Afaik its only the norm in RTS games -- almost everything else is client/server, with the server providing (and authority of) full game state. In which case the

Afaik its only the norm in RTS games -- almost everything else is client/server, with the server providing (and authority of) full game state. In which case the client is just a view into server simulation -- logic moved to the client only so far as to enable faster input response through local interpolation (with provisions to undo, if the server decides thats actually wasn't allowed), and that's also where information may be leaked to enable cheating. The main reason for the deterministic lockstep architecture is the cost of sending game state -- in a game with 10 player characters and some particles, it's sufficiently cheap. In a game with 10,000 player characters, not so much. Determinism is a bitch to maintain, so afaik, no one tries to do so unless they must.