Cloud mobile gaming: modeling and measuring user experience in mobile wireless networks

Abstract

With the evolution of mobile devices and networks, and the growing trend of mobile Internet access, rich multi-player gaming using mobile devices, similar to PC-based Internet games, has tremendous potential and interest. However, the current client-server architecture for PC-based Internet games, where most of the storage and computational burden of the game lies with the client device, does not work with mobile devices, constraining mobile gaming to either downloadable, single player games, or very light non-interactive versions of the rich multi-player Internet games. In this article, we study a cloud server based mobile gaming approach, termed Cloud Mobile Gaming (CMG), where the burden of executing the gaming engine is put on cloud servers, and the mobile devices just communicate the users' gaming commands to the servers. We analyze the factors affecting the Quality of user Experience (QoE) using the CMG approach, including the game genres, video settings, the conditions of server and client, and the conditions of the wireless network. A Mobile Gaming User Experience (MGUE) model is developed and validated through controlled subjective testing. We also develop a prototype for in-service measuring MGUE, and then use it to characterize user experience achievable using the CMG approach in a mobile cellular network. The MGUE model developed and validated in this article will be helpful for researchers and service providers to develop and assess the performance of future cloud mobile gaming techniques and services.