Much of the lobby client's interaction with an associated application is indirect. The lobby client does something that affects the application, and Microsoft® DirectPlay® sends an appropriate message, and vice versa. For instance, if the lobby client changes the connection settings, DirectPlay notifies the application and provides the new settings. However, the IDirectPlay8LobbyClient::Send method enables the lobby client to send a message directly to the application. DirectPlay passes the data to the application without modification. It is the responsibility of the application to process that data.

The lobbied application can also send data directly to the lobby client. The data is passed to the lobby client's message handler with a DPL_MSGID_RECEIVE message. DirectPlay passes the data to the lobby client without modification. It is up to the lobby client to process the data.