Aside from the normal SDK updates, the Pley platform updates continuously every week. In September and early October, many improvements have been made. Most updates are reliability and performance updates; improving both player- and studio experience. However, there have been features added as well -- those are listed here:

Crash log and detailed crash screens in the Game Manager

In the Game Manager, you can now find Crash Logs under Project > Crash log. There you can:

• See crash data (24 hours, 7 days, 30 days)
• Search for specific crashes
• See which builds and releases track the crashes that occurred.
• When in the session the crash occurred (crashes always end the session).
• Inspect the crash for additional information and stack traces (browser, device, memory usage).

This is the first version, and we'll continue improving this as time goes on to make common crashes faster to detect, and quicker to troubleshoot. We'll aim to improve stack trace clarity, grouping similar issues, and overall making it easier to act on crashes that occur in your game!

Pley SDK 5.4.0

Go to https://manage.pley.com/downloads to download the latest SDK version.

• Method to show control menu (for keyboard input)
• Callback to pause/unpause the game, so the game can be paused during sign-up prompts or viewing the control menu.
• Added a flag for the game to trigger a "forced" signup where the user can't continue playing as a guest session.
• Allow for releasing builds programmatically (CI/Build pipeline) to Open-testing and Closed-testing release tracks for automated QA processes. (Read more here: https://docs.pley.com/docs/continuous-integration)
• Selectable resolution:

Other Changes

• Allow incognito players to play games (and improve the reliability of those players).
• Added API to get rewarded ad reports, such as estimated revenue / eCPM (Read more here)
• Added "Purchase volume" to Game Manager Analytics, reporting the # of purchases which is occurring.
• Fixed many many small issues, improving reliability.

Aside from the normal SDK updates, the Pley platform updates nearly daily. Throughout this summer many improvements have been made. Most updates are reliability and performance updates; improving both player- and studio experience. However, there have been features added as well -- those are listed here:

Player Experience & Web Playable

• Improved the user experience and stability of Pley Connect, our cross-platform account linking system.
• Added a game controls button for games with keyboard controls.
• Added categories for player support, letting players reach out to the developer directly (or to Pley for payment/login issues).
• Added new support form system to appropriate crash screens.
• Automatically deliver web offers & webshop purchased items to the web playable.

Pley Ads

• Major reliability improvements to Google Adsense Ads (+50% success rate).

Work is still ongoing to majorly improve (or replace) rewarded ads through Adsense, which unfortunately has proven to be rougher to work with than we'd hoped. We will keep trying to make the ad experience for web games better.

Developer Experience

• Added the ability to impersonate users for debugging in the Game Manager.
• Added the ability to start the game as a new user in the Game Manager.
• Added query-parameter arguments to games, letting developers use browser url ?pga_<akey>=value parameters to feed data into the game. For example, game.com/play?pga_debug=true.
• Added ability to download uploaded builds through the CLI
• Added "Allowed Origins" to game settings in Game Manager, giving studios control of where their game can be run.
• Automatically fix Unity audio decoding issue for all builds during build processing.
• Added maintenance mode to release tracks, allowing for good UX during downtime (scheduled or emergency).

We are releasing SDK 5.3.0, downloadable at manage.pley.com/downloads.

SDK Changelog

• Added two new analytics events. These events can be used to track users on the web who start the tutorial (to compare with mobile) and track users who visit the store. They can be called from the game client through the Pley SDK. See all available events here. Pley SDK C# Reference here.
  • gameplay_tutorial_started
  • gameplay_store_opened
• Added Fast build for Unity version 2022.X (Average build time 30-40 minutes -> 5-6 minutes).
• Stability improvements.

Platform Updates

• Added ability to download builds you have uploaded through the Pley CLI.
• Majorly improving clarity in console logging.
  • Remove spam/clutter which wasn't useful.
  • Color-code and indicate where the information is coming from (C#, IL2CPP, C, C++, Game).

We have long been wanting to overhaul the entire Game Manager, found at https://manage.pley.com. Now, we're releasing it. It comes with a full visual and structural overhaul as well as multiple new requested features. It's an investment for the future!

Objectives with Game Manager 2.0:

• Seamless migration for current partners
• Easier to follow, intuitive design, and more explanations of what things do.
• Fewer steps to do core actions, such as releasing builds or configuring products.
• Much quicker turnaround to add new features requested by partners.
• Release multiple requested features.
• Clean-up, simplification, and removal of features no longer needed.

New Features

• Instantly import in-game products from Google Play Console (Read more)
• Custom set IDs for products, letting you use the same IDs on Pley as on mobile.
• Brand new analytics dashboard, giving you an easy-to-access overview of player activity, revenue, and technical performance. (Read more)
• Overhauled release-track-management; each project now has Open testing and Closed testing release tracks for development, QA, and pre-production build testing. (Read more
• New alerts and a release checklist when making releases, to inform you if something critical has been forgotten.
• New restricted regions interface, letting you manage in which countries your game can be played. (Read more)

SDK 5.2.0 has been released, expanding on Pley's analytics system, adding a viewport/aspect ratio automation tool, and fixing multiple issues!

It is available for download at manage.pley.com/downloads

📘

Click here to learn how to update the Pley SDK

Changelog

A new system for gameplay-level analytics.

• Call any predefined event in the game code and have it delivered to any of your analytics services through the Playable and Game site.
• Create custom events with customized payloads, delivered to any analytics service.
• Added a warning if AnalyticsKit was used, but not initialized properly with the required user properties.
• User properties, such as username, currency balance, game version, and custom user ID for cross-platform attribution.
• Predefined gameplay analytics, with events such as tutorial_advanced, tutorial_complete, resource_spent, premium_gained (currency), offer_shown (liveOps / deals), and more!
• Click here to see all gameplay events and properties.

New automated viewport system for web

• Allows you to automatically configure viewport behavior without having to rewrite code made for mobile aspect ratios.
• A simple editor-UI setup of viewport size; fixed, adaptable, snapping, free, etc.
• Resolution control.

Fixed multiple issues, bugs, and quality-of-life

• Prevent unity assemblies from reloading while uploading builds to Pley
• Cleaned up the Pley SDK, reducing file size by half.
• Improved responsiveness of error messages in the SDK
• Added a "cancel upload" button during build uploads.
• Fixed an issue on Windows machines where builds would fail to upload.

SDK v5.1.0 is released, adding Experimental Google-AdSense powered rewarded ads to all games on Pley.

Rewarded ads have been one of the most requested features to both monetize non-paying users, and more importantly as an upselling tool. We have integrated Google H5 games rewarded ads into Pley AdsKit. For now, it is an experimental feature; over time ad quality will improve as Google's algorithm learns more, as well as Pley making updates on the fly.

Read more here on how to implement rewarded ads.

Changelog

• New experimental feature; rewarded ads powered by Google Adsense H5 Games.
• Warning notification in the Unity SDK if a new SDK version is available.
• Warning notification in the Unity SDK if there is a mismatch in Emscripten versions between the Pley SDK and Unity, so developers don't have to troubleshoot strange impossible-to-understand errors.
• Assemblies will now not reload in Unity during uploads to Pley, preventing crashes.
• Changed folder structure; Pley SDK is now found in Pley/SDK instead of just Pley/.
• Fixed analytics-related bugs.

📘

Click here to learn how to update the Pley SDK

Pley SDK 5.0.0 is a major update, both adding new functionality and removing features.
Due to this, games will have to make changes in their game code to update to 5.0.0. We don't plan to release breaking changes lightly in the future. Read more

The update comes with a major API restructuring, replacing callbacks with tasks. This is the most breaking change when updating to the SDK 5.0.0.

New AnalyticsKit for commercial funnel event API with the following methods: GameLoaded(), UserEngaged(), UserInteracted(). On top of this, multiple features have been removed, stability has improved, and loading times have been reduced.

See the updated API documentation here.

New Features & Changes

• The API is now using Tasks and all methods that are asynchronous are postfixed with ‘Async’

var (result, data) = await PaymentsKit.RequestPaymentAsync(paymentKitProduct);
if (result.IsError())
{
  Debug.LogError($"Failed to request payment: {result}");
  return;
}

Debug.Log($"Payment successful - entitlementId: {data.entitlementId}");

PaymentsKit.RequestPaymentAsync(paymentKitProduct)
  .Then((result, data) =>
  {
    if (result.IsError())
    {
      Debug.LogError($"Failed to request payment: {result}");
      return;
    }
    Debug.Log($"Payment successful - entitlementId: {data.entitlementId}");
  });

• Support for new Apple silicon architecture
• Removed DLL dependencies, reducing conflicts between services and libraries
• Improvements to the Unity extension UI
• Improved documentation on error returns
• GetProduct replaced by PaymentsKit.GetProducts. Gets multiple products from a list of ID:s instead of one call per product ID.
• PaymentsKit.GetEntitlementsAsync() return an empty list instead of an error if there is no entitlements.
• InsightsKit is replaced by AnalyticsKit
• New obligatory analytics methods: GameLoaded(), UserEngaged(), UserInteracted().
• AuthKit.PlayToken replaced by AuthKit.SessionToken
• SDK.GetStartupArgs replaced by SDK.GetGameArguments
• Fixed issues reporting memory in memory usage overlay.

Removed

• PleyGenericError
• PartyKit
• InsightsKit
• SendCustomEvent, which was part of InsightsKit.
• AuthKit.GetFingerprint
• ContainerMessages
• PerformanceKit.RecommendedResolution/QualityLevel
• Order id is no longer part of the payment request response
• TexutreSettingsImportApplier tool
• NotificationsKit
• Callbacks on Pley Methods (replaced by Tasks as mentioned above).

👍

That is it!

If you have any questions, reach out to us through your Pley communication channel or email us at [email protected]

• New Pley Fast Build for Unity, more info.
• Support for Unity 2021.3 and 2022.1.
• Minor Windows fixes.

• Fix a crash that could occur when uploading a new build.

• Fix incorrect build step duration in the build report