Subjective Quality of Experience Assessment in Mobile Cloud Games

Abstract

The rise of mobile cloud gaming (MCG) has necessitated understanding its impact on mobile network design and deployment for end users' QoE maximization. MCG is a dynamic service that requires stringent quality from network operators. Therefore, this paper investigates the subjective QoE of MCG over mobile networks played on smartphones. We conducted subjective tests (N=31); our results indicate that MCG is affected differently by QoS attributes such as packet loss (PL), round trip time (RTT) and jitter compared to cloud games and online mobile games. We identify that RTT values above 100 milliseconds significantly impact users' QoE, measured via the mean opinion score (MOS). Further, lower RTT values with high PL; and higher RTT values with low PL cause a strong negative effect on MOS. Lastly, bursty jitter seems to affect the MOS, while random jitter does not significantly impact MOS.