PlayFab
The complete LiveOps back-end platform for building and operating live games
Speed game development and amplify player engagement.
Build and operate live games with a single platform. PlayFab gives you everything you need—game services, data analytics, and LiveOps tools—to launch faster, extend your game’s lifecycle, and reduce your costs.
Ship faster with a complete set of back-end gaming services
Remove the challenges of building, managing, and running servers at scale with a complete back-end solution. Instantly scale dedicated multiplayer servers that deliver low latency and high reliability for real-time gameplay. Use multiple forms of built-in authentication to track players across devices. Quickly create leaderboards to more deeply engage players. Accelerate growth with commerce services that let you create and track virtual currencies, manage stores of items, and process payments.
Learn moreBuild games for any platform, game engine, or device
PlayFab works with all major platforms, consoles (Xbox, PS4, Switch), mobile devices (iOS, Android), and PCs (Windows, Mac)—and with Facebook, HTML5, Steam, broadcasting services (Twitch, Mixer), and engines (Unity, Unreal, Cocos, Corona, Java, Phaser, Lumberyard).
Engage deeply with your players through LiveOps
Better attract, retain, and engage players with industry-leading LiveOps game services. Make quick changes post launch, segment players, and deliver targeted communications and offers. Keep players more engaged by running special in-game events, and boost game monetization. Store and configure content in the cloud to make changes without releasing new client builds.
Learn moreOptimize your game with real-time analytics
By understanding your players, you give them the best experience. Capture in-game events in real-time with PlayStream. Monitor player behavior with dashboards that refresh every two minutes, with no processing lag. Perform full-text event search to look for specific players or event types, create customer engagement reports, export data events, and debug with real-time event feeds.
Learn moreWorldwide, studios big and small trust PlayFab
Minecraft Marketplace
Minecraft players are using their amazing, creative brains to concoct incredible new ways to play on mobile, Xbox One, Windows 10 PCs, and Nintendo Switch. From community-made skins and textures to hand-crafted worlds and epic adventures, you can find it all on Minecraft Marketplace, powered by PlayFab.
Rainbow Six Siege breaks through with an immersive multiplayer experience
Ubisoft delivers world-class gaming experiences to 30 million players with help from PlayFab Multiplayer Servers.
Kolibri Games innovates using continual player feedback
Gaming studio gains key player insights and responds in real time using PlayFab.
Sea of Thieves takes shared world adventures to the High Seas
See how Rare builds open-world experiences with PlayFab Multiplayer Servers.
Ghost Fish Studios
Owen Watson, Development Director"We found PlayFab to be a great solution for our cross-platform needs. We use it to authenticate players on various platforms, including Steam, and to sync player save data. We have since used the Friends system, leaderboards, and back-end cloud script. We also utilize events for our own telemetry."
Hyper Hippo
Hyper Hippo and Screenzilla use PlayFab to power Adventure Capitalist, to gain key player insights and respond in real time with custom player experiences.
Achieve more with Microsoft Game Stack
Game Stack brings together Microsoft’s best resources to create a full technology stack that helps you in the development process — no matter where you are on your journey, or how big or small your team might be. In addition to Azure PlayFab, Microsoft Game Stack includes platforms, tools, and services like Visual Studio, DirectX, Havok, and Xbox. Whether you’re looking to host your game in the cloud, analyze and optimize your live titles, or reach the most passionate and engaged gamers on the planet, Microsoft Game Stack can help you achieve more.
Learn morePlayFab developer resources
Role-based guides
Get to know PlayFab based on what you do.
Quickstarts, SDKs, and more
Jump right into PlayFab features and start developing now
Why trust Azure PlayFab for your games?
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Microsoft invests more than USD 1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development.
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We employ more than 3,500 security experts who are dedicated to data security and privacy.
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Azure has more certifications than any other cloud provider. View the comprehensive list.
Frequently asked questions about PlayFab pricing and more
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We track the total unique players who register activity in your game each month. These are players who make an API call to PlayFab in your game during the month. If the same person plays your game on two different devices using the same account that uses a recoverable login, like Facebook, Twitch, or Google, this counts as a single MAU. If the same person plays two different games from your studio, each counts as a separate MAU.
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PlayFab charges on a per-MAU basis, so you only pay for actual users in a given month. We built this pricing model based on customer feedback saying it's much easier to forecast players than API calls.
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No. We offer a free tier with no limit on the number of players. This is a great option for hobbyists and indie developers just starting out, and a convenient way for developers at larger enterprises to try PlayFab out. The free tier gives you a taste of how the powerful platform helps you manage your game and solve developer challenges like managing player identity and validating app store receipts. Note: The free tier has no service level agreement (SLA) and support is solely via our community forums. To access advanced functionality including features and resources to maximize your game's engagement and monetization, as well as individual support and the PlayFab SLA, upgrade to a paid plan.
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PlayFab is completely free during development—on any pricing tier. The core PlayFab service is completely free in the Essentials tier. For higher limits, move up to the Indie tier, or for private support and an SLA, move to the Enterprise tier. PlayFab is free until you reach 1,000 MAUs.
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Yes, PlayFab provides volume discounts. The more players you have, the lower your price per player.
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All PlayFab customers, even those on the free tier, can access PlayFab web forums, documentation, and tutorials. We also have an active community on Slack, where developers share their experiences and knowledge. Paid customers have access to dedicated support and can submit tickets. At the Enterprise level, customers can access a private Slack channel, schedule times to ask questions and discuss their games by phone, and get immediate on-call support.