5 separate database or 5 tables in 1 database?

Question

Let's say I want to build a gaming website and I have many game sections. They ALL have a lot of data that needs to be stored. Is it better to make one database with a table representing each game or have a database represent each section of the game? I'm pretty much expecting a "depends" kind of answer.

Answer 1

Managing 5 different databases is going to be a headache. I would suggest using one database with 5 different tables. Aside from anything else, I wouldn't be surprised to find you've got some common info between the 5 - e.g. user identity.

Note that your idea of "a lot of data" may well not be the same as the database's... databases are generally written to cope with huge globs of data.