Matchmaking APIs for non-gaming usage

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Ivan Damyanov asked May 4, '20

Matchmaking APIs for non-gaming usage

I've recently discovered PlayFab due to my research on matchmaking implementations. I'm looking to build a platform that requires matchmaking functionality but it won't be about gaming. I want to be able to match 2 people based on for example book genres.

I already looked through the API and saw that some calls depend on a "Build" parameter which I won't be able to provide since there won't be a game server. I already logged in registered a ticket and matched 2 client console apps together. This leads me to believe that it is possible to use your API for non-gaming purposes? Am I correct, is that possible? If it is, is it plain stupid to use a sophisticated platform like this one for my "simple" use case (the fact that I won't be using 90% of PlayFab and only MM)?

Are there already any projects in production that make the same use of PlayFab?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

apis Matchmaking

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Answer 1 · 2020-05-05T03:03:43Z

brendan answered May 5, '20

Can you detail out your use case more? Specifically, what are the user scenarios and how frequent would these "matches" be? The matchmaker is designed to match players up for session-based, so it's possible what you're describing might be an option, but we'd need a lot more detail. At a high level, my gut reaction is that you'd be much better served using our Groups system (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/social/groups/).

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Ivan Damyanov commented · May 05, 2020 at 03:29 PM

Well the idea is to be able to connect to someone you dont know exists when you know what you want to read. All you know is, you want to look for someone who is nearby and wants to read the same kind of books as you. I thought that MM is the one that connect in this way. So, once two people are connected they might be able to chat (I guess I need to look into your Party feature as well for that) so that they arrange to meet IRL. And here is where the app has done it's job more or less. If everything was fine in the end they can add each other as friends, for instance.

I'd like that "live search" experience and thats why I thought MM is the way to go rather than joining a group where you sit until you leave it manually, where you have to look through members and pick a choice on your own.

Now, potentially, I could use the Groups feature to allow for a permanent plays like "Book clubs", where people could communicate with others if they are not into the live matchmaking kind of socializing.

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