Firebase is a backend as a service owned by Google that provide a number of server side features for application developers such as realtime cloud database support, notifications, authentication with various providers, analytics, notifications, storage and more. Basically if you need some kind of network integration, Firebase aims to provide it. Today at GDC they just announced the public release of SDKs for game developers, both in C++ and Unity formats. The official release blog:
If you haven’t heard yet, the Firebase team is at the Game Developers Conference this week to show all you game developers out there how Firebase can make it easier for you to develop successful games. And one of our big announcements at the show is that the official Firebase SDKs for Unity and C++ have now graduated to full General Availability! This means that they’re both primary supported platforms that Firebase is committed to supporting in the future.
Both SDKs let you take advantage of:
AdMob: Monetize your games with targeted, in-app advertising, include native ads and rewarded video. Guides: Unity/C++.
Analytics: Record events that happen in your game with our free and unlimited analytics service, now complete with real time views! Guides: Unity/C++
Realtime Database: Magically sync your app’s data across all devices, usually within a few hundred milliseconds. Guides: Unity/C++
Dynamic Links: Create mobile deep links that you can use to point players to any element of your game (if they have it installed), or take them to the Play Store / App Store (if they don’t). Guides: Unity/C++
Authentication: Sign in your users in from third party providers like Facebook, Google, and Github, or use our built in username and password system. Guides: Unity/C++
Cloud Messaging: Send notifications to iOS, Android and web clients through a single endpoint, or use the Firebase Notifications panel to schedule notifications without having to worry about writing any custom server code or curl calls. Guides: Unity/C++
Remote Config: Tweak variables from the cloud, and then use Firebase Analytics to see if they give you the results you expect. You can even use Remote Config to deliver custom values to specific groups of people, like your expert players. Guides: Unity/C++
Storage: Store user-created binary data in Cloud Storage buckets directly from the app – fantastic for uploading screenshots or videos. Guides: Unity/C++
You can jump in today with our new getting started guide for gamedevelopers . As a bonus for developers working in Cocos2D-x, we’ve also released a set of new samples that demonstrate how to integrate the C++ SDKs into your Cocos2D-x games. As always, if you have questions or comments, reach out to us through our support team, Stack Overflow or the firebase-talk group!
Pricing for Firebase is available across 3 different tiers, a free limited to 100 simultaneous connections, 1GB of realtime storage and 10GB of network usage, a $25/month subscription with unlimited connections, 2.5GB of storage and 20GB a month of network usage, or a pay as you go tier for $5/GB/month storage, $1GB networking. You can read more about the pricing here.