Supporting Spectators in Online Multiplayer Games

We examine network support for spectators in online multiplayer games. We consider how the associated challenges are different from those in traditional audio/video streaming. Specifically, we consider two problems: spectating (distributing the gaming stream reliably to spectators, who may outnumber the players by several orders of magnitude) and cheering (delivering the spectators’ audio cheers to the players as well as to other spectators). We point out the many unique challenges and opportunities for optimization that arise in this context in terms of resilience, bandwidth adaptation, and dynamically varying user interest. We outline a solution based on overlay networking and quantify some of our design arguments with a preliminary evaluation of Quake III, a popular first-person shooting game.