Top 10 Best Video Game APIs (for Developers in 2021) [36

Top 10 Best Video Game APIs for Developers (Updated for 2021) [36+ Reviewed]

Last Updated on April 20, 2021 by RapidAPI Staff 3 Comments

The gaming industry has grown tremendously in the recent past. A recent report released by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) estimated that 42% of Americans play video games for at least 3 hours every week. Additionally, more than 150 million Americans play online and offline video games.

Another forecast by PwC suggested that by 2020, the revenue generated from video games would reach $93.18 billion USD. In addition, the global social gaming market would reach $22.52 billion USD. Considering these statistics, you can see why games constitute one of the leading API categories today.

One of the key decisions to make in game programming is which application programming interface (API) and libraries to use. Other important features include the cost and functionality of gaming APIs. Currently, there are various libraries that manage key features and tasks such as sound, graphics rendering, sound processing, and inputs. There are other libraries that do manage artificial intelligence tasks such as path-finding. This feature is concerned with how the different applications move around an obstacle. There are other game engines that handle most of the tasks. However, most of these gaming APIs require coding. Generally, a game engine includes a rendering engine for 3D and 2-D physics engine, scripting, graphics, and animation.

View the Best Gaming APIs List

The library and API to use is determined by the target platform of the game. For instance, libraries for Microsoft Windows development are not available for the Wii, and vice versa. However, there exists a framework that allows the process of cross-platform development. This feature allows a game developer to program a game in a single language. The developer can run the game on different platforms such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. High-quality graphics is one of the key features of any game. In the early 2000s, most games used 2-D graphics. Nowadays, most games use the 3-D feature.

So, What Are Gaming APIs?

via GIPHY

Technically, API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. The term refers to a software interface that allows two applications to communicate with each other. A gaming API allows your programs and software applications to interact with one another and share rules, settings, specifications, and data among others.

These APIs interact with libraries, operating systems, applications and more, usually used to share and embedded gaming content.

Various gaming platforms, such as Steam and Xbox Live have positively contributed to the rise of social gaming. They have also positively impacted the development and advancement of gaming technologies around the globe. These platforms allow the developers to incorporate online game data into their application. There are quite a number of game APIs that are available in the market.

In order to enjoy optimum effectiveness and returns from a gaming API, you need to select one with the best features and fast response rate. Here, we will analyze some of the best gaming APIs based on their:

FunctionalityEfficacyPricingWhat is the best video game API?

After reviewing over 35 video game APIs, we found these 10 APIs to be the very best and worth mentioning:

Our Top 9 Best Gaming APIs for 2021

Our Top 10 Picks for Best Video Game APIs

This API provides stats for Warzone and Multiplayer.

This is a great API with regular updates, very stable, and with high performance.

The platform param accepts:

psnsteamxblbattleuno (activision ID)

You can follow current updates and changes on our Trello board : https://trello.com/b/QdyESRwg

Learn how to use the API with Python.

The RAWG Video Games Database API is a free RESTful API that allows developers to tap into the largest open video games database. It has more than 350,000 games for over 50 platforms (including mobile gaming).

It's endpoints include:

Developers - get developer detailsGames - get game detailsPlatforms - get details by platformCreators - get details by video game creatorGenresTagsCreator rolesStoresPublishers Popularity Score:n/a/10 Best ForVideo Game Information Connect to API

The Chicken Coop API is an unofficial Metacritic API to get information about video games.

The API gets data from Metacritic.com, specifically about video games through it's Search a game endpoint.

The API returns basic information about a particular video game including:

GenreScoreImageDescriptionPlatform

Chicken Coop is a free Metacritic API available only on RapidAPI.com.

The Pokemon Go API is a RESTful API that provides tons of information about the Pokemon Go mobile game, including:

StatsCandyMovesWeatherBoostsand much more.

This is an unofficial API that is completely free to use on RapidAPI.

The Poke API is fully built under the REST architecture and linked to a broad database that details everything concerning the main series of Pokémon games. This covers everything from Berry Flavors to Pokémon.

Essentially, Poké will provide you with an interface to a comprehensive Pokémon database.

Pricing

Poké API is free to use on RapidAPI. Get a free API key to begin enriching your app with Pokemon data.

The Game Database API, also popularly known as the Internet Game Database API (IGDB) is a free video game database API that offers video games, video games companies, and their employees’ information. The product is essentially a video game community website that focuses on the needs of video game professionals and consumers as well.

Learn how to use the IGDB API here.

The common endpoints of this API include:

Get video games modes, editions, modes editions and franchises Get updates from the social media, news articles and feeds. Gather information about the employees working on the game.Efficacy

IGDB is effective as a comprehensive database that responds to the particular needs of game professionals and consumers by offering them information. The database is an interface or bridge between the gaming community and the broader industry.

Some of the endpoints of the IGDB API include:

get information about employees working on a gameget social media status updates and feeds, news and media articles about gamesget video games franchises, modes, engines, editions, and modesget information about gaming companies and industry developmentsIGDB API Pricing

The Game Database IGDB API is free for commercial and non-commercial usage.

The Steam Web API offers an interface through which gamers and professionals can collect information concerning various games and related materials. The API enables users of the Steam game Team Fortress 2 to submit data from their gameplay, for instance, player stats and rankings on their websites.

Steam Web API subsequently provides services that enable its users to present request using languages contained in the Steam Condenser language pack or OpenID library and return it back in VDF, XML, or JSON.

Steam represents a Web API using HTTP that can be utilized to access numerous features of Steamworks.

The methods used by the API are public and can be accessed using any application with the capability of making HTTP requests such as servers and clients. Additionally, the SteamWeb API also boasts protected methods which demand authentication and are meant to be accessed through trusted back-end apps.

Examples of the uses of the Steam API include execution of in-game purchases, retrieval of users’ stats and scores, and checking whether users own particular gaming applications.

Popularity Score:7.4/10 Best ForSteam Stats & User Data Connect to API

The Dota 2 API offers integration for multiple players to the Dota 2 video game. Using the video game API, you can get data about the players, items, tournaments, teams, matches, and leagues. Video game API enables you to sort a variety of gaming features.

The premium tier allows for up to 5000 calls per month, at the rate of 60 calls per minute. On the other hand, the premium tier offers you unlimited calls per month at the rate of 300 calls per minute.

How to get the API keyVisit the Steam WebsiteLog in or registerNavigate to Dev pagePricing

The free tier does not you charge anything. However, the premium tier will charge you $0.01 per 100 calls.

Popularity Score:7.7/10 Best ForDota2 League & Player Data Connect to API

The LoL API is one of the main League of Legends (LoL) API services.

LoL

is a

free

online game whereby players can assume the role of a summoner and call upon other champions to fight them.

The League of Legends API offers players information concerning the summoners, including player stats, champions and other items included in the game. As a developer, you can call up information from the LoL database programmatically utilizing REST calls.

The API returns the appropriate content-format for JSON. Additionally, its capacity for the remaining number of requests is indicated on the header and the value continues to be updated instantly.

Popularity Score:6.8/10 Best ForLoL (League of Legends) Game Data Connect to API

Just like the Poke API, the Minecraft API (also known as Minecraft Server API) is built under the REST architectural style and queries Minecraft server statistics such as pluginlist and playerlist, as well as server status. Subsequently, Minecraft API is essentially a web service.

Some of the main capabilities of the API include:

to query Minecraft domain DNScheck IP/domain statusget the service status of Minecraft servers andget the MOTD and status of PC servers among others

The API is lightweight and you can easily integrate the service with your existing websites.

How to get the API keyJust sign in to buycraft.netGo to profileCreate a new API key

Do you agree with our list of the best video game APIs? Which API is missing from this blog post? Let us know in the comments below.

Summary: Best Video Game APIs for Developers

APIMain FunctionalityPopularity ScoreLatencySuccess RateCall of Duty: Modern WarfareCOD & Warzone Data9.7/10980ms96% RAWG Video Game DatabaseVideo Game Data9.9/10801ms100% Chicken CoopMetacritic Data8.1/101352ms100% Pokemon GoData about Pokemon Go8.3/10298ms100% PokeAPIPokemon Universe Data8.2/10214ms100% IGDBVideo Game Data8/10237ms100% Steam WebSteam Video Game and User Data7.4/101335ms33% Dota2Dota2 League, Team, Match & Player Data7.7/10266ms100% League of LegendsLoL Game Data6.8/10242ms100% MinecraftMinecraft API Web service6.1/10233ms100%

Which video games have an API?

Here are a few of the top video games that provide APIs:

What is the best video game API?

After reviewing over 35 video game APIs, we found these 9 APIs to be the very best and worth mentioning:

What is RapidAPI?

RapidAPI is an API Marketplace for developers to find, connect, and manage their API connections. ... If you have an API you've created, use RapidAPI to make it available to hundreds of thousands of developers already utilizing APIs through RapidAPI.

Is RapidAPI free?

RapidAPI has three types of APIs: free, freemium and paid.

Free APIsAPIs that do not require a credit card or subscription plan to consumeFreemium APIsPaid APIs that include a limited free tier and require a credit cardPaid APIsAPIs that require a paid subscription plan and credit card to consume

Complete List of the Best Video Gaming APIs

Escape from Tarkov - Api to retrieve Escape from Tarkov game dataRAWG Video Games Database - The largest open video games database.Hearthstone - This API provides up to date Hearthstone data pulled directly from the game.Google Play Store - Need to see up to date reviews, ratings and rankings for products on the Google Play Store? Here it is! An easy to use web service that retrieves current product details from Google Play Store. Just give it an id!App Stores - An API for multiple mobile app stores: Android apps on Google Play and iOS apps on Apple iTunes. Low-cost pricing and fast response times.Pokemon Go - API that is dedicated to various machine readable data about Pokemon Go.Poke - Get data around Pokemon and the Pokemon universe.Chicken Coop - This is an unofficial Metacritic API to get all informations about gamesIMDb - IMDb API helps to query for all information about films, actors, characters,etc… as on official websitesGameDatabase - IGDB.com is a video game community website, intended for both game consumers and video game professionals alike.Dota2 - Get league, team, match, tournament, item and player data.SteamWeb - Get video game catalogue, stats, and user data.XboxAPI.com - This is an UNOFFICIAL Xbox LIVE API. You can use this API to collect data about gamertags, such as profile/played games/game achievement data. Please visit https://xboxapi.com for more informationLeagueOfLegends - Get League Of Legends game dataFortnite GraphQL - A public GraphQL API for accessing player data from Epic GamesLoLWT - LoLWT API for League of Legends. LoLWT API provides you data from RIOT League of Legends!Minecraft - Minecraft API Web Servicegoogle play - A Google Play API.Solve Sudoku - Solve Sudoku PuzzlesDiscordBot - Integrate voice and text chat for this gaming chat app.GuildWars2 - Guild Wars 2 is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSOFTGameRank - The GameRank API can be used to access, update, delete and insert information about players, games and plays in a game Reputation System. The reputation system ranks players by quality and ranks games by difficulty.EGS Catalog - Parser for EGS APIGlobalstats - Enrich your games' experience by adding a global highscore for your games.AmiiboAPI - AmiiboAPI is primarily used for educational purposes. An Amiibo database that holds all amiibo information in a single API. All Respective Names are Trademark & © of Nintendo 1996-2018appsearch - Mimvi App Search provides mobile app search, discovery and recommendation services. Based on proprietary biomimetic algorithms, Mimvi App Search delivers the best coverage and most relevant mobile apps, mobile content and mobile products. Coverage includes: iTunes, Google Play (Android), Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, Facebook, Blackberry, Web Apps.Elophant League of Legends - LOL Champion and Summoner Stats. To consume a service, perform a GET request on api.elophant.com/v2/Fortnite unofficial - Get list of weapons, items and more. Try the android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.saffru.colombo.forweaponsFortniteAPI - Fortnite APIGameserver Query - Lets you query Gameservers for Informations like player-count, map, maxplayers, …Google Play and iOS App Store data - The most comprehensive API for global app store data. Access app data for all Google Play and iOS App Store apps in 155 countries including 6 years of historical data.League of Legends LOL - This api provides you with several endpoints to get updated info about champions, items, factions and summoners of League of Legendslolperu - League of Legends Perú.Scoreoid - Truly cross platform, highly scalable gaming backend as service and real-time marketing platform that powers engagement and monetization. Gamify your apps with Scoreoid's gaming backend as a service. Increase retention, engagement and sales in real-time using Scoreoid Live. Scoreoid Live enables brands, studios, publishers and app developers to interact and engage with their users in real-time.TwitchTV - TwitchTV API Package

Filed Under: APIs Tagged With: API Roundup, Discord, Dota, Dota2, Game Database, games, gaming, gaming api, gaming apis, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, GW2, IGDB, League of Legends, LoL, Minecraft, Pokemon, Steam, twitch, video game api, video game apis, video games