A Database for Video Games
How the gaming industry utilized the power of MongoDB
Data has always been an important part of video games. From player profiles to telemetry, matching on leaderboards, data is essential for making games work — and making them better.
The latest styles in gaming make data very important. When choosing a database for your next video games, consider your data needs. Today’s multiplayer games are also online, reach a huge scale, and have to change quickly to stay relevant.
Key Feature of the game-building process what they have to handle while creating massive games
Development Speed
Players want new features. Streamers demand new content. You need a database that keeps up with your devs.
Global Reach
Your player base is around the world. Your data should be globally distributed for low latency.
Massive Scale
Success looks like numbers you didn’t imagine, let alone plan for. Don’t let scaling a database hold you back.
Always-on
Delays and downtime mean angry gamers. Your game needs to be resilient, and its database should be too.
Why should MongoDB be the database for your next game?
Because they provide features like
Data Model
The flexible MongoDB schema means you can change your data layer as soon as you change your game. Need to add new features with new stats, adjust level, or start storing new player data? No problem. Also, MongoDB saves data like JSON documents — you probably already use JSON in-game memory, and storing things in the same architecture makes your life easier.
Global Cloud Database
MongoDB Atlas is a fully managed cloud database available in more than 60 regions across AWS, GCP, and Azure. Deploy around the world to keep data near users for low latency, adding geo-redundancy to Atlas’s built-in high availability. Scale both vertically and horizontally, from a forever-free tier to clusters that can meet the most demanding workloads. Best-in-class automation and monitoring make database management easy, and the 99.995% availability SLA doesn’t hurt either.
Data & Development Platform
MongoDB Cloud includes built-in data services such as full-text search, data pool, load-load analytics, and more. In addition to the data layer, MongoDB Realm will provide a server-free development platform, an embedded mobile database, and data access and syncing services. MongoDB charts offer a custom-integrated visual tool, making it easy to create reports on growth metrics and duplicates, dashboards, and more.
How Can You Use MongoDB?
Extensible Player Profiles
MongoDB’s flexible document data model allows you to quickly iterate on what constitutes a player in your world. Add and associate new features to player profile objects such as achievements, progression-based unlocks, in-game currency, new classes of gear, and more. Keep your players protected with enterprise-grade security controls at the data layer.
Session Matching
Whether you’re matching 2 players in a 1v1 or 100 in a battle royale, MongoDB’s elastic scalability means you can do so quickly and reliably. The database’s built-in aggregation pipeline allows you to perform real-time analytics on player metrics to help ensure that you’re putting the right people together in a session.
Entitlements and Inventory
To check whether a player is allowed to take any action, you need low-latency reads at scale. Delays in loading levels or opening menus make players unhappy. When dealing with inventory, you need fast reads and writes with transactional integrity — especially if players have paid real money for their items.
Telemetry Capture and Analysis
Download sporting events, ratings to meet the most well-documented workloads. Launch real-time analytics to enhance the flight experience of the aircraft with the built-in integration framework of MongoDB. Submit data to analytics engines such as Spark for large data processing to get the next move. For long-term analysis, switch telemetry data to Atlas Data Lake to save on the computer but save power to perform the required analysis. The MongoDB cloud platform also makes it easy to visualize data and share data, with native visibility of polymorphic data and connectors to SQL-based SQL tools.
Ancillary Services
Support messaging and real-time interactions, including cross-game communications. Integrate user-generated content into your games. Update live leaderboards with views and the aggregation framework. Build companion apps and websites to extend the experience of the game. If it relies on game data, someone’s probably already built it with MongoDB.
One interesting fact about Electronic Arts’ EA Sports[ world’s best-selling sports video game franchise ] they use the power of MongoDB
Think the World Series is big? Or the Super Bowl? Neither comes close to the billions of people that tune in to watch the World Cup, soccer’s (football to everyone else outside North America) quadrennial event.
But what about the most played game in your household? That’s likely Electronic Arts’ EA Sports FIFA, the world’s best-selling sports video game franchise. EA Sports FIFA offers otherwise average athletes the chance to take on and beat the world’s best, weaving intricate passing plays and mastering Messi-esque dribbling with the flick of a controller. All without leaving the comfort of their couch.
Not everyone chooses to play FIFA on their XBox or Playstation, however. Throughout Asia one of the most popular ways to bend it like Beckham is with EA’s FIFA Online 3. The massively multiplayer online soccer game is the most popular sports game in Korea, allowing players to choose to play and customize a team from any of over 30 leagues and 15,000 real world players.
