Mobile Multiplayer Gaming

Abstract: The last ten years, online multiplayer games have become very popular. During the same time period mobile terminals and cellular networks have undergone a tremendous technical evolution. Therefore it is natural to wonder why we have not seen an online mobile multiplayer gaming revolution yet. The answer to this question is of great value for companies selling mobile systems. This answer is important in order to understand how to fill up today’s empty networks with traffic and what kind of traffic these games will generate. This thesis is a continuation of Mattias Åkervik’s thesis. It gives the reader an understanding of what kind of wireless technologies are on the market today and how they perform. Given this performance background, some suitable games were chosen to examine how they perform over a particular cellular network and to determine the perceived gaming quality that a user experience. The thesis also examines the particular packet traffic characteristics generated by these games to gain a better understanding of how to better adapt cellular networks towards gaming. Finally the market will be analyzed. Not only how large this potential market is, but to examine if there are some market issues preventing the revolution in network cellular on-line multiplayer games.