Satisfying the hunger for mobile online games: Providing quality time in vehicular scenarios

Abstract

An increasing number of players now normally enjoy playing online games while on the move, directly from their smartphones. One barrier, however, still prevents from enjoying a fully mobile experience, as cellular network technologies do not appear capable, today, of supporting the high interactivity that the streams of some game genres (e.g., First Person Shooters) require. Our contribution is that of proposing a mechanism capable of dealing with such problem while moving in a car. Knowing in advance WiFi access point positions, we propose a mechanism that estimates the contact times in an urban setting and provides valuable advice to a player regarding which tasks it will (not) presumably be able to accomplish, during the available connectivity time. The validity of our approach is confirmed in simulation utilizing a set of vehicular traces collected on the streets of Pisa, Italy.