ID@Azure: Level Up your Game Development with Azure PlayFab
Developers in ID@Azure will receive two years of the PlayFab Standard Plan as well as free multiplayer services.
Today we are excited to announce that developers in the ID@Azure program will receive two years of the PlayFab Standard Plan ($99/month offering) as well as free* multiplayer services including PlayFab Party Networking, Party Voice & Chat, PlayFab Matchmaking, and PlayFab Lobby. PlayFab powers some of today's biggest titles like Roblox, Minecraft, DOOM, Halo, Forza, and No Man's Sky. These services support multiplayer environments across platforms, including Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, PC, and mobile, meaning developers can use PlayFab to help unlock cross-platform scenarios and experiences for their players.
Build and operate a live game with PlayFab
Beginning March 23rd, all ID@Azure members will have access to the PlayFab Standard Plan for up to two years at no cost. This plan typically costs $99/month and includes access to monthly LiveOps and Insights meters valued at $400 USD/month, as well as Gold Support, which includes forums, support documentation, and support ticket submission. Connect and use as many or as few of these PlayFab services that you need with your existing tech stack, meaning you can focus on creating great gaming experiences, instead of worrying about scaling servers, or whether your LiveOps team members have the tools they need.
For more detailed information on the exact meter values included in the standard plan please visit the PlayFab Pricing page.
Unlocking cross-platform gameplay with PlayFab
To unlock cross platform play, members of the ID@Azure program will have access to free* PlayFab Party Networking, Voice, & Chat, PlayFab Matchmaking, and PlayFab Lobby allowances. The usage limits we are offering are extremely generous and have been benchmarked against some of the most successful titles we have on PlayFab today. The net result is that we expect these PlayFab services to be covered by the usage limits for up to 95% of games.**
PlayFab Party Networking, Voice & Chat
PlayFab Party provides low latency secure data networking as well as voice and data communication for your game's players, saving you time and resources in building and managing your own infrastructure. PlayFab Party offers the option for server relayed communications for highest online safety as well as peer-to-peer networking option with automatic relay fallback to ensure reliable connections with every client. Develop on your preferred platform and engine without sacrificing performance and functionality; these services seamless integrate with most 3rd party backend tools and services to allow you to scale to millions of players.
PlayFab Matchmaking
PlayFab Matchmaking was built to provide developers a great way to build matchmaking into their games and offers a simple, yet powerful system to help users find each other. This latest Public Preview release is an upgrade to the existing matchmaking service and uses the proven capabilities of Xbox Live's SmartMatch.
Key features and benefits of PlayFab's Matchmaking system:
- Real-time notification support – this means you won't need to poll the service when a match is found or there's a change to a match ticket.
- Integration with Lobbies so you can coordinate groups of matched players.
- You can use our Matchmaking with your own Lobby features if you have them, or you can use both our Matchmaking and Lobbies if you'd like
- Expanded matchmaking experience in the SDK to help manage the flows of adding real-time notifications, and simplify integration between Matchmaking and Lobbies
For more detailed information about PlayFab Matchmaking please check out our documentation portal and the Azure PlayFab Multiplayer 101 GDC talk in the 'Online Services' section at aka.ms/GDC.
PlayFab Lobby
PlayFab Lobby is a new feature that is now available in Public Preview; it works in conjunction with PlayFab Matchmaking to create a cross-platform multiplayer experience. Lobby creates temporary groupings of players within a multiplayer game enabling them to play together. It is fully cross-platform capable, will work anywhere that we supply a client SDK, and this feature is modular, so you can use just Lobby if you already have your own Matchmaking service.
Key features and benefits of PlayFab's Lobby service:
- Cross-platform scalable Lobby service
- Support for real-time push notifications
- Server browse scenarios to help players find Lobbies based on criteria like a map, difficulty, or game mode by using FindLobbies
- Ability to create Lobbies for your players that have been grouped via Matchmaking and join them using an arranged group.
For more detailed information about PlayFab Lobby please check out our documentation portal and the Azure PlayFab Multiplayer 101 GDC talk in the 'Online Services' section at aka.ms/GDC.
Get started today
Our goal at PlayFab is to be the platform of choice for creating and growing great games; we are in this business because we love games, and we love helping studios be more successful. We are providing these free services to ID@Azure members to help kickstart your cloud development journey and help you create great cross platform gaming experiences for your players. Even if you decide to not join the ID@Azure program, PlayFab is free to start and offers flexible plans for growth. Check out our website, pricing page and documentation portal to help get up you and running quickly on a wide variety of platforms, engines and stores.
To apply to the program and get access to these benefits please visit azure.com/id. And to learn more about the program all up please take a read through our introductory blog posts:
*Free up to included usage limits. We expect the free included usage limits to cover 95% of games. Please note that PlayFab Party Cognitive and Text Moderation services are not included in this offering.
** For the specific service limits for PlayFab Party Networking, Party Voice & Chat, and Playfab Matchmaking & Lobby please view the FAQ section on the bottom of the ID@Azure website. We are also dropping the price of PlayFab Party for anyone not in the ID@Azure program starting April 1st, 2022, for more information about this price drop please visit the PlayFab pricing page.