Gaming often finds itself at the vanguard of technological development. This is no surprise since modern games require tremendous rendering power, and online games involve millions of connected users. As such, gaming is an industry that needs cutting-edge technology and power, often before the solutions even exist.

APIs are critical elements of this innovation, providing incredible power and flexibility across a wide range of functions. In this piece, we’ll look at some of the most interesting ways that APIs are powering the modern gaming industry.

Integrated Development

Gaming is a collaborative art requiring many talents to work together towards a common output. These talents across art, music, 3D modeling, network connectivity, and many other domains utilize software and solutions that take a lifetime to master.

With all of this output, it has become essential to provide a way to integrate this content into a unified development pipeline. APIs have taken on this role, providing a unified method to connect developers and creators to the tools and systems they require.

Some of this API work is obvious and traditional. For instance, Adobe offers a large amount of APIs for its product base, allowing for complex content creation and management. These APIs drive the tooling required to make some incredibly complex material and power the collaborative tooling required to make material usable in development engines. The Unity Scripting APIs are another example of this more traditional power, allowing for scripted actions in a Unity project.

Other less obvious APIs offer functionality that you may not consider when you first imagine gaming. As an example, Matterport, a 3D scanning solution, offers powerful APIs for its line of products and data stores. This allows developers to do 3D renders of an entire environment — for instance, a skate park — and then interact with that model directly, allowing for import into game engines and transformation with other toolsets.

Data Analytics and Reporting

APIs are excellent stewards of data and, when properly deployed, can serve as a highway for data and context across a wide array of use cases. For gaming, this is an excellent thing to have — gamers generate a lot of data in their interactions, and this data can be used to make better games, enhance user experiences, detect concerns around player interactions, or even inform level design in new iterations.

A great example of this kind of API is the GameAnalytics API. This API allows for reporting across player behavior, monetization outcomes, and more, allowing studios to react to player interactions with their business logic. This data can then be exported to a business intelligence tool like Looker or Tableau, allowing for more contextualization and flexibility.

Another great example is the Steamworks API from Valve. This API provides incredibly rich data around player behavior, preferences, and platform marketing, allowing for great optimization pipelines.

Social Media and Communication Integration

Once upon a time, gamers were a narrow subset of all consumers. Today, gamers are everywhere, and as such, their demand for integrations to different social media and communication platforms has risen exponentially.

Many developers have turned to utilizing the APIs provided by these services as a simple way to provide fast community support both inside and outside of their game code. Platforms like Discord provide APIs for creating and managing bots that can directly integrate with games, offering a simple way to manage voice chat between players. Twitch’s API allows users to stream video directly to their platform, sharing their game footage quickly and easily.

In many cases, game platforms provide their own APIs for even more advanced integrations. Sony, for example, has a registered developer portal where developers can secure APIs for more complex interactions, opening up a new world of social media and communication.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

One of the most interesting new developments in gaming is the development of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) at the consumer scale. These solutions have seen significant API development, with a few becoming relatively common in use across gaming applications.

One example is the API from Google called ARCore. ARCore is an entire platform based around a collection of SDKs and APIs that allow for everything from machine learning algorithms for environmental scanning to geospatial mapping. These systems have unlocked significant benefits for game development but have also been used in marketing and technology solutions.

Another good example is Mozilla’s WebXR Device API. This API is designed to render 3D scenes in mixed reality headsets, connecting services like geometry referencing, rendering, bounded space simulation, and more in a single service.

These APIs, amongst others, have powered some incredibly popular games like Beat Saber, PokemonGO, and much more, and it seems like mixed reality isn’t going anywhere soon!

Cross-Platform Gaming

Gamers have more options than ever before, but there is a significant desire for many to have their gaming be cross-platform — or at least to support cross-platform communication and sharing.

For example, Xbox provides an API for cross-platform synchronization, allowing players to pick up their game on any platform enabled with the technology. This allows someone to take a game from an Xbox to a Windows laptop, keeping the same progression, saves, and achievements. This is also a core technology that enables cross-play, meaning friends with an Xbox and a Windows PC can play together seamlessly.

On the developer side, APIs like Vulkan allow for content to be developed across major platforms, including Windows, Switch, Linux, and more. This allows games to be developed once and supported across a wide variety of platforms, reaching more gamers. Beyond just increasing development velocity, this also opens up your market pretty substantially, meaning a higher potential revenue upside.

Payment Processing and Monetization

Many games, especially on mobile, offer paid methods to get exclusive items or unlock special benefits. For a long time, these payments were locked behind walled systems, especially on mobile devices. However, many APIs have been developed to sidestep this, introducing more choices for gamers and developers alike.

Perhaps the most popular of these tools is Xsolla. Xsolla is an easy way to add payment options for games and to manage refunds, payment methods, and much more. The solution has been adopted in a wide variety of titles, including games at NetEase, Warner Bros., and Gaijin.

More generally, payment processing APIs are a huge element of the gaming API share. Solutions such as Stripe, Venmo, and Paypal offer not only infrastructural solutions to payment processing, but individual payment processing for players selling items, services in-game, and so forth. This is especially true of games such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) that have their own player markets. Although these systems are often unofficial, they are nonetheless a huge player base attractant, and as such, see API usage for items, specialty services, and more.

Final Thoughts on APIs in Gaming

Gaming is a huge industry, and with every year that passes, a new milestone is achieved. Ten years ago, the idea of 4K gaming on a handheld was ludicrous. Twenty years ago, having virtual reality like the Oculus Rift seemed like a dream. Gaming is changing daily, and it is only through APIs and their enabled solutions that developers and players can keep up.

What do you think of these APIs? Did we miss any major developments in the gaming space? Let us know in the comments below!