Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. - Chinese Proverb I could ask what kind of data storage I should use for my actual project, but I want to learn to fish, so I don't need to ask for a fish each time I begin a new project. So, until I used two methods to store data on my non-game project: XML files, and relational databases. I know that there is also other kind of database, of the NoSQL kind. However I wouldn't know if there is more choice available to me, or how to choose in the first place, aside arbitrary picking one. So the question is the following: How should I choose the kind of data storage for a game project? And I would be interested on the following criterion when choosing: The size of the project. The platform targeted by the game. The complexity of the data structure. Added Portability of data amongst many project. Added How often should the data be accessed Added Multiple type of data for a same application Any other point you think is of interest when deciding what to use. EDIT I know about Would it be better to use XML/JSON/Text or a database to store game content?, but thought it didn't address exactly my point. Now if I am wrong, I would gladely be shown the error in my ways.