My team and I are currently working on a multiplayer game (we have both a Unity client and a Unity server that communicate with each others to make our game server authoritative and we’d like to keep it that way) that could use Unity Economy’s services but the fact that it heavily relies on Unity Authentication kinda bugs us.
Because of this, API calls can only be made from a user client, and we don’t want to rely on a client telling us (our server) if they successfully bought or not X or Y item with their Unity Economy’s money.
So, my question is : is it possible to use Unity Economy without having to rely on Unity Authentication ? Or is it possible to manually authenticate a user to Unity Economy services from a home-made server backend ?
Thanks for taking the time to check out the new Economy service and share details of your use case. Unfortunately we don’t currently support using your own Authentication service or making remote API calls to Economy, but your feedback is welcomed, has been noted and added to our feature request list.
Whilst the new Gaming Services products are in Beta, we are collecting lots of valuable feedback and working hard to deliver on the features that you are looking for. I can’t provide specific details or timelines, but we will be announcing new features on the individual product pages in the Unity Dashboard and Forums as they become available for testing.
Thanks again for your feedback and please let me know if you run into any other scenarios where you see gaps.
Sounds like you are trying to make sure people are getting locked into your framework early instead of opening for integration with existing systems from day one.
Which makes it a no go in my case, since you recommend against using Authentication for games that may be played by minors, (i.e. COPPA flagged games) and chances are the vast majority of the games out there MIGHT be played by minors opening us up for legal risks.
No, far from it. We are still in beta and have implemented the most requested authentication providers first, (Anonymous, Apple, Google, Facebook & Steam). The team are working hard on more authentication options and we look forward to sharing those with you as they become available.
I understand your concern about COPPA, player privacy is really important and the direction of travel is towards more legislation rather than less. We will support COPPA when the Authentication service launches, but at the moment the guidance is not to use the Authentication (beta) in COPPA flagged games.
I hope that helps to address some of your concerns
Nice deflection. These are still using your own platform.
Open means I am using, say, Playfab/Firebase/Custom authentication (which are COPPA compliant from day one) to connect with UGS services such as Economy/Relay etc.
I am a new product manager joining the Unity authentication team. We are looking to support custom/BYOID authentication services.
We would love to hear more about the authentication system you are using and determine how we can provide ways for you to integrate and continue to use your existing authentication system with UGS.
What is the timeline of your game?
What platform will you support?
What is the authentication system / service you are currently using?
If you haven’t already, could you please fill in this survey? I’d love to connect if you are open to chat.