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Michael Flanagan avatar image
Michael Flanagan asked

Newbie: converting existing game and game server into Playfab,Newbie: can I do asset management? How to integrate with existing game server?

I'm new to PlayFab. I see that PlayFab has some great services that I'd like to use. I have some questions about integrating PlayFab into my existing infrastructure.

I have a game that has some digital assets that the player can earn, or be awarded, and can exchange those assets for other in-game digital assets. I also have a game server (a node.js app) that the game talks to. The game server provides authentication (signup, login), tracks the level the player has achieved, saves game state, and manages the digital assets.

  1. Can I have my game talking to both servers, that is, my existing game server and PlayFab? I suppose I can, but should I? Can PlayFab do everything for me that my current game server does? (How can you answer unless you know what my game server does...read on.)
  2. How do I manage my digital assets for my gamers? I see PlayFab lets me set up an economy, virtual currency, and also items. Are those the PlayFab features (tools) to use to implement asset management? Or does PF do it some other way? Or is that something my game server needs to handle?
  3. From the docs I'm assuming that I'll need the gamer(s) to authenticate with PlayFab, otherwise my game won't be able to make API calls to PlayFab. Is that correct? If so, should I convert my game & game server to let PF do all authentication?
  4. If I want to transition to letting PF handle all auth (login), is there an easy way to upload my current set of gamer credentials?
  5. What if I want to allow the gamer to buy some "real" items outside the game, paying for it using digital in-game assets. Perhaps, buy a t-shirt (a real one, not-in-game) for 50 coins earned in the game. Does PF let me do this?
game manager
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Seth Du avatar image
Seth Du answered

In most cases, it is easy to implement PlayFab to your current project. However, I am not sure of the definition of “digital assets”. It will work fine if it is pre-defined items, however, it is not supported if it is something like UGC.

For your questions:

2. you may define items, bundles, and containers in Catalog. I believe it would work seamlessly if you defined the exact same IDs.

3. Yes, login API is required to get a session ticket/entity token for client API authentication. Since you already have an authentication system in your server. If you want to migrate to PlayFab, you may release a transitional version of your game that contains codes to ask customers to migrate the login to PlayFab. PlayFab supports multiple login methods, please refer to Account linking quickstart - PlayFab | Microsoft Docs

4. In fact, it is supported, for example, in some Login API request, there is a property named “CreateAccount”. Setting it true will create a new account when the first login. However, due to privacy issue or local legal policy, you may consult your legal consultant to ensure if it is feasible. I suggest informing the EULA when the migration, but I am not expert on it.

5. You may need an external server to handle the database of “real” items as PlayFab doesn’t support customized database. You can use PlayFab to manage and trade virtual items, but not to manage, verify and dispatch real items. However, since PlayFab support Cloud Script/Azure Function, you are able to connect PlayFab with external services.

In this forum, it is preferred to post 1-2 questions in a single thread. If you need help in a detailed question, please feel free to send a new thread so that we can dig into it. Thanks for your understanding.

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