An evaluation of the impact of game genre on user experience in cloud gaming

Abstract

Abstract-Cloud gaming, in which the processing power of a datacenter-based infrastructure is utilized versus local resources, is a popular topic in research. This technology is successfully applied by vendors to enable low-end hardware to deliver a similar gameplay experience to state of the art consoles. Many works in literature have focused on the quantitative aspects of the technology (i.e. delay measurements, visual quality determination etc), but the qualitative factors have not received a similar systematic treatment. Games are typically classified in terms of their gameplay into a distinct category or genre, including action, puzzle, strategy and racing games. In this work, a qualitative comparison of these genres is presented based on a common testing methodology which combines both objective (based on physiological measurements) and subjective (based on user evaluation) approaches. While in normal networked games, only multiplayer experiences are subject to the detrimental effect of delay, the nature of cloud gaming may result in an impact on singleplayer experiences as well. Results from this analysis hint at the fact that there is a similarity in delay-sensitiveness over the different genres in both singleplayer cloud gaming setups and traditional networked multiplayer games. More in particular, results show that action-oriented games are more sensitive to network delay in both setups when compared to other genres.

Towards pervasive and mobile gaming with distributed cloud infrastructure

“…They developed a model to predict the real-time strictness of a certain game based on the changes in game visuals and user input frequency. A similar conclusion has been made by Quax et al [78] who state that games with intense interactions are more sensitive to the presence of delay. Claypool et al [20] also showed that user performance in a cloud game can degrade by 25% with each 100 milliseconds of latency and that cloud gaming is as sensitive to latency as first-person avatar games in traditional online games.…”

Audio–Visual Emotion-Aware Cloud Gaming Framework

“…A cloud gaming user experience depends on a variety of subjective and objective considerations. In this context, Quax et al [26] evaluated user experience in cloud gaming by considering network quality in terms of delay and its impact on emotion-related terms such as enjoyment and frustration. Bowen Research [17] conducted a survey on a user's emotional experience according to game genre and discovered that 52% of players ranked first-person shooter (FPS) games as being emotionally powerful.…”

A Survey on Multimedia Services QoE Assessment and Machine Learning-Based Prediction

“…Jitter: jitter has a discernible impact on the online and cloud gaming experiences [117]. Jitter could also cause a less smooth visual appearance of the game depending on the client implementation, since frames are shown at fluctuating time intervals [118].…”