A Comparison of Technologies for Developing Web-Based Online Multiplayer Games

摘要

Real-time interactive experiences between users of web applications are unmatched by online multiplayer games. By themselves, online multiplayer games have the potential to bring in advertising revenue as a website. Additionally, online multiplayer games often contain many features that can be used in other web applications requiring real-time user interaction. However, there currently exists no rigorous comparison between web technologies for the purpose of creating real-time online multiplayer games. With this research, we aim to provide guidelines for selecting an operating system, server framework, and database solution for the use of developing online games. Since an exhaustive comparison of various software would be nearly impossible, selection of software for comparison was limited to only some of the more popular software. For the comparison of the software, various prototypes of a simple online multiplayer game were written in each of the software environments. The game that was implemented had multiple players in one room - also known as a game world - each controlling a spaceship. Players would move their ship and shoot asteroids and other ships. Players could also write and broadcast messages to each other. For operating systems, both Windows and Linux (specifically, Ubuntu Server) were compared based on compatibility with the other software in the comparison, as well as memory use, size, and cost. For server frameworks, NodeJS, Django, and ASP.NET were compared based on the features of their language, the ability to write prototypes of the simple online game in the framework, and any other features the framework may support. For databases, both PostgreSQL and MySQL were compared based on support for the previously mentioned frameworks and data manipulation and retrieval times. For each comparison criterion, each software was given a score. These scores were weighted by criterion for a weighted score. The weighted scores of each criterion were then totaled for each software. Comparison of server frameworks were done on the operating system with the best score. Comparison of databases were done on the operating system and server framework with the best scores. A final prototype of the game was built on the operating system, server framework, and database solution with the best scores.