Azure PlayFab roadmap

Last Update: 28 July 2023.

Before we jump into our latest roadmap update, remember that we welcome your feedback. If you're using PlayFab for current or in-development titles, we love to hear from you. If you see anything on this roadmap that is critical to your success or want more information, let us know.

PlayFab Leadership also hosts a series of ‘Outside-In’ sessions where game studios meet with our team to help us understand your needs and goals. If you're interested in participating, reach out to us at: PFOutsideInRequest@microsoft.com.

What’s new

Economy v2

Economy v2 Public Preview has released this September! Player inventories and wallets, receipt validation on the most popular marketplaces, bundles, stores, currencies, and more. These updates take advantage of an optimized Azure backend design and improved task-oriented documentation with a focus on virtual economies and monetization. These updated APIs all interop with the new Catalog v2 that has been released along with Azure PlayFab User Generated Content (UGC).

Matchmaking

In March, we added integration with the new lobby feature and real-time notifications to reduce the need to poll. Now, after releasing new SDK binaries with important fixes, PlayFab Matchmaking is in general availablility (GA). Customers who have grabbed the earlier public preview SDK should download and use the latest Lobby and Matchmaking SDKs.

Lobby

PlayFab Lobby was released in March as a public preview, adding a highly requested feature to help integrate gameplay in matchmaking and friend multiplayer scenarios. The feature leaves public preview and is now generally available. In preparation for the general available release, we released new SDK binaries with important fixes. Customers who have grabbed the earlier public preview SDK should download and use the latest Lobby and Matchmaking SDKs.

Data Connections

Data Connections transitioned to public preview earlier this year. This month, we expanded the feature to allow export to your own Azure Data Explorer (ADX). You can read more about the feature from Configuring your data connection to ADX. With this release, you'll be able to gain precise control of your cluster performance and cost through Data Explorer connections. As a result, PlayFab Insights Management will be deprecated soon.

Player Segments

The GetPlayersInSegment API is on a path to be deprecated eventually. It is replaced by improved APIs: ExportPlayersInSegment and GetSegmentExport, and these new APIs are available now. You can use them to create snapshots of all player profiles that match the segment definition and retrieve the index URLs of the downloadable files containing the player profile of a given segment. This tutorial walks you through how to use these new APIs: Tutorial to export players in a Segment.

Player Churn Private Preview

We're bringing predictive intelligence to the world of PlayFab! Player Churn Prediction is our first Azure Machine Learning (ML) based feature that allows studios to predict churn scores for players. Directly integrated into Segmentation, you can take the appropriate mitigation to increase player retention and improve game content based on player insights. Reach out to us at PlayerChurn@Microsoft.com if you're interested in piloting this new feature.

GDC demos, talks, and tutorials

We published this content over the last few months to help you learn how to use PlayFab. For GDC, we put together a slew of demos, talks, and documentation around our features including:

Make sure you visit our GDC event page to learn how some of the world’s most creative development teams use PlayFab and other Microsoft technologies to power their games.

The Art of LiveOps Podcast

The Art of LiveOps podcast has connected with Mojang, Possibility Space, Niantic, and others to bring you the thinking behind the latest challenges faced at these studios and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, BuzzSprout, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

PlayFab Video Series

PlayFab’s Feature Video Series includes recent in depth explorations on UGC and Insights. These short videos introduce PlayFab’s key features and benefits. Each video is hosted by an Engineer or Program Manager who works on the feature. You can find these videos here: Microsoft Game Dev - YouTube.

XFest for Everyone

At XFest, we presented how you can use PlayFab to implement an end-to-end multiplayer experience, including matchmaking and lobby services with real-time notifications, networking, and voice chat. To watch the multiplayer presentation, see Enabling Cross-Platform Play w/ Azure Playfab Matchmaking, Lobby, & Party Networking. For other public Xfest talks, see Xfest for Everyone.

What's on-deck

Upcoming Stats & Leaderboard Services (Leaderboards v2)

Major changes to our documentation, noting a pause of adoption opportunity at this time: The Future of Stats and Leaderboards.

Those who have been with PlayFab for some time may be wondering why we've changed the terminology associated with these upcoming services. Through our preview program, we've sought the perspective of our partners, heard your feedback, and have adjusted the design as a result. To enable these changes and make the best set of services that we can, we have removed the samples and tutorials. We look forward to providing more details as they become available to share.

Thank you!

Thank you for your continued support! The Feature Requests section of our forum allows you to post, comment, and vote on ideas from our community. Addressing issues also remains a high priority so continue to share your findings in the Bugs section of our forums.