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Project Name: High-Speed Coordination In Electronic Games
Project Leader
Project Co-Leader
Researchers
- Carl Gutwin (Saskatchewan)
- Nick Graham (Queens)
- Jeremy Cooperstock (McGill)
- Wolfgang Stuerzlinger (York)
Theme Distribution
Project Description
Many games in the real world - such as team sports - involve closely-coupled, interdependent, and high-speed coordination. When expert teams play hockey, basketball, or soccer, players interact with their teammates at the split-second level, maintaining awareness of where people are and predicting what people are about to do next.
The immense popularity of team games and sports in the real world has led to the production of several analogues in the electronic world - for example, there are console and PC versions of most major sports. However, the high-speed interaction and coordination that is evident in real-world games is missing from their electronic counterparts. This is largely due to the fundamental limitations of computer networks, which require tens of milliseconds to transfer messages between computers over a local-area network. Since coordination of actions may require several such message interchanges, performance of computer games typically lags well behind human speed.
The goal of this project is to improve support for high-speed coordination in electronic games, and thereby make it possible to build true high-speed versions of high-speed team games and sports. Our approach is to first understanding human limits on team coordination, through collaboration with kinesiology researchers. We will then use this knowledge to invent and evaluate techniques for supporting coordination in online environments, through several mechanisms such as novel latency-reduction techniques, temporally-sensitive consistency maintenance algorithms, and visualization techniques that maximize people's abilities to adapt to the constraints and capabilities of the online environment (Heath et al; 1995; Heath & Luff, 1991; Orton & Weick, 1990)t.
There will be two main products of the research. First, we will develop knowledge - an understanding of the critical factors governing the performance of high-speed coordination in networked systems. Second, we will invent specific interaction techniques and design approaches that can be used to support high-speed coordination in these systems. Third, we will develop system-level tools such as toolkits, architectures, design patterns, reusable code and reference implementations, that can be used to test our solutions and serve as the building blocks for novel games that enable high-speed play.
Excellence of the Research
Development of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)
Students working in this project will become expert in some of the most challenging problems in computing, specifically, high-performance networking and distributed systems protocols. Almost all computer games run over a network, and so this knowledge is critical to any company producing multi-player games. This knowledge is also of great interest to Canada's telecommunications industry.
Networking and Partnerships
We are still working on this. We anticipate being able to work with CR's within the network such as Darren Warburton, an exercise physiologist and Ryan Rhodes, an exercise psychologist.
Knowledge and Technology Exchange and Exploitation
We are still working on obtaining support from Alcatel-Lucent, which as a telecommunications equipment provider is highly interested in techniques for better supporting group activity over, e.g., mobile phones. We anticipate that Alcatel-Lucent will help disseminate this technology by publicizing our prototypes via demonstrations to their customers.
References to the Literature
Orton, J.D. and Weick, K.E. (1990): Loosely coupled systems: a reconceptualization, "Academy of Management Review", 15(2), pp. 203-223.
Heath, C., Jirotka, M., Luff, P., and Hindmarsh, J., Unpacking Collaboration: the Interactional Organisation of Trading in a City Dealing Room, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 3(2), 147-165, 1995.
Heath, C., and Luff, P., Collaboration and Control: Crisis Management and Multimedia Technology in London Underground Line Control Rooms., Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, 1(1-2), 69-94, 1992.
Publications
Presentations
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