Azure Cosmos DB
Hi Playfab,
Over all I am finding how data is stored in Playfab via the Entity data storage is restrictive or feels very forced. When you look at systems like confirm a friend or send a life, it is suggested to use the Group data storage. In this case do you force all of your players to be in a single group? If so, to me at least that feels kind of hacky. I would love to see the availability to create our own data stores. This would allow developers a much more straight forward way of creating complex systems that need to span the entire player base of the game.
Thank you,
Travis Pettry
I think we should clarify this a bit. Specifically, you encountered some older posts where the feedback on some specific ways to share data between players was by using Shared Group Data. Shared Group Data, to be clear, is only for sharing data between a few players - not a large group (or all players in a game).
In the Entity model, we have Object (small JSON data) and Files (arbitrary data). That system is designed for more complex usage cases where you have more players accessing the data. In specific, Groups is an Entity feature where you can have data (and, shortly, statistics) that isn't associated with a player, for purposes of having many players accessing it. I'd recommend trying out that model.
In terms of raw databases, we specifically chose to build PlayFab as a service where we control the queries, in order to remove that need from our customers. Owning your own queries (and having to redesign them as you find the points where they don't scale effectively) would put you on the hook to be your own DevOps team. As much as possible, we want to remove that burden.