Game Backend Development: With Microsoft Azure and Playfab

Up your game developer skills by learning game backend development with Microsoft Azure and PlayFab.

Robust backend infrastructure support is essential for all modern games. Implementing game backend features became easier with the emergence of GBaaS (Game Backend-as-a-Service) providers and the advance of the cloud. Multiplayer gaming, leaderboards, game analytics, and virtual economies are all backed by cloud services.

As a game developer, understanding core game backend features and implementation techniques is an important addition to your game developer skill set. Understanding game backend development will not only give you a competitive advantage, it will also eventually allow you to create better games.

This book will help you get started. It teaches all the core concepts, using downloadable source code, so that you can experiment right away following a learning-by-doing approach.

After reading this book, you will have a solid grasp of key game backend services and know how to implement them.

What You Will Learn

• Understand core concepts around game backend development
• Use the PlayFab API to implement backend features
• Build game backend infrastructure using Microsoft Azure cloud (architecture and implementation)
• Contrast the traditional Azure cloud- and PlayFab (GBaaS)-based implementations of game backend capabilities
• Reuse source code to enable backend capability in your own games
• Discover different ways for authenticating players
• Implement a multiplayer game in Unity with the help of mirror networking
• Create a matchmaker to bring together players for an online game session
• Establish leaderboards to reinforce player competition
• Build a virtual economy and monetize your game
• Set up game analytics and gain insight into players' behavior
• Let players communicate with each other by taking advantage of cognitive services
• Learn how to implement server-side custom game backend logic

Who This Book Is For

Game developers who may be skilled in game development, but who possess little to no skills in GBaaS and cloud computing. This book is also for professionals working in the cloud solutions space who want to learn about the specific challenges of the gaming domain.

提升你的遊戲開發技能，透過學習使用Microsoft Azure和PlayFab進行遊戲後端開發。

對於現代遊戲來說，強大的後端基礎架構支持至關重要。隨著GBaaS（遊戲後端即服務）提供商的出現和雲端技術的進步，實現遊戲後端功能變得更加容易。多人遊戲、排行榜、遊戲分析和虛擬經濟都依賴於雲端服務。

作為一名遊戲開發者，了解核心的遊戲後端功能和實現技巧是你遊戲開發技能的重要補充。了解遊戲後端開發不僅能給你帶來競爭優勢，還能最終幫助你創建更好的遊戲。

這本書將幫助你入門。它使用可下載的源代碼教授所有核心概念，讓你可以立即進行實驗，採用學以致用的學習方法。

閱讀完本書後，你將對關鍵的遊戲後端服務有牢固的掌握，並知道如何實現它們。

你將學到什麼：
- 理解遊戲後端開發的核心概念
- 使用PlayFab API實現後端功能
- 使用Microsoft Azure雲端構建遊戲後端基礎架構（架構和實現）
- 對比傳統的Azure雲端和PlayFab（GBaaS）的遊戲後端能力實現方式
- 重用源代碼，在自己的遊戲中啟用後端能力
- 探索不同的玩家身份驗證方式
- 使用mirror networking在Unity中實現多人遊戲
- 創建配對器，為線上遊戲會話匹配玩家
- 建立排行榜，加強玩家競爭
- 建立虛擬經濟並對遊戲進行貨幣化
- 設置遊戲分析並獲得對玩家行為的洞察
- 讓玩家通過認知服務彼此溝通
- 學習如何實現服務器端自定義遊戲後端邏輯

適合閱讀對象：
- 遊戲開發者，可能在遊戲開發方面有一定技能，但在GBaaS和雲端計算方面缺乏技能。本書也適合在雲端解決方案領域工作的專業人士，他們想了解遊戲領域的特定挑戰。

Balint Bors is a cloud solutions architect based in Munich, Germany. He has over 15 years of experience developing software and building IT infrastructures for many companies and industries. Balint also consults with and advises technical teams on applying cloud technologies. He is a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

Balint Bors 是一位位於德國慕尼黑的雲解決方案架構師。他擁有超過15年的軟體開發和建立IT基礎設施的經驗，為許多公司和行業提供服務。Balint還就應用雲技術向技術團隊提供諮詢和建議。他是微軟認證的Azure解決方案架構師專家。