TURN relay acceptable use policy
This policy applies to TURN relay in both AGS Shared Cloud and AGS Private Cloud environments.
Overview
The AccelByte Gaming Services (AGS) peer-to-peer (P2P) transport attempts a direct connection between players first. When a player's network address translation (NAT) or firewall blocks a direct connection, the transport falls back to a Traversal Using Relays around NAT (TURN) relay so that the player can still join the game session. See Peer-to-Peer for the connection flow.
TURN relay is included in your AGS subscription at no additional cost. It is intended to carry multiplayer game state, not to act as a general-purpose network transport. This page defines which relay traffic is in scope and which is not.
What TURN relay is for
Relay is intended to transmit multiplayer game state, such as:
- Player and object positions.
- Player inputs.
- Stats, scores, and resource counts.
- Unit locations.
- Match, lobby, and session coordination messages.
- Comparable gameplay data for an active game session.
Permitted use
Use TURN relay to:
- Transmit multiplayer game state for a title you have deployed on AGS.
- Carry session, party, and matchmaking coordination messages for that title.
- Carry small volumes of gameplay metadata that are incidental to an active game session.
If you are not sure whether a planned use is in scope, click Submit a Ticket in the AGS Admin Portal before you ship the client build.
Prohibited use
Do not use TURN relay for:
- Audio streaming or video streaming of any kind.
- Voice chat. Use Chat for in-game communication features.
- File transfer, including game assets, patches, downloadable content, user-generated content, and save files.
- Proxy or virtual private network (VPN) services, or tunneling general-purpose internet traffic.
- Traffic for an application or title that is not deployed on AGS.
- Relaying traffic on behalf of a third party, or reselling or sublicensing relay capacity.
- Working around a service limit that applies to your environment, for example by distributing traffic across additional game sessions, namespaces, or credentials.
- Unlawful traffic, or traffic that infringes the rights of others.
- Probing, scanning, overloading, or reverse-engineering TURN infrastructure. Submit a ticket before running a load test.
- Directing relay traffic at a third-party host, including reflecting or amplifying traffic toward a target.
This list describes categories rather than every individual case. Any traffic that is not multiplayer game state for a title you have deployed on AGS is out of scope, whether or not it appears above.
Relay capacity and service limits
TURN servers are deployed per region. Region availability, capacity, and scaling behavior differ between AGS Shared Cloud and AGS Private Cloud. See Configure TURN server autoscaling.
To request a TURN server region for your environment, click Submit a Ticket in the AGS Admin Portal. You are notified once the server has been deployed.
AccelByte may introduce published limits on relay use, such as a maximum relay bandwidth per game session. Any limit is documented on this page before it takes effect.
How AccelByte handles policy violations
AccelByte reviews relay traffic patterns and volumes in order to operate, size, and protect the service. AccelByte does not inspect the contents of the payloads your players relay.
If relay traffic appears to fall outside this policy, AccelByte contacts your account representative, describes what was observed, and agrees a remediation window with you. If the traffic is not remediated within that window, AccelByte may limit or suspend relay for the affected environment.
AccelByte limits relay without prior notice only where there is an active security incident, unlawful traffic, or a risk to the service or to other customers. You are notified as soon as reasonably possible.
Relay is the fallback connection path for players whose networks block direct connections, so limiting relay can prevent those players from joining a game session at all. AccelByte does not use it as a first response.
Relay traffic that falls outside this policy is not covered by AGS relay availability or capacity commitments.
Your responsibilities
- Make sure your title's use of relay conforms to this policy, including traffic generated by your SDK integration and by any third-party middleware you embed.
- Submit a ticket in advance if you plan a use that could fall under Prohibited use.
- Submit a ticket if you believe a third party is abusing relay through your title.
Changes to this policy
AccelByte may update this policy. Material changes are published on this page and communicated to your account representative at least 30 days before they take effect. The last updated date on this page reflects the most recent change.