Gaming

A game is a real-time simulation that has to feel instant on a player's machine, stay fair across a hundred thousand concurrent matches, ship a patch to millions of players overnight, and keep a store, an economy and a community running for years. This book surveys how the industry does each piece, from Unreal, Unity and in-house engines to the netcode, server fleets, launchers and backend services that public engineering write-ups describe, and how you'd build it, drawn as dimensioned technical sheets wherever a budget or a stack makes the point.

It reads in eight parts, plus a reference. How Games Get Made: the business and its data model, the engine landscape, building your own engine, and production pipelines. Clients and Delivery: game clients and launchers, and patching. Multiplayer: netcode, game servers, lockstep and rollback, matchmaking, and social systems. Backend and Live Services: backend architecture, accounts, economies, live operations and telemetry. Fair Play and Safety: anti-cheat, player behavior and player support. Money: monetization, and stores and payments. The Rules: ratings and children, loot boxes and consumer law, and accessibility. Running the Platform: metrics, AI and esports. Reference: a glossary of every term.