GameSparks Support Thread:

Hello Everyone,

Oisin from GameSparks here.

We’ve noticed a few topics relating to GameSparks popping up here and there and decided it would be best to try consolidating it all into one thread.
My aim with this thread is to keep the top post updated with the latest info, while users are free to ask any questions they wish in the posts below.

I’ll fill you in on what we offer and leave the comments open for further questions.

What is GameSparks?

GameSparks is a cloud based platform that provides you with the tools you need to build all of the server-side components of your games and then manage them as a service post launch.

GameSparks Features:

Core:

· Cloud Code Editor: (Add Logic, build your own API)
· Cloud Data: (Define MetaData/Runtime Data Structures)
· Binary Asset Manager: (Manage DLC, No more waiting for platform holders to approve your content)
· Push Notifications:(Setup all notifications from one centralized backend, localize global campaigns )

Social:

· Real time and Turn based multiplayer: (Reduced latency, highly scalable)
· Chat: (Cross-platform chat, p2p and group)
· Leaderboards: (Rank any aspect of player performance, highly scalable)
· Social Network Integration: (Pull Data from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others)

Economies:

· Currencies: (Up to 6 currencies. Manage rewards to increase retention)
· Virtual Goods:(Create and manage in-game store without need for client updates)
· Rewards and Achievements: (Easily manage both, a great way to drive engagement)
· Optimisation & Management:
· Analytics: (Completely customizable, build reports for almost any conceivable event)
· Segmentation: (Group players with Segments for analysis. Optimise monetisation by age, location, anything you want)
· Experiments: (Make drastic changes to game mechanics and only expose who you wish to those changes.)
· Player Management: (View player history and summaries of acti vity. Edit player records, reward top players or remove unwanted players)
· Dynamic Form Builder: (Custom forms for Community Managers and Game Operators to get the most out of GameSparks)

We will always be available to answer any of your questions here on the Unity forums or you can find the answers on our own portal, forums, or our docs site.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Oisin.

 

I've checked out GameSpark and it looks like it is very well built by an experienced team. I have a few questions that might be on other people's mind:

• Can developers upload their own server .exe to run for real-time servers?
• Is there a matchmaking system that can use an Elo system to pair players?
• GameSpark seems to provide many features PlayFab does so would it be okay to say PlayFab is a competitor?
• If so, what does GameSpark have over PlayFab and vice versa?
• I noticed that GameSpark charges by MAU. Does this consider the player who logs on for 1 short game a day the same as one who plays many hours/day for the costs?

 

If I have my own relational database design, could I host it on GameSparks servers and how could I integrate it with GameSparks data such as player data etc.

If I can't host the database on GameSparks servers, would I be able to design my own relational database using your Cloud Data: (Define MetaData/Runtime Data Structures) ?

 

Hi jpthek9,

Thanks for the questions,

Let’s get the monetary stuff out of the way first:

We offer a spike-protection system for charges*, if someone buys a game and only plays it once they don’t get counted; they need to play again after 24 hours of the original login to the game.

We also offer a DAU pricing structure depending on your needs, whichever works out cheaper for you on any given month is the one we offer.

To answer your other questions:

An Elo matchmaking system could be supported by GameSparks but you would have implement it yourself. The ability to upload your server .exe is not supported at this time.

As for what we offer compared to competitors, we have led the way when it comes to offering many of the features that our competitors have only recently begun to implement.
One of our primary features -The Test Harness- allows you to test all in-game functionality before you make changes to the live game. None of our competitors have offered this to date.

Do we consider PlayFab a competitor?
While it’s true that they offer similar features to us, we have found that people who have used both of our services say that ours has a greater feature set and is easier to use.
We also offer more SDKs.

We’re pretty sure that if you were to do a thorough evaluation between the two of us you would work out for yourself that we are the platform to go with.

Thanks,

Oisin.

* Spike Protection offered as part of our Enterprise Package. For more details on this feel free to contact me.

 

Hi Meltdown,

GameSparks makes full use of the MongoDB NoSQL databse with which you can make custom collections and documents to your liking.
We don't put any restrictions in place with what you do with it.

For a closer look you can check out our API documentation here and here.

Thanks.

Oisin

 

Unity3D now supports IOS 64-bit with a new compiler "IL2CPP" (http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/01/29/unity-4-6-2-ios-64-bit-support). This was required for all new iOS releases starting Feb 1, 2015 (https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=10202014a). When I upgraded to Unity3D 4.6.2p1 and turned on the IL2CPP compiler and found that network connectivity to GameSparks is broken. Switching back to "Mono2" fixes this, so the problem is clearly linked to the new compiler and GameSparks.

Unfortunately this means that no new iOS Unity games can be released by anybody until this is fixed! I can't find any references to this in readme files, forums or elsewhere. Any information on when this will be addressed?

 

Hey Oisin,

I noticed you have have real-time multiplayer. How does it compare to PUN (Photon Unity's plugin). Does it include room management and things like that or are those things we'd have to implement ourselves?
Do you have different pricings if not all features are used (ie. if I don't use real-time multiplayer)?

 

Hi rtargosz,

We are aware of this issue and a fix is already in the works.
Thanks for pointing this out. I'll keep you updated with regards to when the fix is due.

Thanks,

Oisin

 

Hi supremegrandruler,

We are currently optimizing our real-time multiplayer features to be the lowest latency available on the market.
We're aiming to have room management and built in matchmaking by Q2, in the meantime though it is still possible to implement manually using the challenges system.

Thanks,

Oisin

 

I've tried out GameSparks a bit more and I really like the Cloud Code interface and workflow. The pricing method is great and much cheaper than PlayFab's when the numbers get crunched. Everything's there for developers - accounts, currency, micro-transactions, and custom server logic.

I think something many people are dying to know is when Q2 will be released. I want to start testing my game!

 

Hi,

I'm new to gamesparks and am trying to integrate its login without any social network (GameSparks' own username/password that is). So far I've more or less managed to get the result I want, however I have couple of problems.

The system I currently have works in the following way:
When a player presses a leaderboards button for the first time, two textInputFields appear where the username and password must be written. The window also has three buttons - "REGISTER", "LOGIN" and "CANCEL". When the username/password fields are filled in, if the register button is pressed the username is registered (unless it's taken) and if login is pressed, the player logs in (if the password matches the username). After that the same button opens up the leadboards but has an extra button which enables players to relogin as someone else.

My first problem is, if I log in as Player1, then play the game for a while, and re-login as Player2, all the PlayerPrefs get deleted.

Below is the code for Register and Login methods

Register:

public void Register()
{
SetInput ();
new GameSparks.Api.Requests.RegistrationRequest().SetDisplayName(gsUsername).SetUserName(gsUsername).SetPassword (gsPassword).Send((response) =>
{
if (response.HasErrors)
{
print (response.Errors);
// if usename is already taken the do
// feedbackText.text = "username already in use,\nplease choose another one";
}
else
{
feedbackText.text = "Registration Successful!";
Invoke ("CancelButton", 1.5f);
}
});
}

Login:

public void Login()
{
SetInput ();
new GameSparks.Api.Requests.AuthenticationRequest().SetUserName (gsUsername).SetPassword (gsPassword).Send((response) =>
{
if (response.HasErrors)
{
print (response.Errors);
//if username and password don't match, say that they don't match
}
else
{
feedbackText.text = "Login Successful!";
Invoke ("CancelButton", 1.5f);
}
});
}


My second problem is, for some reason, Log In works if you enter the same number of characters as in the password. Even if my password is "lion" and I enter "lama" it logs me in... how do I fix this?

Thanks in advance

 

Hi Sandro,

For the visibility of users here, I am going to paste in the answer that Shane from our team gave you on our forums.

Regarding your second issue,

That is not a problem we are having here, I've tested it on several projects and I haven't been able to recreate it.
Have you been able to replicate it in the test harness?

Thanks,

Oisin.

 

Thanks Oisin!
I think it's best for us to continue the discussion on GameSparks forums and post the final solution here to avoid flooding this thread. I posted here in hopes to get noticed sooner since i'm a bit in a hurry.

 

Update:

The first problem was not of Gamesparks but mine alone. Turned out there was a function somewhere that deleted all playerPrefs when the "A" button was pressed and I totally overlooked it.

The second problem kind of went away by itself (at least for now) but the reason is still unknown. I can login fine with the new users that I create, but the old ones remain inaccessible.

 

Gamesparks is certainly looking like the cream of the crop!

What's most impressive is their multiplatform support, including Web Player, WebGL and WP8, something most of the other services don't even offer.

 

I would really appreciate if this you could answer this problem,
https://support.gamesparks.net/support/discussions/topics/1000065234

 

Open a new ticket with Gamesparks and ask them to answer it.

 

Hi Oisin,

We are currently using PhotonEngine (PUN) for our Real-time networking (which we are happy with) and strongly considering integrating GameSparks for all our user / game manager functions. A big draw for us is your focus on cloud scripting, versioning control and server/API testing. We are only 2 months away from game launch so switching to a new provider for game management is a big decision. A few quick questions:

1. Low friction login is essential. When a player opens the game for the first time we use their device ID for an anonymous login, then prompt for a username and (optional) password/Facebook/gamecenter after they have completed the tutorial stage. Therefore, we want to write this new data to the active anonymous account. I read an old post that this may not be a simple task using Gamesparks, hopefully it is now?

2. I have noticed that there are quite a few gamesparks forum questions without answers for over 10-days. What is your usual response time for tickets?

3. Pricing - So what i gathered from other forum questions is that in order to negate user spikes and offer balanced pricing a registered MAU on Gamesparks for invoicing purposes is a Unique User within a month but to be counted for invoicing they must have opened the game more than once since downloading it. Is this correct?

Cheers

 

Worrying that GameSparks have no responded in almost 5 months.

I'm looking at alternatives to Parse but support not looking too good for GameSparks if this thread is anything to go by.

 

Support is live and well on their own forums, ask any questions you have there.

 

That's good to know.

 

Hi Kuifan,
Apologies for the delay in answering you.We tend to focus our attention on our own tickets and forums and can sometimes lose track of external discussions.

To answer your first question:
GameSparks provides for Low friction and intuitive authentication in exactly the manner you described. Our DeviceAuthenticationRequest() assigns an access token to the client device, which is used for seamless authentication. In addition, these requests can be combined with our various other methods of auth and integration. This is quite easy to do through the use of events. In this instance you would use our SparkRequests class to trigger the desired requests and associate a device with any number of platforms such as Facebook, GameCentre etc.

Question two:
Our ticket system is very efficient. Tickets are responded to on the day they are logged with paying customers being prioritized. Our ticketing system also has associated tiers of urgency. Tickets logged as high priority will be answered outside of normal working ours, this includes weekends. High priority tickets are reserved for paying customers. In regard to our forums. We have been cultivating an environment of community engagement and in the coming months we are going to be changing the forum experience to further incentivise this engagement.

Question Three:
Yes, if they open a game an hour after opening it the first time they are counted as an MAU but only in the case where spike protection is added to them. For that protection, a custom contract is necessary.

Does this provide the information you need?
Regards, Patrick.

 

I have a query about using GameSparks as a replacement for Parse.

We have a Facebook connect feature in our game to allow a player to save their progress in the cloud. Basically, once they're connected (logged in via Facebook) we can get a User object that we can then query/update/add custom data to (their progress, etc). In the Parse dashboard we can view these objects and edit the data (useful during development).

Does GameSparks provide similar?

 

GameSparks, like Parse, uses MongoDB. So it is easy to query and edit collections and documents. Here is a tutorial from our documentation to set that up.
https://docs.gamesparks.net/howtos/cloud-data/partial-updates
Does that give you the insight you needed? For any questions you have on this,or anything else for that matter, feel free to head over to our forums.
Regards Patrick.

 

Doesn't look particularly easy compared to Parse. Don't you have an .NET API for querying, fetching and saving objects on the client like Parse does?

 

Hey guys,

With Parse shutting down I’m looking into GameSparks and I wanted to ask if the functionally my game uses can be facilitated. I used the Parse Unity sdk and with that I would:

• upload data in the form of a spreadsheet (multiple columns and rows of course) to the parse dashboard
• be able to add, remove, and edit that data in the parse dashboard
• download that data to the unity client (iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, and Linux)
• upload new and updated data from the unity client
• upload new and updated data pertaining to a specific user from the unity client as well as downloading it
• push notifications

Is this functionality met with GameSparks? Thanks for your time.

 

Ask your questions on their forums if you want a quicker response.

 

Done!

Meltdown, you're the poster that actually got me interested in gamesparks

 

Hi guys,

Me and my team are just in the midst of choosing a BaaS for an upcoming free to play game.

We can't seem to agree on what works so I thought I would come on here to request some feedback on what would be the best course of action for our game.

The options are :

Amazon Web Services VS GameSparks

Our game involves virtual goods, currency, daily rewards/quests, Achievements, DLC, Leaderboards and in terms of scalability we need to be able to reach as many players as possible with no hiccups in service.

If you were to compare the two services, which would you say is better for games? Can anyone give an objective comparison of the two of them?

 

I've looked at both lightly, not nearly in-depth as other folks on here, but here's my take:

AWS is more like I(nfrastructure)aaS, or probably more accurately P(latform)aaS, not BaaS like GameSparks. You don't get the inherent database organization and logic in AWS. GameSparks is actually built on AWS. If you go with AWS on your own, you'd need to implement your own backend on top of it to accommodate the data-related features you described.

There are pros and cons to both approaches. GameSparks does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to implementation and maintenance of your backend, but you are constrained by their feature set and data paradigm. Conversely, building your own backend will give you maximum control, but can be much more time-consuming and may even be beyond the skill set of your team.

 

Hi Knickerbocker,

I can't say too much, but Amazon are using our service for some of their own gaming projects.
So Chiapet1021 is on the ball when they say there is time saved by letting us do the heavy lifting.

Thanks,

Oisin

 

Are they using it with GameLift?

One last q:
Can you outline any reason to go with AWS and not GameSparks?

That's actually very useful to know. Thanks!

 

A GameSparks rep is unlikely to give you a reason to pick pure AWS instead.

 

I spent a long time evaluating the various options I had for SuperTrucks Offroad. I went through the nightmare of using Azure Mobile Services directly, and I briefly looked at AWS as well.

I found AWS to not be intuitive at all. All the configuration/setup/reading etc just seemed like overkill.

I ended up going with Gamesparks because it supports all Unity platforms and just 'works out the box', and in the year or so I've been working with it, it hasn't got in my way once. It does everything I need to do, without me having to worry about configuration and compilation issues you'd get on the server side when running something like Azure or AWS.

Also the fact that it's Unity SDK relies on simple C# callbacks when a server operation is complete makes coding extremely simple and efficient to work with in Unity. Try doing the same thing with the Azure or AWS SDK's... they are nowhere near as efficient and intuitive.

And the fact you have server-side code and a custom data store means you can practically develop anything custom that you want. So far I haven't found any limitations.

 

I was really excited about using AWS after i briefly looked at their documentation but when i got to actually using it, it ended up becoming a pain so I'm glad GameSparks exists.

Thanks for all of the information, this should be very useful.

 

My mistake. I thought it said both AWS and Azure deployments on the website.

 

.Hi knickerbocker,
There are many reasons to use GameSparks rather than AWS. We have a whole host of server-side features that are available out of the box. Common features include social mechanics (leaderboards, multiplayer etc), metagame management (currencies and virtual goods management, achievements systems etc), and player management (profiles, authentication, notification, segmentation etc).

Although AWS does provide the infrastructure for a developer to build these features, this also creates another barrier between your App/Game and the Cloud. With GameSparks all a developer needs to do is bridge the client and the back-end together (see our comprehensive tutorials for guidance) making things like Leaderboards, Achievements, Authentication, Registration, social integrations immediately available.

All of our features are extremely versatile and scalable. With some basic Cloud Code (JavaScript), many more additional behaviors can be added to these features. This is where our flexibility takes center stage. With the intuitive nature of our platform, we give developers all the tools necessary to create a game or app exactly how imagined, rather than worrying about the usually complicated process behind running a back-end.

If you have any more questions, I'd be more than happy to organize a Skype call with you, we could also run through the specific requirements you may need.
Best Regards, Patrick -GameSparks.

 

Hello,

I am trying to use Gamesparks NoSQL Explorer REST API in Unity3d. Is there a complete tutorial that can guide me to use this API. I do not know how to send http request in unity.

Is there another way to use custom collections/documents from my game to load/save my game specific data?

I can see that there is a possibility to use events to query/update mongoDB but I could not find any version control support for cloud code. How do you manage versioning for cloud codes by the way?

Regards,
Burak

 

Hello Patrick , my Q how long GameSparks take to
to validate my account and take it to next stage (INDIE & STUDENT PROGRAMME)
.
now i was waiting for replay for more than 4 days :<.
i test all most all most evry thing on my current account (EVALUATION & PROTOTYPING)


realy i like GameSparks . finally after 1 month of research and hard work i found GameSparks the best to be honest.

(guys my advice is : I check aws , google cloud sloutions , azure photon , play fab , uNet , and more and more my result is :

GameSparks : Easy to use , Easy intgration with unity OR unreal 4 no big teams need , good price , hosting many Popular games with more than 10M+ users.

aws : Good but not for INDIE programers or if you dont have team , Scale able , hosting Popular games like Clash of clans. has unity SDK.

google cloud or (firebase) : i spend alot of time to fined any thing about unity At the End no thing found (also firebase just not BaaS).

azure : Same google.

photon : easy has unity SDK but i dont like the prices . Also if you think about what if ur game became popular try to do more search on that by ur self,

Unity networking. (Unet) : same photon.

playfab also parse.com : same google firebase (Not Baas)

Also u can see

Google Play Games Services : free , nice & easy also has unity SDK but i can get all of the provided thing + more on others . Also as i use unity 5 + UE4 . Ue4 not support all things like real time . but i can not find any thing about limits.

-------------------------------------------
My personal rating: (as for single developer with limited resources also as start)
Note: maybe this rating not correct but this as i said from my view only.

GameSparks
Google Play Games Services
aws (if u have $ & team)
photon
Unity networking
... the others


Edite: WOW actually my account activated . but it is weird i don't receive any email about that.

live testing time.

 

Hello guys,

I finished doing a game similar to hearthstone. The single mode is working fine.

I want to add the multiplayer feature now. Details are:

- User selects multiplayer mode, and waits till another player joins ( its only 2 players max)

- When another player joins, the game starts.

- At the start of the game, server sends the same array of integers to both players

- After player 1 plays a card, the device sends the card ID to the server, which in turns forwards this id to player 2 devide.

- AI logic in player two device will play a card depending on the received card ID.


I passed by your tutorials in your site but I am a bit confused. Shall I use a match or challenge option? It should be real time based right?


Is there any example on how to use real-time scripts. I didnt get this part.


Thank you your help!

 

I also have a question regarding RT matchmaking...For some reason, when I make matchmaking requests they always error with error { matchShortCode: NOT_FOUND }. I've tried creating many different matches, and none of the short codes seem to be detectable. I am connected and authenticated to GS server...Even test harness matchmaking requests yield the same result. Here's the printout from the test harness inspector:
//response...
{
"@Class": ".MatchmakingResponse",
"error": {
"matchShortCode": "NOT_FOUND"
}
}
//request...
{
"@Class": ".MatchmakingRequest",
"matchGroup": "group1",
"matchShortCode": "ONE_ONE",
"skill": 0
}

 

Does anyone know of any video tutorials for beginners? I don't really feel like reading through all the written tutorials and the API just for my one simple purpose:

• Save a persistent game score, and game level, so that no matter what device the user is playing my game on, they have the same progress on every device they choose to play the game on.

I would prefer just to see the quickest way to do this, for the most simplistic basic game. I would then feel confident adapting to my needs.

 

Gamesparks has quite a few tutorial videos on youtube, perhaps give them a try?

But I agree, even with the launch of Gamesparks new 'Learn' section, I still feel key introductory videos are missing. One day I might take the time to make a series of videos on how to do the basics, unless @Oisin-GameSparks and the team get something together.

 

• I found only 1 official video from GameSparks Ltd, but it's not of any use: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4xDjR6SF5JtxswaRrS16w
• There are some challenges here from someone else, but even they are a bit too much for what I'm looking for right now: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKUJF-85M5hkn8tiVS1_wsaNMR2zXAubY

I am desperate to find a "student/dummies" version of the most basic, simplistic application of keeping persistence across 1 user's multiple devices. Say, use a prototype example Unity game, with 2 levels, and a way to change the score. And then apply the GameSparks features/C# coding to achieve that. It doesn't seem much, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to delve deeply to find out how to do this one simple thing. I can always expand to the rest later on, but I'd like a "starter".

 

Does Gamespark work with Tizen. I'm using gamespark for my app on iOS, android, amazon, pc but with Tizen I get a bunch of error gamesparks related. Mostly missing type or namespace. Any idea how to fix this?

 

You might get a better response asking on their official forums.

 

I sent in a support ticket.

 

Hi Catsy99,
Patrick from GameSparks here. To acheive your above requirements would require the utilization for our Registration and Authentication Requests. Unlike Device Authentication, the user will be able to login to their account through User Name and Password whatever device or platform they are on.

You can view the documentation on Registering players here : https://docs.gamesparks.com/documentation/key-concepts/authentication.html

You will also be required to setup a leaderboard. This involves the creation of events with attributes you want to post to the leaderboard. These are then referenced in the leaderboards config and tracked. Here you will find information on the setting up of leaderboards : https://docs.gamesparks.com/documentation/configurator/leaderboards.html

Here you can find our API, it will contain examples of the requests you will be utilizing client side:
https://api.gamesparks.net/?_ga=1.248847367.1670794311.1448716226#authenticationrequest

If you have any further quesions please do not hesitate to make use of our forums and / or support system.

Hope this clears things up.
Best Regards, Patrick - GameSparks

 

I've been evaluating GameSparks but I'm seriously disliking the MongoDB NoSQL method of defining my data. Do you have any plans in the future to introduce a relational database backend? Can I ask the motivations for choosing a NoSQL approach to this service?

I've been in the mobile game's industry for a good many years now and I simply find that 99% of the time game data is highly relational. If you want a weapon that's a 1 handed weapon, with 2 damage types and 3 abilities on it what you effectively have are relations. Further, updating the structure of something - say now I want all weapons in the game to have a new property on them called rarity, is a real pain versus just adding a new column to the weapons table.

Perhaps it is my inexperience with NoSQL databases but representing this kind of thing in a non-relational way is giving me a lot of trouble.

Lastly, it seems the client has no direct access to metadata tables. I wish I could expose certain ones to them, ie if a monster has say HP, attack speed, and damage defined it would be very nice to be able to just directly pull these values on the client (in a presumed stored copy of the metadata) as part of the monster object instead of having to query the server.

I realize that relational databases do not, in general, scale out as well as NoSQL databases but generally this bottleneck would be hit at an incredibly large scale, which I do not believe the vast majority - or possibly any - of your customers would reach.

Perhaps I'm fundamentally misunderstanding some things. Thank you!