feat: Game server hosting as a platform vertical

[eliBenven]

Summary

Nexlayer's API-driven, YAML-based deployment model is a natural fit for on-demand game server provisioning — a market where traditional GSPs (GTXGaming, Nitrado, Host Havoc) still rely on manual panels and lack programmatic APIs. With a few infrastructure additions, Nexlayer could offer a compelling game server hosting platform.

What's Needed

This builds on two prerequisite features:

1. Raw UDP/TCP port exposure (Discussion feat: Raw TCP/UDP port exposure for non-HTTP workloads #59) — game clients connect via UDP, not HTTP
2. Configurable probes (Discussion feat: Configurable liveness/readiness probe settings per pod #60) — game servers need 60-180s startup time

Additional requirements for game server hosting:

• Persistent deployments — game servers need to run 24/7, not expire after 2h (Preview deployments expire in 2 hours — no persistent staging URLs #44)
• SteamCMD integration — most game servers install/update via SteamCMD (app IDs). A pod template or base image with SteamCMD pre-installed would streamline setup
• Player count / status endpoint — expose query port responses (e.g., A2S_INFO for Steam games) as a platform metric

Market Opportunity

Current GSP Landscape

Traditional game server providers charge $15-40+/mo per server with web panel management. None offer:

• API-driven provisioning (spin up/down servers programmatically)
• YAML-as-code server definitions (version-controlled, reproducible)
• Multi-server orchestration in a single deployment

Use Cases Unlocked

Use Case	Value Prop
Tournament hosting	Spin up 20 match servers via API, tear down after event
On-demand community servers	Discord bot triggers server creation, auto-scales with demand
Game studio dev/test	CI/CD pipeline deploys test servers per PR branch
Modded server networks	Define entire server clusters in YAML (hub + game modes)

Supported Games (with UDP/TCP exposure)

The Isle, Minecraft, Valheim, ARK: Survival Evolved, Rust, CS2, Garry's Mod, Terraria, Factorio, Project Zomboid, DayZ, 7 Days to Die, Satisfactory, Palworld — all use SteamCMD + raw UDP.

Example Launchfile

application:
  name: the-isle-server
  pods:
    - name: game
      image: steamcmd/steamcmd:latest  # or a nexlayer/game-server base
      servicePorts:
        - 8080  # optional web admin panel
      exposePorts:
        - port: 7777
          protocol: UDP
        - port: 7778
          protocol: UDP
        - port: 27015
          protocol: UDP
      vars:
        STEAM_APP_ID: "412680"
        SERVER_NAME: "Nexlayer Isle Server"
        MAX_PLAYERS: "100"
      probes:
        startupDelaySeconds: 180
      volumes:
        - name: game-data
          mountPath: /data
          size: 30Gi

References

• Discussion feat: Raw TCP/UDP port exposure for non-HTTP workloads #59 (raw TCP/UDP port exposure)
• Discussion feat: Configurable liveness/readiness probe settings per pod #60 (configurable probes)
• Preview deployments expire in 2 hours — no persistent staging URLs #44 (persistent deployments)
• Stress test: Minecraft deployed successfully but unreachable by players due to HTTP-only ingress

Migrated from #58