what kind of database are used in games?

Question

what common and popular database/(types of database) used in games?

1. MMORPG
2. browser based ,flash games
3. video games

Answer 1

1) As far as I know, World of Warcraft runs on Oracle RDBMS. Not sure about the implementation details, however, it seems that low priority data (like the location of a character, attribute status etc) gets dumped into database in intervals and high priority data (level, item transfer) occurs real time (hence the noticeable delay sometimes.)

Also Guild Wars uses Microsoft SQL Server but nor in RDBMS manner. They store binary data within tables that look like (char_id, last_update, data) and the game servers periodically serialize a character into a byte array, then push to DB servers. That's the same method used to transfer players between servers. Everyone is just a chunk of data.

2) As ThiefMaster said, any DB. If you see php on frontend, there is a good chance there is MySQL or PostgreSQL at the back. If you see ASP* variants, look for MS SQL Server.. Like websites.

3) Everything occurs in memory (generally.. Say, the Football Manager requires a database due to vast amounts of data processed.) A Database would just be an overkill.

Answer 2

1. At least WoW uses Oracle. But any good RDBMS would do the job as long as it can work with the huge amount of data.

2. Usually MySQL. But see #1 - any DB can do the job

3. No database at all - why would e.g. a game like Half-Life use a database.