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Introduction to the Gaming Ecosystem

Introduction to the Gaming Ecosystem

Let's learn about the factors involved in the game development process.

We'll cover the following...

Introduction

Gaming has become a global market. With technological advancements such as 3D graphics, virtual reality, improved hardware, etc., the gaming industry has become a major part of the entertainment industry. Today, games are played by players of all ages on different platforms. Game development is a complicated and difficult process due to the varying nature and impact of the laws of physics when simulating real-world scenarios. (For example, if a bullet is fired to hit an object at a distance, what motion should it follow, taking into account gravity and air friction?) Online multiplayer games are popular and difficult to manage due to gaming mechanics, graphics design, and APIs that support real-time performance and compatibility with different gaming consoles. The following table shows some of the major factors involved in the game development process:

Factors Affecting Game Development

Factor

Description

Game logic

The rules and principles that the game follows

Rendering

Complexity involved with the graphics used in different game scenes

Data synchronization

The frequency with which the data in a game is synced, depending on whether the game is time sensitive, played online or offline, or other considerations

Platform abstraction

Managing dependencies to support multiple platforms like mobile, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, etc.

Development budget

Budgetary decisions, depending on whether the game is a project of a large publisher or an independent developer

To realize the inherent challenges, let's learn about the essential concepts involved in the frontend and backend development processes.

Note: The frontend includes the client-side application that the user interacts with. These include game visuals, player models, game controls, etc. The backend is concerned with the technologies on the server-side such as databases, hardware infrastructure, network components, APIs, and so on.

Time-based classification of game

Games can be classified according to different factors or requirements. We divide games into the following three categories based on their time-sensitive nature.

  • Time independent: Offline games that involve adventure, puzzle solving, and storytelling like Angry Birds, PikPok, and more.

  • Fixed intervals: Games played in turn, such as chess, shogi, Go, and other strategy board games.

  • Near real time: Online games that involve real-time interaction, such as Call of Duty (COD).

The intricacy of near real-time games is the prime focus of this chapter. Let's analyze the components involved in building a gaming system.

Gaming ecosystem

A gaming ecosystem involves managing its own unique components apart from handling other sophisticated services like in-app purchases, advertisements, and more. Additionally, games are computationally quite expensive due to the following reasons:

  • Complex game logic: Let's take a relatively simple example of chess to understand the complexity involved in developing games. In a game of chess, there are about 104310^{43} ...