A distributed method for hosting electronic games, comprising: at an Internet-connected cloud game server comprising one or more processing units (404, 406, 602) and memory storing programs that are executable by the cloud game server, wherein the programs include a plurality of game applications and a plurality of gaming platform modules that manage execution of the game applications: obtaining a first game application that includes first gameplay instructions that perform gameplay of the first game application and one or more API calls to host routines that are implemented by the gaming platform modules; receiving a first user request to initiate a first gameplay session (116A, 116B) for the first game application; and in response to the first user request, initiating the first gameplay session and managing execution and context of the first gameplay session under control of the gaming platform modules, including: receiving first gameplay inputs; executing the first gameplay instructions of the first game application and updating a first context of the first gameplay session in response to the first gameplay inputs, wherein the first context reflects interactions of a first user with the first game application; generating and transmitting to the first user an output gaming stream that reflects the updated first context of the first gaming session; and managing performance of the first gaming session in accordance with session management routines implemented by the platform modules and/or first API calls associated with the first game application, wherein managing the performance of the first gaming session includes managing parallel encoding of video streams and gaming streams which includes allocating encoder cores of an encoder at the cloud game server to process image tiles of an image and enabling the encoder cores to encode each individual block in a respective image tile as soon as data of the individual block and its corresponding boundary information are available. obtaining a first game application that includes first gameplay instructions that perform gameplay of the first game application and one or more API calls to host routines that are implemented by the gaming platform modules; receiving a first user request to initiate a first gameplay session (116A, 116B) for the first game application; and in response to the first user request, initiating the first gameplay session and managing execution and context of the first gameplay session under control of the gaming platform modules, including: receiving first gameplay inputs; executing the first gameplay instructions of the first game application and updating a first context of the first gameplay session in response to the first gameplay inputs, wherein the first context reflects interactions of a first user with the first game application; generating and transmitting to the first user an output gaming stream that reflects the updated first context of the first gaming session; and managing performance of the first gaming session in accordance with session management routines implemented by the platform modules and/or first API calls associated with the first game application, wherein managing the performance of the first gaming session includes managing parallel encoding of video streams and gaming streams which includes allocating encoder cores of an encoder at the cloud game server to process image tiles of an image and enabling the encoder cores to encode each individual block in a respective image tile as soon as data of the individual block and its corresponding boundary information are available. receiving first gameplay inputs; executing the first gameplay instructions of the first game application and updating a first context of the first gameplay session in response to the first gameplay inputs, wherein the first context reflects interactions of a first user with the first game application; generating and transmitting to the first user an output gaming stream that reflects the updated first context of the first gaming session; and managing performance of the first gaming session in accordance with session management routines implemented by the platform modules and/or first API calls associated with the first game application, wherein managing the performance of the first gaming session includes managing parallel encoding of video streams and gaming streams which includes allocating encoder cores of an encoder at the cloud game server to process image tiles of an image and enabling the encoder cores to encode each individual block in a respective image tile as soon as data of the individual block and its corresponding boundary information are available.