An 80-person game studio moved from expensive, fragmented tools to a unified analytics platform that handles massive volumes without breaking the budget.
"SparkLogs solved our biggest pain point: finding that one critical error instance among millions of logs without breaking our budget."
— Matt Tonks, CTO, Big Time Studios
Before SparkLogs, Big Time Studios faced escalating costs, fragmented tools, and analytics platforms that couldn't scale with their growing player base.
CloudWatch costs were spiraling out of control as their game scaled. GameAnalytics was eating up their budget for basic analytics capabilities.
"Before SparkLogs, we were drowning in CloudWatch costs and complexity."
Server logs in CloudWatch. Analytics events in GameAnalytics. Offline player data scattered across multiple systems. No unified way to query across all their data.
"We needed something bespoke for gaming that could handle our server logs, analytics events, and offline player data all in one place."
Generic logging tools don't understand game analytics. Existing platforms had field limits, cardinality caps, and premium pricing to unlock basic features.
"As an 80-person studio, we needed enterprise-scale capabilities without enterprise-scale budgets."
Matt Tonks explains how SparkLogs helped them cut costs by 80% while scaling to massive volumes.
"Before SparkLogs, we were drowning in CloudWatch costs and complexity. As an 80-person studio, we needed something bespoke for gaming that could handle our server logs, analytics events, and offline player data all in one place."
"The difference is night and day. We're ingesting massive volumes with excellent retention at 80% less cost than CloudWatch, and the search performance is incredibly fast."
— Matt Tonks, CTO, Big Time Studios
Big Time Studios found a platform that understands gaming workflows and handles their unique combination of server logs, client analytics, and offline data at scale—without the premium pricing.
"We needed something bespoke for gaming that could handle our server logs, analytics events, and offline player data all in one place."
SparkLogs provides purpose-built analytics for games:
"The search performance is incredibly fast. SparkLogs solved our biggest pain point: finding that one critical error instance among millions of logs."
Built on BigQuery for petabyte-scale queries:
"We're ingesting massive volumes with excellent retention at 80% less cost than CloudWatch."
Game-changing pricing without sacrificing capabilities:
Big Time Studios went from evaluation to full production in under a month—with minimal engineering effort.
"The Unreal Engine plugin was literally a 10-minute integration."
"SparkLogs integrates 2 tools we had into 1. The Unreal Engine plugin was literally a 10-minute integration."
— Matt Tonks, CTO, Big Time Studios
SparkLogs became Big Time Studios' go-to platform for all logging needs, delivering measurable business value.
"We saved in engineer resources and money"
"The difference is night and day."
"Our entire team can access the data they need."
"Finally, a solution that understands gaming workflows and doesn't punish us financially for generating the data we need to build great games."
— Matt Tonks, CTO, Big Time Studios
An objective comparison based on Big Time Studios' research and industry standards.
| Capability | Traditional Analytics (GameAnalytics, Unity) | SparkLogs |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Fields | 20-100 limit | Unlimited |
| Cardinality | Limited, premium pricing to increase | Unlimited |
| Data Retention | 90 days standard, pay more for longer | 20 years included |
| Unified Logs + Analytics | Separate tools needed | Single platform |
| Cost (1TB/month) | $12,000/month (GameAnalytics enterprise) | $440-$1,000/month |
| Search Performance | Dashboard queries only | Full-text search, LQL queries |
| Offline Data Support | Limited or none | Full offline buffering |
Based on Big Time Studios' research and publicly available pricing. Your costs may vary.
Join Big Time Studios and game developers building better games with unlimited analytics.
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