What are the best BaaS for my game

Hi All,
I am currently creating a small Android game which runs a simple world leader-board (based on a single game's performance with no issues of username-password-logins) with geo-location services supported. Originally I used Parse to implement it but now it's shutting down, do any of you got any good alternatives of Parse to recommend (preferably with a good free tier or provides low cost for games with small traffic)?

Thank you.

P.S. I would appreciate it if I would need not be exposed to those "It has been discussed in somewhere else" comments pointing to a random 2014 thread which is terribly outdated as each BaaS provider's service may be drastically changed in a mere one year period of time.

 

I have been using GameSparks for the last year after evaluating every Baas out there, and I absolutely love it.

 

Thanks, let me check.

 

gamespark have tons have features but as your game wont use it, playfab can do what you want and its totally free. i made this review few months ago its probably still up to date

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18G9RsNgYN9YzmpQNLdDhq6ZVFX9isUGu5gffiaSzQwo/edit?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for your suggestion.

 

Half of the information in that spreadsheet is either missing or incorrect.

Also its absurd to say "gamespark have tons of features but as your game won't use it". You don't know what peoples requirements are for their games, everyone is different.

Playfab lacks a massive feature, which is a browsable/viewable NoSQL data store for storing and querying custom game data in tables/collections on the server.

 

Hi Wilfredswf,
I'm part of the customer success team at www.gamesparks.com .
Leaderboards are one of our many core features, meaning all that is required by you, is to bridge the client and the back-end together (see our comprehensive tutorials for guidance). Accompanied by geo-location services, which we also provide, creating a Leaderboard that is partitioned by a users location takes minimal effort on your part.

Regarding costs: We have a competitive pricing model for Indie developers. Our Indie Package allows for full use of the platform and you are only charged 2 cents for each MAU above 100,000. If this interests you, you can sign up as an Indie/Student developer here: https://www.gamesparks.com/indie-student-programme/

Hope to hear from you soon- Patrick.

 

I also Shepherz in the past and it seemed to have everything in affordable fees.

 

@Meltdown: Actually, you can use an open-search database with PlayFab, if you want to, no problem.

Right now, the way to do this would be by using Azure Table Storage, mLabs, DynamoDB, or any other database system with a Web API, which you can call using the http method in PlayFab Cloud Script, which is also part of our free core service. We'll also be providing a MongoDB direct integration shortly - feel free to sign up for it in our Add-ons Marketplace for your title. We prioritize in part based upon the aggregation of requests we get from developers, so every "vote" counts.

The reason we do not provide open query access to the tables in our main service is because it is a shared service (though we do have a private instance option available). The design of our architecture is available in our whitepaper, which also provides all the details and results for a scale test we did for a publisher, where we ran the exact call pattern for their game against our service, simulating 1 million concurrent users. You can get the whitepaper here: https://playfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PlayFabTechnicalWhitePaper_2015.12.09.pdf. The spoiler is: it ran fine, with no noticeable impact to any title.

And that's the thing - with open database query, a title can easily get itself into trouble with a pathological query. This is actually one of the more common issues games run into. So we provide ways to connect databases which you can query, but we operate the main service as what is commonly referred to as an "opinionated service", meaning we work to provide the features developers tell us they need, in as optimized a way as possible. That's part of how we can offer all of our core service for free.

 

Azure actually has some pretty nice services now if you are willing to piece them together. I recently spun up a B2C Active Directory on there and the first 50,000 accounts are free, and you can also authenticate with third party providers like Facebook. Their prices for database and apps are not bad either, just something to look at if you haven't.

 

@tiggus: Agreed! If you prefer to own the backend for your game, both they and Amazon have a number of great services available. It's really a matter of choosing where you want to invest. I spent the first 10 years of my career in games as a developer myself, and my experience was that most developers got into games to work on the gameplay features, as opposed to doing DevOps. That's the first reason companies like ours started. But the core services of auth and data are really just commodity services, at this point - that's why we made all that free, and added the third-party marketplace (not trying to be all things to all people, we partner with others to pre-integrate their tech to save time working with SDKs wherever possible) and PlayStream (which provides for segmentation, event-based actions, etc., so that you can automate all your live ops).

 

@Brendan Vanous I agree about the auth and data being commodity now, and Playfab offers a lot beyond that. The microtransaction framework, analytics, and other integrations you provide are very helpful for games. I was just surprised recently when I was working on a non-game and I stumbled across Azure's recent offerings.

You hit the nail on the head about DevOps being a huge waste of time for little gain. I used to be strictly one of those guys who built out my own server infrastructure for every project and after awhile you realize what that overhead is costing you in terms of time(just keeping up with security patches is tedious). PaaS/BaaS/whatever you want to call it is definitely the way to go for smaller devs.

 

Actually, you might be surprised - even some larger dev houses are going this route as it's a significant cost savings for them. That way, they can focus their own work (including any custom backend services) on the things that make them unique.

 

One of the reasons I rolled my own. Will probably look at GS next time though.

 

Hi @Patrick-GameSparks with GameSparks is there a back end "Dashboard" -

were I can logon and basically add tables/colums to my database.

So, like Parse (remember Parse?)

Is the concept similar in GameSparks?

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Here's an example of the Parse dashboard (actually on back4app.com)




(I have no idea how those guys have the Parse "dashboard" but there it is.)

 

Hi Fattie,
Rather than using tables and columns as Parse did, GameSparks structures it's data using Key value pairs inserted as JSON. This allows for highly complex, yet intuitive and uniform data structures. Databases can be created, dropped, queried or modified using our NoSQL explorer, or through the use of events and cloud code(JavaScript).

Our NoSQL explorer is both intuitive and powerful. Add in the ability to create Manage Screens to allow for the visual representation/ aggregation of data and you have a versatile and customization environment for DataBase management and analytics.

You can see a high level overview of our platforms features here: http://www.gamesparks.com/product/

Should this be of interest to you, you can sign up for a free evaluation account at the following link: https://portal.gamesparks.net/register.htm?_ga=1.243740997.1390353393.1456769427

Look forward to hearing from you - Patrick.

 

Thanks for that ultra-prompt response, @Patrick-GameSparks ,

> "...using our NoSQL explorer"

Just TBC, you mean literally a web interface there, correct? Some sort of Dashboard? (Is there an example image on the doco site perhaps?)

"Key value pairs inserted as JSON" .. sounds great. That's more the firebase approach, which I think is more the future really.

Sorry, I fully know how frustrating it is when people ask basic questions rather than taking 5 seconds to try.. :/

Can I ask you a new question, help me understand about your Unity integration.

(2) Do I install a "Unity module" in my Unity apps, or just use straight everyday network calls, or?

As you know, Parse's Unity package was/is the flakiest of Parse's stable .. the Android pkg was OK, iOS reasonable, but the Unity one was always flakey.

(3) My final question would be what sort of cloud code or similar paradigm do you offer if any?

So, players generate a mesh being a dinosaur design, send it up to Gamesparks.

- Can I run some simple "before save" paradigm code to (say) check it's their first one,

- Can I run some (jobs .. whatever) where I run heuristics over the 15,000 player meshes, determining the most popular tail length ...

(That's a hell of a problem with BAAS's right - there is a huge range of paradigms of stuff devs want to do right? A pain!)

Thx again..........!

 

Ah - I see that you actually have SDKs ** FOR ** unity, unreal, marmalade etc ...

you dont give a toss about lame native business apps. LOVE IT

a baas that focuses on games eh?

Say I'm concerned the text there mentions full support "For Unity 4", what's the deal on that please?

it's Unity 5 all day these days ...

thx @Patrick-GameSparks

 

I just came across this thread and thought it I should mention ChilliConnect - it's a combined game BaaS and analytics service that we spun out from our studio, Tag Games, this year. We've used ChilliConnect in our own games since 2011 with quite a few big mobile publishers.

It does pretty much everything you'd expect. Having been on the other side of the fence as game developers ourselves, we've also invested a lot amount of time in documentation and ease of use to make it really easy integrate (have a look at our Unity API). Another important point is pricing - from our experience mobile development can be a bit unpredictable so we've priced ChilliConnect in a way that makes it affordable and predictable when you are starting out, with no upfront commitments or contracts (at any scale).

(Oh and @JamesLeeNZ and @Meltdown mentioned that PlayFab don't have a NoSQL data store - this something ChilliConnect has coming out in the next month and is actually in Beta for some customers right now. If you're interested in being part of the development and feedback process you should sign up and get in touch with the Chilli team. New features are always developed in collaboration with game developers and the team are always keen to hear feedback)

 

Looks like a good product. Good one....

 

Have just started using ChilliConnect after having looked at many other providers. ChilliConnect is brilliant. Simple to use, easy to get set up, Mike was incredibly helpful over e-mail and I genuinely can't recommend them enough. Their web data explorer is also a lot lot easier to use than most of the other providers I looked at. I have been looking at BAAS providers for about 6 months now, and didn't find one I liked until today when I heard about Chilli Good job from Tag Games, much appreciated.