General FAQ
Introduction
This FAQ is meant to answer common questions about AccelByte Gaming Services (AGS). If you have other questions, please contact us.
Account Management
The AGS account management features include a robust opt-in system, with email verification and password recovery systems. We also provide features such as email verification and password recovery using the AGS Access service.
Q: Is your account management system customizable?
A: Yes, customizations are supported via the AGS App Editor and the TypeScript SDK.
Q: Do you have the ability to integrate the AGS account system with typical website page builders such as WordPress?
A: Yes, this is supported.
Q: Are there account administration tools?
A: Yes, the AGS Admin Portal App Editor has account management features.
Authentication
The AGS Access service provides authentication and authorization. The service provides multi-layer security using the OAuth 2.0 specification. User accounts, IAM Clients, a robust permission system, and third-party login integration are some of the services provided.
The Access services are responsible for providing access to all of the other services within the AGS platform and handle requests from the Admin Portal, your players, and other applications that support gameplay. We pave the way for players to play your game across different platforms with our account linking service.
Third-party authentication
When your players link their third-party platform accounts to your game or platform, they'll be able to access their gameplay and progression data from whichever platform they play on.
AGS supports linking third-party accounts via various services.
- Social platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Twitch, and Discord. All but Twitter are supported.
- Game platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Steam, Oculus, and Epic are all supported.
- Tech platforms: Apple, AWS, Microsoft, and Google are all supported.
Two-factor authentication
AGS two-factor authentication provides a second layer of security for user accounts on the AGS platform. Two-factor authentication can be enabled for players accessing your game or web platform, or for you and other admin users accessing the Admin Portal. AccelByte offers three different types of two-factor authentication to choose from: Authenticator App, Backup Code, and Email Authentication.
Marketing services
This section covers questions about using various AGS features that help teams market their games.
Account messages and notifications
Messages and notifications are supported using the AGS Notifications service which enables administrators or publishers to send text-based notifications to players. Notifications can be sent from service to service or from a service to the client application. Notifications are sent using a REST API and are relayed through a WebSocket connection, to ensure that they've been received in real-time.
Email campaign creation and support
Email campaigns are handled outside of the AGS platform (e.g., using MailChimp or some other CRM) but data can be extracted from the backend platform to be used for targeted email campaigns.
Matchmaking
The AGS Play service supports Matchmaking. This includes support for ranking, ELO, or custom designs.
Q: Is matchmaking customizable?
A: Yes, you can create your own matchmaking rating (MMR) by configuring match attributes to determine how parties are matched. You can also create flex rules, which dictate how to match parties when ideal matches aren't possible. These flex rules usually include time limits for the matchmaking process, to ensure that players don't have to wait too long to play your game.
Our Matchmaking system also allows us to create asymmetrical game modes, where one team is bigger than the other, for example a 1 vs. 5 mode where five players cooperate against a single powerful enemy that is also controlled by a player.
Cross-platform matchmaking
Cross-platform matchmaking is supported via AGS's Matchmaking service using CrossPlay. CrossPlay allows players from different platforms (e.g., Steam, PSN, XBL, PlayStation, Nintendo, Steam, or Epic) to play together. Some platforms require the game to provide options for players to opt-in, or opt-out to the cross-play feature. By default, AGS matchmaking matches all players regardless of platform, however, additional rules in the matchmaking configuration can be added to add parameters in the match request from the game client.
Commerce
AGS includes robust in-game marketplace support, including sales, scheduling, and bundles. These features are supported using AGS's Monetization service which allows you to manage your store, in-game items, or add-ons for sale, and sort these items into categories. Commerce also includes features, such as, item localization, item regional data, item bundling, store isolation, store cloning, store import/export, image and item tags and purchase limitations.
Payment providers
AGS provides out of the box support for Xsolla, Stripe, Ayden, and Checkout as payment providers.
The Payment providers feature is not yet supported in AGS Shared Cloud.
Web marketplace distribution
AGS Distribution services empower you to be your own publisher and distribute your titles autonomously. Our web-based Player Portal and installable game launcher allow you to build your own game distribution platform, with additional features such as the App Editor which allows you to easily customize the look and feel of your platforms.
In-game marketplace currencies
Supported via the AGS Currency service which allows you to configure the currencies you want to accept for transactions in your Admin Portal. You can configure both real-world and virtual currencies to allow your players to transact using those currencies,
Our Commerce service is compliant with Japanese laws.
The In-game marketplace currencies feature is not yet supported in AGS Shared Cloud.
Engagement
The AGS Engagement services include features such as Achievements, Leaderboards, Rewards, Season Pass and User Generated Content. These features can be configured and accessed through the Admin Portal.
Leaderboards
Web accessible leaderboards and in-game statics are supported using the AGS Leaderboard service which enables you to keep track of players' scores and ranking in the game by collecting data from the Cloud Statistics service.
The available statistics include the number of matches played, the player's matchmaking rating, and their experience points. However, our customers can create any number of custom statistics, such as "Missions completed" or "Headshots", and create Leaderboards based on their custom statistics
The Leaderboard service uses this data to calculate each player's rank. This service supports multiple leaderboards in one game, including a daily leaderboard for day-to-day player activities, weekly leaderboard for a weekly player recap, a monthly leaderboard to record player activities every month, a seasonal leaderboard for seasonal player activities such as holiday events, and an all-time leaderboard.
Season Pass
The AGS Season Pass service provides a tiered reward structure that grants special rewards to players that participate in limited-time challenges. As a player earns XP in a season pass (or "battle pass") challenge, they will unlock tiers and be able to claim rewards.
Achievements
The AGS Achievements service is a tool developers can use to increase player engagement with their game. Recognizing players' progress in your game and rewarding them with items or new characters not only fosters deeper enjoyment of your game but brand loyalty as well. There are two main types of achievements: incremental and non-incremental.
Rewards
The AGS Rewards service is an effective way to increase player retention and brand loyalty by granting players special items or other entitlements in recognition of their achievements. Players who are rewarded for their progress are more likely to engage with your game more frequently. Rewards can be categorized into several different types including items, new maps, badges, and more. The Rewards service works by integrating with our Statistics and Achievements services to define the benchmarks players must clear to earn rewards, and with our Entitlements and Fulfillment services to grant players the rewards they've earned.
Q: Does AGS support, progression, save, load, and achievements?
A: Yes, these are supported via a combination of services including, Statistics, Cloud Save and Achievements.
Q: Does AGS include a cross-platform entitlement system or solution?
A: Yes, this is supported by the AGS Access Service (and account linking) as well as AccelByte's Entitlements service.
Challenge or quest system
A Challenge service is on the AGS roadmap. In the meantime, there are workarounds to implement a Challenge system using a combination of cloud storage, invisible store items, stats, and achievements.
Redemption codes
Redemption codes are supported via the AGS Code Redemption service. This service allows you to create redeemable codes and distribute them to your players so that they can unlock in-game items or other entitlements. Codes can be redeemed in-game or on your website.
In the Admin Portal, you can configure how many codes should be generated, how many times a code can be redeemed, and how many times a player can redeem codes. After launching the campaign, you can also view the codes' redemption history. Codes generated by third-party platforms such as Steam can also be listed for sale in your catalog. Bulk addition or deletion of codes can be done using API endpoints.
An activity log which including purchases, rewards earned, and codes claimed is accessible via API endpoints or it can be viewed via the Admin Portal. Players can also see their purchase history in the Player Portal.
Social features
The AGS Social services enable features such as friends, groups, presence, chat, and notifications.
Friends system
The AGS Friends service allows players to connect socially with other players. This service uses WebSockets to ensure all players get real-time updates about their Friend List. Players can manage their friends in several different ways.
Guild system
AGS provides group and guild features via the Groups service which allows players to gather to chat and play together. By implementing this service, players can create, join, and invite other players to groups. Group admins can also manage join requests and add or remove members from their groups as well as create and manage different roles with custom permissions.
Chat
Party Chat allows users to send a message to all of the players in their party. The party members will be notified when they have a new message from the sender.
Global Chat allows users to broadcast messages to all users within the game. By default, the user can join a global channel and start broadcasting messages to other users in the game.
White label support
Q: What is the degree of AGS white label support?
A: You can completely customize the look and feel of both Player Portal and Launcher by leveraging the AGS App Editor and TypeScript SDK. The AGS TypeScript SDK is a platform-agnostic JavaScript library that enables you to build web applications using AccelByte backend services. You can try the TypeScript SDK playground.
Q: Can I have multiple website gateways? I'd like to skin the visuals for each game or franchise.
A: Yes, this is supported as both Publisher namespace and Game namespaces can have their own portals. The website login and page visuals can be customized to meet your brand requirements via AGS App Editor and TypeScript SDK services.
User Data
Customization of user-provided information, such as age or gender. First class attributes (e.g., display name or date of birth) are available out of the box but custom attributes or "second class" can be created to capture other user information (e.g., address).
Q: Will we own our customer data, including the ability to move it?
A: Yes. See section 2.0 of the General Data Protection Regulation in the AccelByte Master Services Agreement.
Q: Will our customer data be shared with other groups?
A: No. Please refer to section 3.0 of the General Data Protection Regulation in the AccelByte Master Services Agreement.
Telemetry
AGS's Game Telemetry service acts as a scalable event data ingestion pipeline for your game, to send events into a designated streaming pipeline using an HTTP based REST API. With this service, you can collect and analyze player data and use it to inform future design decisions. We also maintain a list of AGS Telemetry Events grouped by service name that you reference.
Q: Does your telemetry system support different data storage solutions or third-party integrations?
A: Yes, the AGS Game Telemetry service supports several different data warehouses by default such as Redshift, S3, and Snowflake. AccelByte can work with you to integrate a data warehouse that we don't yet support out of the box.
LiveOps support
AccelByte's Support Team proactively monitors all AccelByte Services by default. A custom status page link is provided to each customer listing default services that are being monitored. In the event an alert is triggered, an AccelByte Support Team member will review the alert and take necessary action. In the event the alert is deemed likely to be classified as Severity Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3, customers will be notified via email communication.
The Full Service Level Agreement is outlined in the AccelByte Master Services Agreement.
Moderation
Player moderation to warn, temp or permanently ban users from specific games or products is supported in the AGS User Bans service. This service allows you to restrict access to your game, or to particular in-game features, from players that break your game's rules or otherwise act inappropriately. There are three ways to carry out a user ban: Account Bans, Feature Bans and Device Bans.
Legal agreement system
The AGS Legal Agreements service has the ability to manage legal documents, such as Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, End User License Agreement (EULA). It can even manage Marketing Preferences, such as whether a player would like to receive updates via email. You can create and manage documents with different versions and locales, then store them in the Admin Portal.
Legal Agreements can be uploaded to either a game namespace or to your publisher namespace. Any agreements uploaded to your publisher namespace will be applied to all of your games in Player Portal or Launcher, and players will only need to agree to them once, when creating their account for your platform.
Customer backup requirements
Q: What is your customers' responsibility for backup, recovery, and availability? For example, what responsibility do AccelByte customers have for backing up their AccelByte product data?
A: Both AGS and ADT are SaaS solutions and customer data is backed up by AccelByte. It is not necessary for our customers to backup their own data.