Characterizing and Modeling Multiparty Voice Communication for Multiplayer Games

Gabor Papp (University of Denver) Chris GauthierDickey (University of Denver)

Abstract Over the last few years, the number of game players using voice
communication to talk to each other while playing games has increased
dramatically. Unlike traditional voice-over-IP technology, where most
conversations are between two people, voice communication in games often has
5 or more people talking together as they play. We present the first measurement
study on the characteristics of multiparty voice communications and develop
a model of the observed talking and silence periods that can be used for
future research, simulation, network engineering, and game development. Over a
3 month period, we measured over 7,000 sessions on an active multi-party voice
communication server to quantify the characteristics of communication generated
by game players, including group sizes, packet distributions, user and session
frequencies, and speaking (and silence) durations. Unlike prior results, our
measurements and models demonstrate that the speaking and silence periods fit a
Weibull distribution.