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Fraud prevention quickstart

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Important

Economy v2 is now Generally Available. For support and feedback, go to the PlayFab Forum.

This quickstart will get you running with receipt validation on the Microsoft Store (Windows 10/11, Xbox, Android).

Prerequisites

The PlayFab Economy v2 quickstart will get you set up and ready to perform receipt validation.

Microsoft Store Marketplace receipt validation

To use the Redeem API, you start by setting up your Product IDs and Prices in whatever Marketplace (Apple Store, Steam, Google Play, etc.) you're using. Initially, all the products are faceless - digital entries your player can purchase - but have no meaning in PlayFab.

To give those entries meaning, we need to mirror them in the PlayFab Catalog. Mirroring them will turn the faceless entities into Catalog Bundles. When you call RedeemMicrosoftStoreInventoryItems in the new service, we look for a Bundle in the Catalog that matches to grant to the Entity Player’s virtual Inventory.

Each Bundle can be linked to one or more Partner Marketplace Products by adding an AlternateId to it. The AlternateId is the link between PlayFab and any external IAP Market. When your title calls Redeem for a given player entity, we pass this ID up to the IAP Market to check. The general flow is:

  1. Create 1 (or more) real world offers in the Microsoft Store
  2. Populate the Add-ons in PlayFab with IAP Market calling permissions and create corresponding Bundles in Playfab that link to the offers you created
  3. Call RedeemMicrosoftStoreInventoryItems

Note

Unlike previous incarnations of Playfab, in the new system you just create one bundle offer, and then you add each market SKU that needs to reference into the AlternateId list. You don’t need to create a new Item for each IAP market.

Step 1 - Setting up your marketplace integration

You need to set up each IAP Market integration in GameManager under the Add-ons section, to allow PlayFab to call the Market on the Title’s behalf.

Step 2 - Creating a bundle for receipt validation

You can create a bundle either within GameManager or by calling CreateDraftItem. Minimally a Bundle requires a Title, Description, and Items. In GameManager, you can link Marketplace entries using the Marketplace Mapping section.

If you're building the Bundle using the API, you need to add your IAP Marketplace Mappings under the alternateIds section of a bundle. Marketplace Enums are specific and case sensitive; you must use one of the following Add-ons:

  • Apple = "AppleAppStore"
  • Google Play = "GooglePlay"
  • Nintendo = "NintendoEShop"
  • Microsoft = "MicrosoftStore"
  • PlayStation = "PlayStationStore"
  • Steam = "Steam"

Step 3 - Calling Redeem from your Game

Your game calls the RedeemMicrosoftStoreInventoryItems API with entity and receipt details to ‘redeem’ the real world offer and populate the corresponding Entity Inventory. You need to provide a few things in the call it to work correctly:

  • Required in the Header of the Request
    • X-EntityToken - The token uniquely identifying a PlayFab entity
    • Content-Type - Application/Json
  • Required in the Body of the Request
    • CollectionsIdKey

Each IAP Market has slightly different requirements for making these calls. For instance, Apple and GooglePlay purchases, you need to attach a marketplace receipt.

When your game client launches, first initiate a PlayFab Redeem call for the marketplace. Redeem calls allow PlayFab to sync with any potential purchases that happened offline or outside the game’s purview. Your game should use these calls whenever an in-game purchase of a Marketplace offer occurs.

Redeem will ensure that the Player Entity’s Inventory Currency is populated after Redeem endpoint is called.

Part 4: Purchasing an Item

You can verify that Items or Currencies exist within the individual Player views. In GameManager, select Players, and navigate to an individual Player Entity. Use the Inventory tabs to view and update what that Entity Player possesses.

You can learn more about Monetizing on the Microsoft platform here.