On Casanova and Databases or the Similarity Between Games and DBs

In this paper we discuss the similarities between two fields which are traditionally considered worlds apart: game development and databases. We discuss how many aspects of game development either use databases, datamining, etc. directly to solve challenging data-management problems, but also how the game logic itself is subtly related to many techniques and theoretical results already explored in the field of databases. We also discuss our Casanova language, which is a game development language which we are building with the explicit aim of taking advantage of this relationship, in order to greatly simplify the craft of game-making by introducing automated optimizations and declarative constructs to define a game with less boilerplate code.