As of today, we are announcing the official deprecation of the Cloud Content Delivery API Key and CLI with a planned sunset date of August 1, 2024. As deprecated solutions, these components will no longer receive updates but will continue to work for users. Once sunset, they will no longer be supported or work for users.
Both components are replaced by already available GA products today:
Authentication - enables developers to connect to and utilize the Content Delivery Management API
By replacing both the Cloud Content Delivery API Key and CLI with holistic UGS solutions for authentication and CLI tooling, users will not only get comparable capabilities, but those who use additional UGS products and services now have a dramatically improved overall experience, reducing integration time and complexity. For more details on the additional improvements to the CLI experience, view our documentation.
What Should I Do Next?
If you are currently using either the Cloud Content Delivery API Key or UCD CLI, you will need to migrate to the UGS solution by the sunset date. Please view our migration documentation for more information:
Please please please can Unity reconsider deprecating the API Key (at the very least offering it as a supported option)
Whilst it may be a good idea for Unity, it’s a terrible idea for smaller developers.
You state…
Those who use additional UGS products and services now have a dramatically improved overall experience, reducing integration time and complexity
But this statement is far from true. Why?
Because being forced to install Authentication brings the app under the umbrella of the Digital Services Act. Supporting both adds considerable time & complexity for developers and offers less privacy to players.
I’m a few months away from publishing a project that heavily relies on CCD and if it’s a choice between having to implement Authentication along with implementing\honouring the Digital Services Act or moving to a different Cloud Provider, I can assure you the later will be the way go for me.
To be clear, this doesn’t change anything about the authentication mechanisms on the client/delivery side. This only applies to the management/admin API. You won’t need to rely on the Authentication package at runtime or change anything about your Addressables setup. But if there is something I’m missing here about your setup, please let me know!
Certainly from the post above it comes across as being deprecated entirely, not just for CCD management. The dashboard was also warning of API Key deprecation, again in the general sense rather than management.
Or maybe I just mis-read them.
But good news it’s not, thanks.
On a side note, I understand why services such as match making, lobbies & score boards etc require Authentication. But Unity need to understand that the more API’s they bring under the Authentication umbrella, the bigger impact it has on developers due to the DSA (and whatever schemes other countries\regions adopt in the future)
In response to community feedback, Unity has decided to postpone the sunsetting of API Key Authentication for the Cloud Content Delivery (CCD) Management APIs and CLI, originally scheduled for August 1, 2024.
As a reminder, the CCD API Key and CLI are both deprecated, meaning they will no longer receive updates. Because there is no planned sunset date, they will continue to work for the foreseeable future, but both components have been replaced by improved offerings:
Replacing API Key Authentication with Service Account Authentication reduces integration time and management complexity when using additional Unity Gaming Services. Likewise, the UGS CLI gives CCD a similarly improved experience in conjunction with other UGS products such as Leaderboards or Remote Config.
What should I do next?
There is no planned sunset date for API Key Authentication or the UGS CLI at this time; however, we still recommend migrating to Service Account Authentication and the UGS CLI to ensure you receive future improvements.
@TimHeijden2 you beat me to it! See the announcement above, but yes this means they will effectively continue working indefinitely (but we still recommend upgrading where possible).