A model to measure Quality of Experience (QoE) of Online Social Gaming

Abstract

Understanding the impact of socialization on player Quality of Experience (QoE), which is an important aspect in Online Social Games (OSG), has become a hot research topic. Of the various ways of measuring the player's QoE, in this thesis, we propose and make use of the model used to extract objective data from the players in combination with the player's subjective quality. The model is able to extract game play as well as social and Quality of Service (QoS) metrics from network traces. Furthermore, we examine whether or not playing with a friend enhances the player's QoE or boosts the gaming performance. Additionally, it is also useful to determine if a specificaction is correlated to the player's QoE. To answer this question, we conducted an experiment with a total of 24 players. It was feasible to show that socialization definitely has an impact on the player's QoE and that players playing with friends perform better in the game. Socialization contributes to a 10% better QoE and players playing with friends advance between 50% to 214% faster in the game. It was also shown that players then perceive the game to be more attractive, easy and exciting. Finally, the correlation between the player's actions and the player's QoE proved to be weak.