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steamworks.gml
Various expansions to Steamworks SDK support in GameMaker: Studio / GMS2. (now merged into the official extension)
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InfluxDB
Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
Choose your platform. I chose to use YellowAfterlife's Steamworks.gml wrapper. It locks me into the Steam platform and porting the game to another console or platform would require a ton of work. On the plus side, Steam handles a lot of the networking (inviting friends, creating lobbies, etc) for me, and it requires minimal effort from the player. You can, of course, choose a more universal approach that uses sockets and IP addresses, but that often requires the player making modifications to their router's firewall, trusting apps from unknown developers, exchanging IP addresses, etc. Steam uses UDP hole punching, so as long as you're playing with other Steam players, there's way less friction.