skip to main content
10.1145/1178477.1178486acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesesemConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Characterization of user behavior in a multi-player online game

Published: 15 June 2005 Publication History

Abstract

In recent years, multi-player online games (MOGs) have gained enormous popularity and become a major trend in the entertainment industry. Much research has been focusing on improving the performance and scalability of MOG systems. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the study of user behavior. As with other complex interactive applications, a good understanding of user behavior is important to the design of MOG systems. In this paper, we discuss the advantages of a user behavior workload model to the software industry and the research community, and describe a method to develop such a model. For illustrative purposes, we study user behavior by using the measurement data collected from an existing MOG system. This includes the characterization of the interarrival time of logon users, the transition probability of avatars within the virtual environment, the residence time at a room, and the session length. Our results not only provide an insight into user behavior in MOGs, but they are also useful in the development of workload models in performance studies of MOG systems.

References

[1]
A. Abdelkhalek, A. Bilas, and A. Moshovos. Behavior and performance of interactive multi-player game servers. In Proceedings of International IEEE Symposium on the Performance Analysis of Systems and Software, November 2001.
[2]
Anarchy Online: http://www.anarchy-online.com/
[3]
R. Bangun, E. Dutkiewicz, and G. Anido. An analysis of multi-player network games traffic. In Proceedings of the IEEE 3rd Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, pages 3--8, September 1999.
[4]
M. Borella. Source models of network game traffic. Computer Communications, 23:403--410. Elsevir, 2000.
[5]
E. Cronin, B. Filstrup, and A. Kurc. A distributed multiplayer game server system. Available from http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cronin01distributed.html
[6]
C. Diot and L. Gautier. Distributed architecture for multiplayer interactive applications on the Internet. IEEE Network 13(4):6--15, August 1999.
[7]
T. Duong and S. Zhou. A dynamic load sharing algorithm for massively multiplayer online games. In Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference on Networks, October 2003.
[8]
Extreme value distribution: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/apr/sectionl/aprl63.htm
[9]
Everquest: http://everquest.station.sony.com/
[10]
T. Henderson. Latency and user behaviour on a multiplayer games server. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Networked Group Communication, pages 1--13, London, UK, November 2001.
[11]
B. Knutsson, H. Lu, W. Xu, and B. Hopkins. Peer-to-peer support for massively multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the 23rd Conference of the IEEE Communications Society, March 2004.
[12]
Lineage: http://www.lineage.com/
[13]
D. Min, D. Lee, B. Park, and E. Choi. A load balancing algorithm for a distributed multimedia game server architecture. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems, pages 882--886, Florence, Italy, June 1999.
[14]
L. Pantel and L. Wolf. On the impact of delay on real-time multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video, pages 23--29, Miami Beach, Florida, May 2002.
[15]
Quake: http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake/quake/
[16]
Rocky Mud: http://www.rockymud.net/
[17]
StarCraft: http://www.blizzard.com/starcraft/
[18]
World of Warcraft: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/
[19]
L. Zou, M. Ammar, and C. Diot. An evaluation of grouping techniques for state dissemination in networked multi-user games. In Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, pages 33--40, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 2001.

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Delay-Aware Resource Provisioning for Cost-Efficient Cloud GamingIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology10.1109/TCSVT.2016.263212128:4(972-983)Online publication date: Apr-2018
  • (2018)Playtime Measurement With Survival AnalysisIEEE Transactions on Games10.1109/TCIAIG.2017.272764210:2(128-138)Online publication date: Jun-2018
  • (2014)iCloudAccess: Cost-Effective Streaming of Video Games From the Cloud With Low LatencyIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology10.1109/TCSVT.2014.230254324:8(1405-1416)Online publication date: Aug-2014
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Characterization of user behavior in a multi-player online game

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Other conferences
    ACE '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology
    June 2005
    511 pages
    ISBN:1595931104
    DOI:10.1145/1178477
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 15 June 2005

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. multi-player online game
    2. user behavior modeling
    3. workload characterization

    Qualifiers

    • Article

    Conference

    ACE05

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 36 of 90 submissions, 40%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)1
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 16 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2018)Delay-Aware Resource Provisioning for Cost-Efficient Cloud GamingIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology10.1109/TCSVT.2016.263212128:4(972-983)Online publication date: Apr-2018
    • (2018)Playtime Measurement With Survival AnalysisIEEE Transactions on Games10.1109/TCIAIG.2017.272764210:2(128-138)Online publication date: Jun-2018
    • (2014)iCloudAccess: Cost-Effective Streaming of Video Games From the Cloud With Low LatencyIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology10.1109/TCSVT.2014.230254324:8(1405-1416)Online publication date: Aug-2014
    • (2013)A Dual Model of Entertainment-Based and Community-Based Mechanisms to Explore Continued Participation in Online Entertainment CommunitiesCyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking10.1089/cyber.2012.040216:5(378-384)Online publication date: May-2013
    • (2013)Player behavior and traffic characterization for MMORPGsMultimedia Systems10.1007/s00530-012-0270-419:3(199-220)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2013
    • (2012)Designing Multiplayer Online Games Using the Real-Time FrameworkAlgorithmic and Architectural Gaming Design10.4018/978-1-4666-1634-9.ch012(290-321)Online publication date: 2012
    • (2012)QoS-Aware Revenue-Cost Optimization for Latency-Sensitive Services in IaaS CloudsProceedings of the 2012 IEEE/ACM 16th International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications10.1109/DS-RT.2012.11(11-18)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2012
    • (2011)World of warcraft avatar history datasetProceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Multimedia systems10.1145/1943552.1943569(123-128)Online publication date: 23-Feb-2011
    • (2010)Is Server Consolidation Beneficial to MMORPG? A Case Study of World of WarcraftProceedings of the 2010 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cloud Computing10.1109/CLOUD.2010.57(435-442)Online publication date: 5-Jul-2010
    • (2009)Characterizing graphical desktop sharing system's workload in collaborative virtual environmentsProceedings of the 6th IEEE Conference on Consumer Communications and Networking Conference10.5555/1700527.1700599(191-195)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2009
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media