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Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exclusive secondary research on the topic The use of
Databases in Games Development. The first part of the paper addresses the topic of the major
uses of SQL type of databases in the development of games. It shows the sequence of steps that
are used for creation of games and the use of databases as an essential part of creating the
platform for the creation of games. The next part of the report under the heading Present Day
Technological Games addresses the topic of where this technology is heading in the
contemporary times and how much has the same changed in the present times. What sort of
technological issues are considered to be the benchmark in the industry and similar questions
have been addressed in that part (S. Posniewski 2007).
Major uses of SQL type of database in the development of games
The concept of using databases in the development of games has relied upon Relational
Databases for creation and implementation of games. The use of flash player and other
applications which we normally tend to use for playing online and other games are nothing more
than a sequential use of databases. In general, the use of relational databases has sometimes been
seen as the very domain of web pages development and also that of many business oriented
applications. The objective of these applications is to create ease of use for the business
managers and thus, many software and information technology companies offer customised
solutions to the companies for development of business application through the use of relational
databases. Such examples include a long list of used business applications such as accounting
softwares, stock or inventory software application, online shopping cart applications for
electronic commerce websites etc. the main objective is to provide comprehensive information to
the business owners and also to allow them flexible control as these applications can be used to
track down minute details in a easy to use manner especially for the non technical end user of the
software application. This paper focuses on the use of relational database in the field of games in


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particular. The user of the games are not concerned much about the technology which has been
used for the creation and the development of the games, they would rather be interested in
experimenting on their own and judging the performance of the existing game with that of the
previous version and also with other competitors who are offering similar games of the same
genre. That is indeed the reason why we see the games being introduced are more or less a few
developments, changes and addition to the existing platform which was used in the previous
version. This result in less of investment for the software company developing the game, but also
offers huge returns for them because they charge the same price as they did for the earlier
version (M. DeLoura 2000).
On the other end, there are team members within the software companies who are responsible for
the development of the games. They generally view the use of relational databases as orthodox as
they can be regarded slow, bulky and the use of terms like tuple and foreign key can
sometimes turn out to be hard to interpret. This notion has certainly changed in the recent times
as the usage of modern database is related to easy to use and fast responses that are essentially
useful for the development of games in the contemporary times. This brings into the picture, the
actual use of relational database whose robustness and ubiquity attributes offer them the
flexibility of being used for performing relatively easier tasks as well. Also, they are powerful
and complex and possess the ability to be incorporated into development codes (J. Lee 2007).
Actual Meaning of Relational Database
The above discussion shows the usage of relational databases as an essential means for the
development of the games in the contemporary times. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand
the actual meaning of the term Relational Database. It can be explained in simple terms as a set
of tables which has columns that are named and each row in the table corresponds to an
individual record. Thus, the programming team of the Games essentially makes use of these
relational databases at the run time of the game to organize and store things like resources and
game objects which are seen as the environment of the game by the end user or the consumer.


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These relational databases are generally ad- hoc in nature and used for specific objective. The
use of custom code for these applications is also very crucial as these relational databases are
implemented using these custom codes only. This is the reason why the technical team of the
software developers does not refer relational databases as technical database. They are of the
opinion that these relational databases do not use the custom in game databases but rather they
add to the functional use of the database of the game that gives them the ability to continue
adding more features to the existing platforms and thus the creation of new levels and new
versions which is seen as a strategy especially for those games that are initially a hit amongst the
end users and in the market place for the game users. Also, the changes that are brought in using
the relational databases are essentially the text based changes to the database server, this allows
the programming team with greater flexibility to bring upon the changes and the same does not
take much time and also minimum amount of work is required to bring upon a change in the
existing software and thus it continues to be developed at a faster rate.
Set Up or Installation of a Relational Database
The databases that are used and run essentially make the use of a server, thus adequate setting up
of the server. The server is said to be locally set up when it is part of the code of the developed
software. In that case, it is accessible directly via the means of a relatively lower level of
Application Programming Interface (API). The server that is to be set up can also be remote in
nature, the same is used via the means of a network communication or connection. The same
analogy is more or less used in the cloud computing industry. The usage of electronic mails to
store documents, information and other data is a perfect example to demonstrate the same. The
usage of remote servers is however possible in a local machine as well and that is referred to as
the access through a local host, this is also an example of the usage of the remote server and the
same is relatively quicker means of using a remote server as opposed to the cloud computing
analogy.


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The needs and the situation essentially decide the ways as to how the remote server can be set
up. If the software development team is not working under the same office roof, then the usage
of cloud computing to host data is more apparent. If the team is using the same network across
different systems, then they are likely to use local host and exchange the required information at
a much faster rate relative to cloud computing. Similarly, sometimes the developer is an
individual and in that case the database is stored on the local machine only, which offers
maximum speed and additional benefits, out of the three cases identified above.
The setting up of the database is a relatively simple task. The remote hosting is often supplied
with a interface such as Admin rights or php. This allows the usage of creation of databases and
other users are able to log in using their unique and approved identifications. In the other case of
using the database over the local network, the database is added to the existing software that is
being used in all the systems. This can also be used by installing the MYSQL software that is an
easy task to do and get the database usage up and running very quickly (P. Tozour 2002).
The next step once the database is set up is to check the connection and the usage of database in
an adequate manner. This is done to ensure that any problems that exist can be debug using the
existing codes of the software. HeidiSQL, is a software tool that is generally used to connect to
the database server and also allows to modify the occurring changes in a visual manner. There is
other software application which adheres to perform the similar software roles such as Premium
Softs NaviCat. The individual parameters can be easily changed using this software inside the
table which is an essential part for bringing upon a change in overall outlook of the software
application such as that of a gaming platform. Since the programming of a game takes a number
of steps and also time is taken to check the feasibility of an input, the involved steps often
undergo a lot of experimentation, that is the reason why the database server allows the log in of a
root user who can change the initial coding of the program to make the required additions, do
editing of the existing codes and do other necessary actions and so on (N. Gupta 2009).
Thus, as more and more development takes place in the creation of the software platform of a
particular game, less number of users are allowed to make changes to the existing codes and


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fewer privileges are given to the developers both to ensure the durability of the existing software
codes and also for taking care of the privacy and the copyrights of the software program that is
likely to marketed for a price to the end customer in the near future.
After the set up of the database, the cods developed so far are used to connect to the other
existing databases. One of the simpler ways to handle this is the usage of C API from the game
code. The name of the server that is being utilized is the address or the URL which is also the IP
address of the server, the local host, if the same is in the local machine. The set up file needs to
be done in order to run the program, the other programs that are running take the impression that
the set up file would run the other programs that holds the validity of the running program. The
error checking capability is a necessary part especially when he game platform is run over
different networks involving the internet and the same is used by multiple players to play the
same game.
Associated Short Comings
One of the identified common problems in the development of games using databases is that of
occurrence of warnings and asserts in the codes of the software programs that are being used.
The main cause that has been seen over the years is that of ignorance by the technical staff that is
working upon the software and the manual solution may act simpler for the professionals but the
same are not so easy to disguise and rectified by the end users or the customers for whom the
game is being ultimately developed.
Present Day Technological Games
In the contemporary times, the use of data management techniques has been seen as a major
issue for both the creation as well as the development of games. The application of database
technology thus becomes imperative as large amount of visualizations and other dynamic
features is a commonly used thing in the development of computer games in the contemporary


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times. For a comprehensive understanding of the state of the art data management in games, the
understanding of the following topic is necessary:
Data Driven Game Design
These techniques separates the various content that is used in a game by making use of the
auxiliary data files. This has led to creation of standard formats which the industry uses for
developing the core platform of every game that is being produced to be launched in the market.
One of the long term benefits of using common and supported formats is that collaboration of
different games which are produced by different software companies becomes easy. As an
example, if two fighting games have become very popular with the end users and both of them
uses a similar yet different platform as one would generally see in a fighting game. These
companies as a strategic move would likely join each other to develop a game that has characters
of both the popular fighting games and hence become a huge hit with the existing users as they
get to experience newer reality in their fascinating game world. This shows that data driven
technology helps the game developers to delegate different responsibilities like designing,
engineering etc to be allocated to different personnel easily.
Now a days, it is also very common to see people using different gadgets to play their games on,
while there are some dedicated gadgets for playing games like the Play Station, there are also
some devices that cater for more than playing games, like that of I-Pad, Tablets etc. the company
is responsible for consistency challenges that every gadget the game is being played on gives the
user the same experience which indeed becomes a challenge for them as they have to now be
careful of the minute details and also different gadgets offered by different manufacturers have to
be comprehensively studied and understood so that gaming platforms can be prepared for the
same. Under this, comes the compatibility factor which again is no less than a challenge for the
game developers (E. Coumans 2008).
The software developers have to be awake and aware of the engineering problems that might
occur while the development of the games, the facts include problems like server crashing, too


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much load created on the database due to excess usage of memory. The problem for the software
development team is that they cannot readily increase the size of the memory as that would mean
ultimately rising the price of the game itself, which is directly going to affect the sales and the
demand of the game in the marketplace unless the game is super duper hit in the industry (B.
Sowell 2009).
The present day games have gone well beyond the simple database designed games like Pacman
and have indeed come a long way. They require additional technological advancements along
with relatively simpler use of database to keep the information needed for the software to run on.
Examples include three dimensional reality motion sensor games which predict the movement of
the human body to incorporate corresponding changes in the interface of the software of the
game. The rate at which this industry has witnessed change over the years is a clear evidence of
what we have in store for the future as the same promises at a lot as far as the development of the
technological games is concerned (B. Dalton 2007).
Conclusion
The first part of the report addresses the use of database in the designing of the games. The
various steps have been explained for the development of the games that was deemed necessary
for the creation of the game using a database. With the advancement of technology, the game
today does make the use of database as the same is required to store the necessary information; it
also makes the use of accumulation of technologies like high end graphics, in game advertising
and more to offer the end customer a unique and a real experience of gaming world (W. White
2007).
References
B. Dalton. Online gaming architecture: Dealing with the real-time data crunch in MMOs. In
Proc. Austin GDC, Austin, TX, September 2007.


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B. Sowell, A. Demers, J. Gehrke, N. Gupta, H. Li, and W. White. From declarative languages to
declarative processing in computer games. In CIDR, 2009.
E. Coumans. Physics tutorial: Parallel game physics for spu. In Proc. GDC, San Francisco, CA,
2008.
J. Lee, R. Cedeno, and D. Mellencamp. The latest learning - database solutions. In Proc. Austin
GDC, Austin, TX, September 2007.
Linden Labs. Linden Scripting Language. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL Portal.
M. DeLoura, editor. Game Programming Gems, volume 1. Charles River Media, 2000
N. Gupta, A. Demers, J. Gehrke, P. Unterbrunner, and W. White. Scalability for virtual worlds.
In Proc. ICDE, 2009.
P. Tozour. Building a near-optimal navigation mesh. In AI Game Programming Wisdom, volume

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