Laravel: JSON and pivot table
<p>Sorry about the non-explanatory title but I could not come up with a descriptive one. </p>

<p>I've got the following 3 tables:
 - games 
 - platforms
 - games_platforms</p>

<p>And I've got 2 Models in Laravel for both Platform and Game.</p>

<pre><code>public function games() 
{
    return $this-&gt;belongsToMany('App\Game', 'games_platforms')-&gt;withPivot('release_date');
}

public function platforms() 
{
    return $this-&gt;belongsToMany('App\Platform', 'games_platforms')-&gt;withPivot('release_date');
}
</code></pre>

<p>Now this works like a charm, I get a JSON string with all the information in the 3 tables, like this.</p>

<pre><code>[{
    "id": 1,
    "name": "Borderlands",
    "short_description": "",
    "created_at": null,
    "updated_at": null,
    "platforms": [{
        "id": 4,
        "name": "PC",
        "pivot": {
            "game_id": 1,
            "platform_id": 4,
            "release_date": "2016-03-03"
        }
    }]
}]
</code></pre>

<p>Now my problem is as follows. I don't want to show the whole 'pivot' information, just the 'release_date', like this: </p>

<pre><code>"platforms": [{
        "id": 4,
        "name": "PC",
        "release_date": "2016-03-03"
</code></pre>

<p>Is there an easy way in Laravel to do such a thing? As far as I can see right now, looking at other posts, is to either write a function that turns the json into an array and I can arrange it then. Or I can write my own query instead of letting Laravel do all that.</p>

<p>Hope you guys can help me with this issue. Thanks!</p>