Requirements of the Gaming API

Let's define the functional and non-functional requirements for a multiplayer gaming API.

Introduction

The gaming industry is diverse and plays a significant part in entertainment, manufacturing, education, socializationFor example, during the pandemic, almost everyone was confined to their homes but could still make friends and connect to others emotionally via different gaming platforms., and other areas. This makes designing and developing these systems from scratch an intricate process. As a result, many vendors create general-purpose versions of their game APIs and offer backend as a service (BaaS), a service model that outsources basic and common functionalities that can be used in a variety of development scenarios, to facilitate other developers. Designing a gaming API is difficult since there are several elements to consider including managing resources (game stats, user information, leaderboards, etc.), real-time communication (chat, audio conferencing, etc.), simulationSimulation is the creation of a situation as a digital model, usually for research or study purposes., streaming (live streaming to a platform like YouTube), as well as the actual gameplay, which are all complex problems themselves. For the sake of understanding the subtleties, let's take a multiplayer online game as an example and design an API for it.

Requirements

Modern games support a large number of functions. This is because players choose the game they want to play based on the supported features. Let's define some common requirements for our API that most games support.

Functional requirements

  • Gameplay: The API should allow players to join and leave different game modes, such as one-on-one and multiplayer.

  • Chat messages: The API should allow players to send and receive text messages.

  • Audio conferencing: The API should allow players to communicate using audio streams.

  • In-app purchases: The API should allow players to purchase different gadgets and assets provided in the game store.

  • Event notification: The API should notify players about the most recent events, such as tournaments and so on.

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