Evaluating a Mobile Game for Urban Exploration Utilising Mobile Edge Computing (MEC)

Abstract

Mobile gaming designed for urban exploration can quickly change how people interact with their city and others. These games help people explore and learn about their city while engaging and interacting with others in a fun and enjoyable way. However, the players’ perceived quality of such games depends on various human, system and contextual factors. This paper presents the results of an empirical evaluation of a mobile game that encourages people to explore Bristol, UK. The quality of player experience (QoE) in urban environments requires studying end-to-end system effects, including players’ experiences and the quality of mobile service (QoS). To evaluate the players’ QoE, we implemented two networking scenarios on Bristol’s smart city network: traditional IP and a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) scenario using POINT, a content-centric network platform. The MEC-based mobile game offers better interaction latency than the IP version. We evaluated the impact of each scenario on the player’s perceived Quality of Experience (QoE) and usability of the game in two field experiments. The results show that aspects of the players’ QoE were significantly better with the MEC-based mobile game than with the IP version. However, players rated the usability of the two versions similarly. Behavioural analytics data indicate that the improved QoE of the MECbased version resulted in a higher volume of video content production and recordings. Additionally, we found the time of day influenced the players’ QoE, impacting the MEC version more than the IP version. Future work will focus on improving the game’s usability to fully utilise MEC’s advantages.