question

Sure thing - going down your items:

> ToS and Client API usage

First, we do plan to provide a more generalized way to turn on/off all of the Client API methods (we did this for targeted ones previously, but we added a task recently to just generalize this, and open up all of them, with defaults based upon our current recommendations). However, I'm not sure what your point concerning "if only Admins are allowed to create new user/password accounts (for team member)" as our current model is exactly that, for developers. Only an admin on a title can add other developers to it. For client sign-ups we provide multiple authentication mechanisms. Some of those are designed to be zero-friction, such as Device ID or Custom ID sign-in. This is a common feature of mobile games, as it lets players start a game immediately, without sign-in friction (which can cause a huge loss in retention on first game start).

Of the other points you call out for this, the concept of restricting Keys and Statistics to those you specify is a good one, and I'll be adding that to our backlog.

However, we're in the business of partnering with developers to help make their titles successful, so we're not going to shut down a title or developer due to something which is clearly a hacker messing with you. We have multiple protections against this already in place, including AWS DDoS protections, as well as our own throttling/blocking systems for users that attempt to overload the service. If you're the target of a hack like that, we'll work with you to make sure we're all on the same page and that whatever can reasonably be done to resolve the issue (and block the offender) without taking the title offline is done.

> Live vs Dev/QA

Our recommendation is to use separate Title IDs for dev/test/live. You can use the Admin API methods to read/write the data for each. Many developers just make it part of their build process (writing Title Data, Catalog, etc.), so that they can switch Title IDs there, and have everything updated as part of that process.

> Secret Keys

If your Secret Key is ever compromised, please inform us immediately, so that we can generate a new one for you. We will be providing a way to "rotate" your Key in the Game Manager in a future update.

> PlayStream Orbital Fun Ray and other costs

At higher levels, we create a custom contract based on the specifics of the title, so there's no specific price I can name for this. But higher levels of use benefit from economy of scale (note how 10x the MAU from Plasma Rlfle, at $99, is $499 at BFG - not $990), so you can be assured that the per-MAU price decreases at scale.

The only costs for PlayFab should be the ones we spell out on the Pricing page - we're careful not to have any "hidden costs". Reviewing the page, the ones that may not be completely obvious are the Content and custom game server hosting services. Those are priced at the AWS cost (CloudFront and EC2) plus 10%, so it's easy to calculate those costs via the AWS pages. We'll review and update the site to make sure this is clear.

For the upgrade costs to go over the free service limits, we'll be updating shortly with an upgrades page which a) shows your current usage, and b) gives you the ability to upgrade where needed. This will also provide all the pricing info on those upgrades. We'll be rolling that out in the coming weeks, and we'll get all the pricing info in there as we update with the specific upgrade levels. We're aiming to make them as simple as possible, while keeping the prices as low as we can.

> Feature Requests

For your feature requests, I would always recommend reviewing the Feature Request forum posts. We prioritze in part based upon the feedback we get from developers, so the more people asking for a feature, the sooner it gets into our schedule. However, specific to your requests:

Achievements: In addition to the existing Feature Request forum post (https://community.playfab.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205479178-Achievements), you can actually do this right now, via PlayStream. You can set up a segment for each achievement which checks when a specific Statistic goes over a certain value, and trigger the appropriate message/rewards either directly or via Cloud Script. Checking progress would then be done by checking the current value of the related statistic.

Inbox: Proposal 4 in this Feature Request forum post (https://community.playfab.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205479628-Player-Messaging) is for a general-purpose messaging system. However, for the top-level messages you mentioned (game events, for example), I would actually handle those as Title News posts, as they're more "message of the day" type of notifications, which go to all users.

Both good features that are in our backlog, but which haven't bubbled up yet as there are other features more folks are asking for, so please do take a moment to head over to the Feature Requests forums and vote on the things you'd like to see. Thanks!