Next generation Player IDs

To further enhance the privacy of users, Play Games Services provides next generation Player IDs. Users are assigned a different Player ID for each game they play; however, the Player ID remains consistent for a given game (by PGS Project) across devices.

Note: Next generation Player IDs enable better Play Games Services support for all accounts, including those under supervision.

Next generation Player IDs only apply to users who have never signed into your game with PGS. Existing users who have already logged into your game continue to get the same Player ID.

By end of 2024, next generation Player IDs are a requirement for all PGS projects.

Using next generation Player IDs

To support next generation Player IDs, do the following:

1. In the Play Console's navigation bar, navigate to Play Game Services > Setup and management > Configuration.
2. On the configuration page, select Edit properties. This page includes the settings to enable next generation Player IDs, as shown in the following image:

Use tester accounts

Before you publish the change to your game that enables next generation Player IDs, use tester accounts to verify that next generation Player IDs don't cause issues with your game's identity system.

To do this, set the radio button to On, but don't publish the change. Tester accounts now return next generation Player IDs for you to test with. This setting applies to all the games linked to this PGS project.

Note: Existing tester accounts need to recreate their PGS profile in order to receive next generation Player IDs.

Publish updates to your game

Once you have completed testing, publish the change with your PGS project in the Play Console, under Play Games Services > Setup and management > Publishing, so the change goes into effect and all new users start receiving next generation IDs.

Note: If issues arise in production, you can choose to temporarily disable next generation IDs by setting the radio button to Off and publishing the new change.

Testing next generation Player IDs

As long as you don't assume that a Player ID is consistent across your different game titles, you usually can enable next generation Player IDs without issues. However, we still recommend testing to confirm there won't be any issues.

A few tests we would recommend running:

• Ensuring tester accounts (receiving next generation Player IDs) are able to login and link their PGS profile with game progresses
• (If applicable) Tester accounts are able to login to the same identity system with the same PGS profile across separate games, and have their progress tracked

Note: Next generation Player IDs are supported on devices running GMS Core versions 22.30.12 or higher. More info on how to check the GMS Core version can be found here. For all devices running versions older than this, next generation IDs will not be supported.

Using the developer player key

If you need a way to identify a user across your titles to offer cross-game users experiences, you can use the developer player key. The developer player key is only accessible via the REST Web APIs. To retrieve the ID:

1. (If not already completed) Set up your client and backend server for access to the PGS REST APIs

2. Make the following HTTP request:

   GET https://www.googleapis.com/games/v1/players/me/scopedIds

The response has one field:

developer_player_key (string) - The user's ID which is the same across a developer's games in their Google Play Console.

Warning: If a game transfers developer accounts, then the developer player key will change. Therefore, you should not consider this as a stable identifier, nor as a primary key to access progress. This also should not be considered a Player ID when interacting with the PGS API. The developer player key should only be user to enable cross-game functionality, as needed.

Retrieving a list of Player IDs across your applications

You can also retrieve a list of your user's Player IDs across the list of applications that are owned by your developer account. Please note that a user will only have an ID for the games that they have been signed into with PGS.

1. (If not already completed) Set up your client and backend server for access to the PGS REST APIs

2. Make the following HTTP request

   GET https://www.googleapis.com/games/v1/players/me/multipleApplicationPlayerIds