Introduction to Accounts
Overview
An Account is essential for every player of a game utilizing AccelByte Gaming Services (AGS). Each AccelByte account represents an individual player, and is shared across all game Namespaces.
In this section, we will show you the structure of an AccelByte account, and provide a series of guides on how to manage accounts.
Structure of an AccelByte Account
Key Concepts
It is important to understand the key concepts that have been used in the design of the Accounts Service.
Studio User ID
A Studio User ID is the identity of a studio namespace in the AGS Shared Cloud tier. It acts as the parent of the game namespaces under the studio namespace.
The studio namespace is only available in the AGS Shared Cloud tier.
Publisher User ID
A Publisher User ID is the identity of a publisher namespace account in the AGS Private Cloud tier. It acts as the parent of the game namespaces in the publisher namespace. This account contains all the global player data (the information shared across all Game Namespaces), such as: email, display name, and avatar.
The Publisher namespace is only available in the AGS Private Cloud tier.
Game User ID
A Game User ID is the separate identity assigned per Game Namespace. Each AccelByte account may have several Game User IDs, one ID for each Game Namespace accessed by the player. Only game specific data can be associated with a Game User ID, such as gameplay progress, achievements, purchases and preferences in the game.
Identity Provider Accounts
A robust set of Identity provider accounts can be linked to an AccelByte account. Identity Providers are the accounts your players may prefer to use, or have used to reach your game.
Full account
A full account is a complete AccelByte account with verified email address, password and basic user information. Players can have a full account through either a traditional registration process, or upgrading a headless account by inputting a valid email address and other necessary information.
Headless Account
A headless account can be created when a user first signs in by using an external Identity provider, or custom device ID. Lack of a valid email address, and other necessary information, is the difference between a full account and a headless account.
Best Practices
Establish a Direct Relationship with Players
We recommend that you provide your players a no-friction experience to give your game a first try, by using a headless account.
Once players start investing in your game, you should consider prompting them to upgrade their headless account to a full one, by providing a valid email address. So that you can build a direct relationship with them.
You can also enable the traditional registering of a full account with an email address, as another option to achieve the goal of maximizing the number of full accounts.
Support Cross-Platform Progression
If you would like to distribute your games on multiple game platforms, and support cross-platform progression, we recommend you provide players an option to link their game platform accounts to an existing AccelByte account, if they have one. Or to create a new account for linking, if they do not have an existing account, before starting the game for the first time.
Linking to an existing, or newly created, AccelByte account allows a player to continue their experience on the new platform, while keeping their gameplay data fully intact. Failing to link to an AccelByte account will create a new headless account, and the player will have no gameplay progression on that account. Gameplay data is not easy (and may be impossible) to merge should they wish to link all separate platform accounts to one AccelByte account later on.
We recommend that you let players know the benefits of linking to an existing, or new, AccelByte account before starting gameplay.