Announcing Sendbird’s new Unreal Engine chat SDK
It’s only been a week since we announced the new Sendbird Chat SDKv4 and UIKitv3 for faster integration and more customizable chat, yet today we are happy to announce one more Chat SDK!
This Chat SDK is for games and other applications built with the Unreal Engine. The Unreal 3D game engine enables creators across industries to deliver cutting-edge content, interactive experiences, and virtual worlds in which players immerse themselves.
Today, games are no more just an escape from reality; they have transformed into places to socialize and be part of a community. Chat is a foundational component of this experience and a key requirement to establishing a socially-minded gaming environment that can create lasting engagement and retention.
A faster and safer way to build a world-class in-game chat experience
While creating a social experience is paramount for most studios, developing in-house chat can be a real diversion of internal resources. The people are always better employed in creating the mesmerizing virtual worlds that players will come for and explore.
When Krafton launched their new battleground game PUBG: NEW STATE in over 200 countries, the challenge was twofold: first, they wanted to enable a custom and world-class chat experience that their players loved. At the same time, they needed to be able to scale globally and reliably from day one.
Building a real-time communications infrastructure to support the 55M pre-registered users wasn’t going to be a small task. By partnering with Sendbird and leveraging our easy-to-integrate API, Krafton quickly built a feature-rich in-game chat experience. They also reduced risk significantly by capitalizing on Sendbird’s expertise in managing a high level of concurrent connections and preserving users’ data security. Besides, Sendbird had proven its platform’s performance and scalability across multiple verticals, specifically with industry gaming leaders such as Nexon and Pocket Gems.
The only UIKit you need.
Building engaging chat capabilities with the Sendbird Unreal SDK
Games create many opportunities for players to socialize, from lobbies where participants can connect before and after a game to live-action in-game chats where people can collaborate and share their reactions in real-time.
Sendbird offers various types of communication channels that players can engage in, such as:
- One-on-one conversations
- Private group chats that typically host a few hundred players
- Public open group chats where many thousands of players can participate
For all these different configurations, Sendbird’s chat capabilities
include the ability to send multimedia attachments. Specifically,
private channels include support for:
- Unread message counts
- Mentions
- Push notifications
- Read receipts
- Automatic translation of messages
- Search
How to prevent harmful behaviors: In-game chat moderation
The cost of abuse is steep for players and the industry. According to the Anti Defamation League:
“28% of online multiplayer gamers who experienced in-game harassment avoided certain games due to their reputations for hostile environments, and 22% stopped playing certain games altogether.”
To curb toxic behaviors in online multiplayer games, the Sendbird Unreal Chat SDK offers a plethora of effective moderation features:
For players:
For in-app moderators:
- User banning for open channels
- User muting for open channels
- Group and open channels freezing
For administrators:
- The ability to monitor live content from the dashboard to act upon unhealthy behaviors
For developers, all capabilities are programmable via the Sendbird Platform API, which offers additional flexibility such as:
-
- Defining the user profanity threshold and response
- Banning a user with a custom channels
- Blocking user IDs in bulk
- Triggering actions with Webhooks
Finally, automated text and image moderation are also available, including:
- Text profanity filtering with keyword identification
- Sensitive information sharing prevention
- Examples: Social security details, phone numbers, or credit card numbers.
- Web domain filtering
For a quick summary, view this 90-second video.
Getting started with the Sendbird Chat Unreal SDK
View our docs to get started building in-game chat with Sendbird on Unreal. For a quick experience, we created a sample app that you can download on GitHub. KC Kern, Product Manager, walks you through sending your first message in this video tutorial.
To build chat for free, remember to start with our free trial. After a month, you can switch to a paid plan based on your feature and Monthly Active User (MAU) needs, or use our Developer plan to keep experimenting with our entire API for free and forever.
The game’s on!
All game developers now have access to the most proven, feature-rich, and scalable chat platform to create engaging chat experiences, with Sendbird Chat SDKs for Unreal and Unity leading game engines.
No matter the game engine developers choose, they can now quickly build world-class in-game chat at a lower cost, with minimum risk, and enable the growth of healthy, loyal, and engaged gaming communities.
Of course, we won’t stop here when it comes to connecting your web and mobile game users, so stay tuned to hear about more gaming features coming soon!
