question

I just integrated Playfab for our game for the first time and want to leave some 'first-use' feedback from a Unity/Steam-game perspective.

The Unity SDK

1. The official documentation link (linked from the github repo) is broken (https://api.playfab.com/sdks/unity) and seems to have been so for quite some time (years? - tried to find it on the internet archive, no luck).

2. The README was last changed 2 years ago and contains broken links (documentation, samples, tutorials all don't work) and confusing information re. http request configuration (including mentioning that only main-thread requests can be made).

3. If you use anything but the Unity Web Request there's largely undocumented gotchas were it works in editor but never in release ("PlayFab API calls will likely fail because you have not set up a HttpWebRequest certificate validation mechanism") - there is no information how to resolve this for PC platforms and forum posts surrounding these have no good answers.

4. There is no Unity SDK API documentation to be found. You just gotta look at the code.

5. If you use PlayfabExtension editor some of the settings don't sync properly so you end up with the UI showing you that you are using one type of request type but the code still uses something else.

6. It's unclear if Unity SDK supports batching/queuing requests (for player events) and how to configure this. Each request seems to be done individually.

7. The github project has the Issues tab disabled, so it's unclear how healthy the SDK is.

This Forum

1. I am able to post quesions here but when I try to post an answer/reply I just get a Page Not Found error. (tried on two browsers) - sorry if I don't reply to any comments here, I can't.

2. Search shows you very old threads first so you often have to sort through outdated information.

The Steam Add-On

1. There is no official documentation linked from the add-on.

2. You have to gather bits how to prepare the authticket and in what form the app id and steam key should be provided by bits and pieces from forum posts that go back to 2016 and are often outdated. Eg. lots of those posts say the app id should be in hexadecimal when that's not true and there is no clear answer what 'steam web API key' the add-on actually needs (it's not the main steam web api key but you need to create a steam group, add your app, then generate a key there).

3. Unclear what some of the options mean. Eg. "Enforce usage of AzurePlayfab identity in user authentication tickets?" What does this mean? No documentation and if you search on the forums or even the web there is nothing useful.

4. There are dozens of forum posts about steam authentication issues that hardly ever contain any useful answers. You just gotta trial and error it out.

Analytics

1. There is very little information on how custom events should be used, and how to build funnels or other useful reports from the data.

I'm sure as I learn the ins and outs this will get easier but from an initial perspective, this has been one of the more puzzling experiences integrating a new service.