In celebration of this week’s Ottawa International Games Conference (OIGC), it’s brainCloud Release 2.9!

Nothing too earth-shattering in this release – some minor fixes and changes while we ramp up the development of some larger customer-requested features – coming soon!

Release Highlights

• IAP Product Enhancements
  • Categories – Products can now be assigned to categories (i.e. “Gold bundles”, “Elixer bundles”, etc.), which is handy for retrieving lists of similar items for display in store screens.
  • Product Types – brainCloud now allows you to specify whether an IAP product is consumable, non-consumable or subscription (with sub-types for Apple’s free, non-renewing and auto-renewable subscriptions). This additional information allows us to handle the various product types appropriately, in particular fixing our handling of auto-renewable subscriptions.
  • Extra Data – developers are now able to append extra information (key + value pairs) to products
• Unity Client
  • We have significantly overhauled our Unity Client – improving its communications infrastructure, and adopting a new Json processing library (JsonFx).Warning: as part of the Unity Client Refactoring, we have changed the Error callback/delegate signature so that you no longer have to parse the response Json. This change greatly simplifies your error processing, but is not backwards compatible. The older 2.8 libraries still function just fine though.

Portal Changes

• Design | Marketplace | Products – added support for categories, product type / sub-type, and extra data
• Officially Supported Browsers – the brainCloud portal is designed to work with Chrome, Safari and Firefox.  Users of other browsers (<cough>IE<cough>) will be warned that they may experience issues.  [There are known refresh issues with IE.]
• API Explorer – the services and operations are now displayed in alphabetical order (FINALLY!) 🙂 

API Changes / Additions

• GetSalesInventoryByCategory() method added to Products service – used to retrieve all IAP products of a certain type.

Misc. Changes / Fixes

• Admin | Company Info page –  we now display the user id for the billing account for easy reference
• JavaScript client – Async match parameters updated to match other clients, and fixed handling of optional parameters
• Java client – missing product methods have been added to the Java client
• Leaderboard configuration – the portal now warns you that changing the tournament refresh settings (start date, frequency, etc) requires that all leaderboard entries be deleted.
• Miscellaneous documentation updates

We’re happy to present brainCloud 2.7 – Easter Bunny Edition! 🙂

It’s been a busy couple of weeks as we prepare brainCloud for some pretty significant updates.  In the meantime, we’re delivering some smaller easter eggs of goodness just in time for the holidays.

Highlights

• External Web Services – Cloud Code scripts can now call external web services.  This greatly opens up the power of Cloud Code – allowing your apps to securely integrate with your own custom servers and/or third party services.  More details, including a tutorial.
• Leaderboard API changes – in release 2.6 we introduced paging and relative views to our global leaderboards. The response was very favourable (some of you have already live with the new APIs!) – but alas we believe we missed a feature or two – like returning the total number of entries. We’ve addressed this, and restructured the APIs a bit to allow even more features in the future!
• Reset User Stats – another popular request – it is now possible to reset a stat to its original value for the entire population of your app! Just click on the lightning bolt!

Portal Changes

• [New] Cloud Code Web Services Page – located under Design | Cloud Code | Web Services, this page is used to construct a whitelist of services that can be called from your Cloud Code scripts.
• [Updated] User Stats Page – new <Lightning Bolt> button allows you to reset a stat across all users
• [Updated] Apps Management Page – redesigned to allow us to add additional features/functions in the future.  As a bonus, now includes a count of the number of users your app has… (calculated nightly)
• [Redesigned] User Monitor Page – redesigned user monitoring page, with a new [Log In As User] button at the bottom.

API Changes / Additions

• New HttpProxyService – called from Cloud Code to allow calls to external web services.  Developers must create an entry in the web services whitelist first. [Go to Design | Cloud Code | Web Services ].  For more details, see the API Docs.
• Leaderboard API changes – Based on developer feedback, we’ve made some modifications to the Leaderboard APIs introduced in Release 2.6.  The updated APIs can be viewed on the API Docs page.  Important Note – Release 2.7 still supports the 2.6 parameters, but that support will be removed in 2.8 (targeted for April 15th) – so upgrade to the new APIs now!

Misc Changes

• [Updated] API Explorer – Authenticate service  – E-mail authentication is now the default authentication type. We’ve also changed the system defaults so that e-mail validation is *not* required for users to log in…  (a friendlier default for most apps)
• Misc Improvements / Updates to the API Docs

We’re pleased to present Release 2.8.0.

This one had to cook in the oven a bit longer than we’d hoped, but we think the results are worth it.  This release is chock full of feature fixes and enhancements (see details below), but first an important announcement:

Our new billing system is in place! Yay, automatic monthly billing! Hurray sustainable business models! 

Hmm, clearly we’re more excited about this than you guys. 🙂

How does this impact you?

If you are still in development, then it doesn’t.  brainCloud continues as always to be free during development – zero, zip, nada.

If your app is currently live, then you’ll want to push the [Go Live!] button in our system to ensure that we don’t start enforcing the “in development” restrictions on your app.  (i.e. like 100 daily users max, no non-sandbox in-app-purchases, maximum 1000 lifetime users, etc.). You’ll need to set up a Billing Account with your payment information – it’s all detailed here.  (Note – you have until May 25th, 2015 to Go Live! before the new restrictions come into effect.)

One other note – we’ve updated our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Acceptable Usage policies.  You’ll be asked to re-accept them the next time you log into the portal.

Release Highlights

• Managing and Publishing Apps – We’ve re-designed our app management screens to allow you to better manage your Apps through the development and publishing lifecyle.  For more information, check out our guide pages on Managing Apps and Publishing Apps.
• Open Source Unity Client – you’ve asked, we’ve delivered. I’m pleased to announce that the source code for our Unity Client is now available on GitHub.  You can find it at https://github.com/getbraincloud.  We’ve just got the Unity Client and some examples there for now, but we plan to release more of the clients in the future.
• Facebook Integration Improvements – Facebook has been busy, changing the requirements for minimum API levels for new apps (and removing their support for FQL).  We’ve made some short-term changes to accomodate, but are also making some longer-term changes to our approach to allow us to better keep up with their ever-changing API.
• Push Notifications – streamlined the configuration and usage of push notifications.  New configuration screen.  iOS configuration now validates the certificate that is uploaded, determining whether it’s a production or sandbox certificate.  The appropriate servers will be utilized during pushes according to the certificate configured.
• External Identity Support – we’ve added the ability to easily integrate with 3rd party directories.  More info here.
• Unity IL2CPP Compatibility – Finally, we’ve recently updated our Unity Libraries to support their new IL2CPP Compiler.  64-bit iOS here we come!

Portal Changes

• New Design | Authentication section in the portal, with the new External Identity feature being configured here.  In the next release, the rest of the Authentication settings (E-mail authentication, Facebook authentication, etc.) will move over to this section as well.
• Multiple pages revamped to better support Publishing Apps and our new Billingsystem:
  • Admin | Home page – now display’s your company’s billing Account Status
  • Admin | Apps page – enhanced to display the Publishing status of your app, and whether any run-time restrictions are being applied.  Includes a new actions menu to Go Live, Apply Coupons, etc.
  • Admin | Company Info page – provides access to the Billing Portal for configuring payment methods, etc.
  • Reporting | API Usage – now includes a proper breakdown of all counts that contribute to the API Usage metric
• New Push Notification configuration screen (Design | Notifications | Settings)
• New User Summary page (Monitoring | User Monitoring | User Summary) – presents key information about the user in a more logical manner.  Also includes a cool new ability to log into the API Explorer as this user – see the [Login as User] button in the bottom-right of the screen — great for trouble-shooting!

API Changes / Additions

• CashInItunesReceipt() renamed to VerifyItunesReceipt in C++ libs and API Explorer
• New HttpClientServiceProxy object is now availble for S2S and Cloud Code
• Removed the deprecated Leaderboard API parameters, as per the notes in the 2.7.0 release notes
• New ExternalAuthenticate() method used for integrating with external user directories

Misc. Changes / Fixes

• Features
  • Improved Exception Handling in Cloud Code scripts.
  • Clan Cloud Code example (as part of exception handling documentation).
  • iOS Push Notification interval removed from developer settings (we’ll control this centrally in brainCloud)
• Fixes
  • Fixed defect where some Global Entities could not be viewed / edited from the Monitoring section of the portal
  • VerifyMicrosoftReciept() method added to the  API Explorer
• Documentation improvements
  • Matchmaking – updated to clarify that Matchmaking needs to be explicitely enabled for a player to be eligible
  • Server-to-Server – additional documentation in place

Fresh from GDC – it’s release 2.6 – Con Plague edition!

(Just kidding – other than lack of sleep, we’re good.)

In addition to the GDC rush of new game devs, over the past few months, we’ve had a surprising number of developers sign-up to use brainCloud for apps *other* than games. They’ve wisely recognized that gaming (and brainCloud in particular) is ahead-of-the-curve in terms of engaging and monetizing users – and want to take advantage of brainCloud’s advanced features (like push notifications, pricing controls, receipt validation and promotions) in a non-gaming context.

Hey, who are we to argue – the more the merrier!  So, to make them feel more welcome, we’ve combined some work we were already doing (to better standardize our usage of terms throughout the portal) with the ability to hide confusing gaming-related features from the non-initiated.  We hope you agree that the result is more consistent, and more welcoming to developers of all types of apps.

For the full details on this week’s update, keep reading! 🙂

Highlights

• New Global Leaderboard APIs – quickly view the leaderboard around the player’s score, plus paging support
• Portal Polish – we’ve taken a pass over the terminology used in the portal to make it more consistent, as well as more understandable by all types of developers

Portal Changes

• Show/hide Game Features – To make things less confusing for the folks building non-game apps on top of brainCloud, we’ve added an ability to hide the gaming features (such as Leaderboards, Achievements, Multiplayer, etc.)
• Create app flow – improved flow for creating new apps, with more consistent usage of terms throughout the portal.
• Consistent terms – more consistent usage of terms throughout the portal.
• End-User Forgotten Password – You can now trigger the Forgotten Password feature for any end user that is using E-mail authentication.  Just click the [envelope] icon next to any Email-authentication type credential at the bottom of the User Summary page.
• The Versioning page has been renamed to Platforms

API Changes / Additions

• (New) Paged Leaderboards – call GetGlobalLeaderboardPage() to get a subset of the leaderboard, starting at a specified entry
• (New) Relative Leaderboards – call GetGlobalLeaderboardView() to get a view of the leaderboard centered around a player
• (Updated) Authenticate*() API methods – now return complete Player State information – eliminating the need for a redundant ReadPlayerState() call when apps first start

Misc Changes

• You can now send Events from the S2S interface
• Exporting and Importing of metadata files now uses consistent, lower-case filename extensions
• Improvements / updates to the API docs
• Mix fixes and performance updates

Just in time for GDC – it’s brainCloud 2.5!

Okay, truthfully this is more of a housekeeping update as we prep some bigger features for releases to come.

Speaking of housekeeping – we notice that some of you may have inadvertently created multiple company accounts. This can happen when multiple team members register for brainCloud independently, instead of inviting additional members to their account.

In hindsight, the old process was clunky.  You needed to first add the user, including picking a password for them, and then separately communicate with them their account information so that they could log in (whereupon they’d want to change their password).

You’ll be happy to know that we’ve cleaned that up.  Now you only need to enter a name and e-mail, and we’ll handle the e-mailing for you – including prompting the team member to pick their own password.  Easy peasy!

If any of you with multiple accounts would like to merge them, just hit the green Chat button and we’ll help you out.  It’s pretty simple to do, but the tools are only available to us super-users right now.

Anyway, check out the release details below – and remember, if you’re going to GDC be sure to look us up – we’d love to meet you!

Highlights

• Google Play Services Authentication added.  Great for your Android games!
• Updated Java Library.  We’ve done a major update to our Java library – you’ll find it on the Client Libs download page
• Updated Javascript Library.  We’ve updated our Javascript library – you’ll find it on the Client Libs download page.
• Updated Javascript Example.  In case you missed it, we introduced a Javascript Example Game last week – Acey Deucey!

Portal Changes

• New invite team member flow – now just type in their name and e-mail address, and brainCloud sends the invite for you.  [Yeah, we know, it always should have been that way!]
• Improved [Select Players] screen – now finding players to view and debug in Player Monitoring is easier than ever!
• (Minor) Versioning tab under Design | Core Game Info has been renamed to Platforms.

API Changes

• AuthenticateGoogle() added to the brainCloud client APIs.
• Android libs now support capturing of region, timezone and language during authentication. [Note – requires some custom client configuration – instructions coming soon!] 

Misc Fixes

• S2S Improvements – we’ve added access to more services and APIs, and squashed a few bugs!
• Google Play Purchases – we’ve streamlined our implementation to make it more compatible with 3rd party libraries (like Prime31)
• Javascript documentation – we’ve updated much of the documentation with the lastest JavaScript APIs. We still have a bit further to go – bear with us!

It’s our favourite time of the year. No, not because of the refreshing -40-degree temperatures of Canada’s Capital – though that’s swell – but rather because we can escape the cold for a week of fun in San Francisco!

So, if you’re going to be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco March 2nd – 6th, be sure to drop by and say “Hello”.  We’d love to meet, discuss your game, get feedback on the platform — maybe even share a drink or two!

We are there for the whole week – but the easiest places to find us will be:

• Wednesday – Friday – we’ll be at Booth 2444 on the GDC Expo Floor.  We will be easy to find – we are way, way back in the far right-hand corner! Best booth in the house – ulp! 🙂
• Thursday 4pm-5pm – we’ll be in Room 302, South Hall, giving a session on Juicing F2P Revenue Using Cloud Tech – be sure to check it out!

We’re also out and about the rest of the week. Some of the events we’re attending include the Vesuvio Party on Monday Night and the Ontario Social on Thursday Night.  Drop us a note at “sales at getbraincloud.com” to meet up.

Hope to see you there!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day – brainCloud 2.4!

In this release, we’ve greatly improved our Cloud Code system.  We’ve expanded upon what can be done, and improved our documentation on how to do it.  That said, Cloud Code is a big area, and it’s difficult to anticipate every possible usage of the system.  If you have questions, just hit the green Chat button and we’ll help!

Highlights

• New Cloud Code Features!  We’ve greatly expanded our Cloud Code feature set.
  • API Hooks – cloud code scripts can now be configured to run automatically before or after (pre or post) core API methods
  • New Security – cloud code scripts must now be specifically enabled to be callable from the client – ensures that your most sensitive scripts are only invokable server-side (note – existing scripts default to client-callable)
  • Server-to-server (S2S) Scripts  – our new S2S feature allows you to call your scripts from custom servers and tools. Unlike client callable scripts, S2S scripts don’t require the context of an end-user session to run.
  • S2S Server configuration – to safeguard S2S scripts you must declare the servers that they will be called from.  Each server has it’s own secret, and you can even specify a set of ip ranges that will be used to validate requests.  The new S2S Config screen can be found in Design | Core Game Info | S2S Config.
  • S2S Explorer – Of course, you need to be able to test your S2S scripts – so we’ve added a new S2S Explorer for just that purpose.  You’ll find it at Design | Cloud Code | S2S Explorer.
  • Updated Clode Code documentation – cloud-callable APIs are now documented in the reference in the “CC” (i.e. “Cloud Code”) tabs of methods. We’ve also got more information on how scripts and the service bridges work.
• Updated Javascript Library.  We’ve updated our Javascript library – you’ll find it on the Client Libs download page.
• Updated C++ for Android Library.  Includes all the functionality present in the iOS C++ library. We’ve also upgraded our Cocos2d-x example project and tutorial to use it.  You’ll find the library in the Client Libs download page.

Portal Changes

• (New) Ability to edit player [user] entities – now not only can you view player entities, you can actually edit them straight from the portal and save the updates.  Great for debugging and user support.
• (New) Ability to edit global entities – like player entities, you can now edit and save global entities.  Note – we plan to further add the ability to create global entities from the editor in the future (think by end-of-March).
• (New) Newly added players screen – super handy during development and testing – you’ll see it when you first select Player Monitoring.  We’ll be further adding new player search features in the next release.
• (New) User Platforms – The Player Summary screen now shows what platforms a user has logged in from.

API Changes

• Javascript library now available for download
• C++ for Android library now available for download
• AuthenticateFacebook added to the brainCloud Wrapper class for Unity/C#
• New client-callable permission is configurable for cloud scripts. By default (for best security), all new cloud scripts will have client-callable set to false.

Misc Fixes

• Recent Logs screen now only selects Sys Error and App Error filters by default – App Warning and App Info messages are by default suppressed
• Server version has been added to the detailed Stack Info page of Recent Logs.  Helps to diagnose if an error might be related to a specific release of the software.
• Cloud Code APIs have now been documented
• Supported Localization languages has been expanded to 32 – go to Design | Core Game Info | Localization for the full list.
• All client libs (except Android) are now capturing region, timezone and language during authentication (useful for segments)

We’re pleased to announce the full public availability of brainCloud 2.3.0!

New features in this release include:

Highlights

• E-mail Identity improvements – you asked, we delivered – brainCloud now supports E-mail Validation for those of you using our E-mail + Password Identity Authentication.  We’ve added Forgotten Password flows as well – all customizable with your own text and branding.
• Segment Definitions – we’ve completely re-done our Segment design screens, made them simpler and more flexible, while vastly improving the underlying data structures that represent segment criteria.  This was necessary work to support new segment features to come.

Note – the new segment data structures aren’t compatible with how things were being defined in 2.2.X and previous.  As a result, we’ve disabled any previously defined Segments – apologies about that.  You’ll need to select each of your segments, quickly recreate the criteria, and save them.  Once again, apologies, but this was a one-time situation that couldn’t be helped (and it’s honestly very quick to fix).

Portal Changes

• Design | Core Game Info | E-mail Authentication – options for customizing the e-mails sent for validation and forgotten passwords.  Includes a [Test] button to send a test e-mail to validate (note that the test e-mails don’t contain the URL links)
• Design | Segments – screens have been completely redone

API Changes

• New Forgotten Password API for EmailPassword Authentication

Misc Fixes

• Fixes to Import Configuration to properly re-evaluate level caps if new XP levels have been added
• Misc fixes and performance improvements

Only one in ten mobile games succeed.

The business reality is that since 2011, Free-to-Play (F2P) games have been making more money than their Premium counterparts.

Although still essential – today’s games must be more than just fun – they must effectively employ F2P monetization to succeed.

1. Go Cross-Platform – adding platforms adds audience, which feeds players into your F2P engine. An effective Back-end makes it easier to offer the same features across diverse platforms.
2. Enable Cross-play – allowing your players to continue their play across devices encourages play when and where convenient, increasing engagement and forming habits
3. Add social competition – social competition is an excellent way to give players additional objectives in your game, increasing engagement (and virality)
4. Reduce cheating + theft – utilize server-side receipt validation to remove in-app piracy and increase your revenues.
5. Grow/Retain your VIPs –  utilize an automated promotions engine to help push players through your funnel, and retain the VIPs that you have (increasing $ spend)

* Player segment definitions (below) courtesy of Emily Greer’s presentation at Casual Connect ’12.

For more details, check out the slideshare presentation below – and while you’re at it, be sure to check out brainCloud – it’s free during development, and starts at just $25 / month once you go live!

  5 Steps to Ignite your Free-to-Play Revenue (without Advertising)  from Paul Winterhalder 

Note that this content is from a presentation that I originally gave at the Montreal International Game Summit in Nov 2014 – used with my permission. 🙂

It seems like every other day that we’re asked – “Is brainCloud only for games? Can I use it for other types of apps?”

Make no mistake about it – the brainCloud BaaS is primarily designed for games.

But this doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for apps (including IoT) as well. In fact, allowing for any type of application is key to our overall business philosophy – use as much or as little of the API as you’d like, and only pay for what you use.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that brainCloud is the best BaaS / MBaaS solution available for the development of Freemium and/or Gamification enabled apps.

Key BaaS for Apps Technical Features

The key app-related features include:

• Comprehensive Cloud data – user / global scoping, stats / entities / storage
• Flexible Identity Management – identify users via E-mail, Facebook, Google Id, etc.
• Custom Cloud Code – need brainCloud to do something special server-side – code it! (using JavaScript)
• Cross-platform Push Notifications – reach out to your user base in real time across device platforms
• Server-side Receipt Validation – increase revenues by eliminating in-app purchase piracy using server-side receipt validation
• Rich Gamification – player XP, achievements, leaderboards and more are available for when [if] you decide to add Gamification
• Easy integration – local libraries available across all device platforms (iOS, Android, WinPhone, BB10, Web, PC/Mac, etc.)
• Great designer / debugger web tools – the brainCloud design tools make it easy to set up your game, and the monitoring tools make it easy to view, debug, and even edit the data of your app as you develop

Key BaaS for Apps Business Features

The key business / product management features include:

• Centralized pricing controls – control the pricing of in-app purchases centrally
• Scheduled promotions – set up promotional pricing in advance, together with language-specific cross-platform push notifications for when sales / events start
• Auto promotions – plus, design custom auto promotions to be automatically triggered when users enter a defined user segment.  For example, a day after a user utilizes a new feature, hit them with a promotion to activate the “premium” version of it
• Cross-platform Analytics – brainCloud include built-in “just-in-time” analytics that reports on the usage and monetization of your app, across platforms
• Support Tools – the Monitoring tool makes it easy to provide field support for your user base
  
• Affordable Elastic Pricing model – brainCloud “No-Brainer” pricing is based on API usage – only pay for as much of brainCloud that you’re utilizing. Pricing starts at just $25 / month, and is completely free during development.

The Backend-as-a-Service business case

And of course, the brainCloud business case works for the BaaS for Apps model as well.

• Save development time and budget – zero developer and service costs during development!
• Save hosting / operational costs – brainCloud is much cheaper than hosting yourself, plus you don’t need dedicated IT support personnel!
• Increase revenues – brainCloud’s freemium and promotional features will increase the monetization of your app

So, the next time someone asks “Is brainCloud designed for games, or other types of apps?” – the answer is “Yes.”