a discounted rate for teams that prefer it, but the value proposition stands without it. Services can also be purchased individually rather than as the full package. Combined with a tool-agnostic approach that works inside your existing stack, this keeps switching costs and vendor risk low.
How is GameOps different from LiveOps?
GameOps is the 24x7x365 reliability layer for live games: keeping the service up, responsive and recoverable. LiveOps is the content and economy side: events, seasons, monetization. The two meet at every launch window.
Find out what your current operations model is really costing.
A Game Operations Review evaluates your coverage model, incident response, visibility gaps, launch risk, escalation paths, internal burden and cost structure, against your real environment.
hello@zumidian.com · Month to month. No long-term commitment.