HyperNet games: Leveraging SDN networks to improve multiplayer online games

Abstract

Many of today's real-time multi-player online games are highly dependent on the communication network that connects players with the game and each other. Factors such as network latency and network throughput can significantly affect a user's gaming experience. For example, many online games use a (logically) centralized game server that acts as a rendezvous point for players to exchange real-time gaming events. The number and location of these servers in the network plays a critical role in the interactive response time of the game. Currently, gaming companies go to great lengths to find the best locations for the placement of their game servers. However, finding the best locations is challenging because the number of players and their locations is not known ahead of time. Consequently, game companies typically build a generic (static) game network that hopefully will provide acceptable performance to most users. With the growing popularity of cloud computing and software defined networking (SDN), it is now possible to build a custom game network on-the-fly; a game network tailored for a particular game and its current participants (players). In this paper, we introduce the concept of a HyperNet Game that is capable of dynamically creating and deploying a software defined network tailored to the needs of the game and the current set of participants in the game. We present an example multi-player hypernet game that we have developed that is able to dynamically deploy optimally placed game servers based on the current set of players. We present performance results that show greatly improved user response times compared to the currently deployed (static) game server network used today.