Is WCF good backend for Flash Games?

Question

Let's say Im building an online Poker similar to Zynga's Poker Game. Is wcf a good backend for that?

Answer 1

Ultimately, you might be best off going with what you know. Since you mentioned WCF, I'm assuming you have some .NET background and it would be easier for you to develop in .NET than learn a new language and framework. If that's the case, several options present themselves:

1. Go with WCF, since it's the de facto standard in the Microsoft world for building services. Recognize that, with WCF, you have the option of going with a SOAP-based service or a lighter weight RESTful service using WCF WebHttp. As one of the other posters mentioned, you're probably better off going with WebHttp to avoid the overhead of SOAP.
2. Look at an option like Adobe's FluorineFx which will allow you to program in .NET and gain the benefits of advanced Adobe remoting technologies and protocols (such as the AMF binary protocol) that are otherwise only available on the Java platform.

Practically speaking, I've seen both WCF SOAP and WCF WebHttp services integrate with Flex-based clients nicely. I've never seen Fluorine used in practice with most clients that want to leverage the AMF protocol choosing to go the Java route.