Speaker:

Tyler Cloutier

Date:

Mon Apr 6, 2026 @ 04:30pm EDT

Date:

Mon Apr 6, 2026

Time:

04:30pm EDT

Location:

https://cmu.zoom.us/j/99830697483?pwd=RLKiHNDLPvOyoCMHSBGmWfbba4ZAb4.1Zoom

Title:

Inverting the Backend: Why We Built our MMORPG Inside a Database

System:

SpacetimeDB

Video:

YouTube

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Talk Info:

This talk explores what happens when you move all the infrastructure and logic of a fully featured, real-time backend application into the database. Using SpacetimeDB and BitCraft as a case study, the talk argues that the ideas behind stored procedures deserve a modern revival as a first class database feature: bringing deployment, transactions, relational data, and general-purpose procedural logic into a single system. It covers why this architecture made sense for our MMORPG, why Postgres was insufficient, how it simplifies the design of large-scale realtime backends, and how SpacetimeDB uses incremental query evaluation and high-performance OLTP execution to handle everything from real-time chat, to user management, to player movement, all within the database.

This talk is part of the PostgreSQL vs. The World Seminar Series.

Bio:

Tyler is the CEO and co-founder of Clockwork Labs, the developers of BitCraft Online and SpacetimeDB. SpacetimeDB is a real-time database system which hosts server-side programs written in familiar procedural languages (TypeScript, Rust, C#, etc.) and serves as the complete backend for BitCraft Online.

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