I am planning on developing an online game which requires the use of persistent game data. However, I do not have my own server. Since I currently do not posses the funds to maintain a paid server, I thought of using Dropbox as a pseudoserver. Dropbox has its own API which is capable – via PHP – of authenticating one’s credentials, and reading and writing files onto the logged Dropbox account. The files are all converted to text files to and from, but that’s not really an issue for me. My actual concern lies in the actual feasibility of this idea. My coding skills are admittedly weak when it comes to networking and web integration, and so, while this idea may seem brilliant to me, it may in fact turn out to be a waste of time once I finish writing the server app and the client-side code. So, to those who are more knowledgeable than me in this area, do you think this would work, or should I pursue other avenues of “free-server-tude”? =P
Pursue other avenues for two main reasons.
One, you’d be breaching the terms and conditions of Dropbox usage, so your account would vanish unpredictably.
Two, your game would have to include the credentials to access the site, so every user of the game with even the most basic knowledge of networking will promptly strip them out and begin “playing” with your data.