pin-yun tarng / an analysis of wow players’ game hours network and systems laboratory...

Pin-Yun Tarng / An Analysis of WoW Players’ Game Hours

Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw

IEEE/IFIP DSN 2008


An Analysis of WoW Players’ An Analysis of WoW Players’ Game Hours and Further Game Hours and Further

WordsWords

Pin-Yun Tarng1, Kuan-Ta Chen2, Polly Huang1

1Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University

2Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw Motivation

Online gaming has become increasingly popular in recent years, and World of Warcraft is the most famous one among them.

PurposeGame subscription time prediction

BenefitGamer dissatisfaction alarm

Optimized future resource arrangement


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw What We Do

Measure the players’ game session traces

proposed a measurement methodology and performed a large-scale measurement (> 600 days)

Understand the characteristics of players’ game hours

Players tend to play long and frequently.

Examine the predictability of the game play characteristics

Short-term prediction is feasible


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw Talk Progress

Overview

Measuring game play traces

How long do gamers play

When do gamers play

Predictability analysis

Conclusion

Further Prediction Work

Current Work


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twWhy World of Warcraft

The fourth game set developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

The most famous MMOG (MassivelyMultiplayer Online Game) for now

World of Warcraft


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twOur Basic Method for Measuring

We create a character on WoW server, and keep it online all the time.

In WoW, the command ‘\who’will ask the game server to reply with a list of players who are currently online

If we continuous collect the name list, then we’ll be able to know the login time, logout time of each character.


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw The Idea

scan

Scan who is online for every ten minutes

scan scan scan

AlexBenCalvinDell

Ben

DellEric

Ben

EricFelix

Alex

EricFelixGary

Alex

Calvin

Gary

06:00

scan

10 mins

In this case, Ben logins around 6am, and plays for 30 minutes


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twThe Problem of Our Basic Method

The server only returns at most 50 accounts in an query.In this situation, we have to narrow down our query ranges by dividing all the users into different races, professions, and levels.

Level: 50+

Level: 30~39

Level: 40~49

Level: 40~44

Level: 45~49

100

30

20

40

10

50



Overview



When do gamers play


Conclusion


Current Work


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twSummary of Our Traces

Duration of our tracesSince 2005-12-22 to 2007-10-17

Totally 665 days

Observed accounts34521 accounts

Observed sessions1672820 sessions


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twHow Long Do Gamers Play

We examine “how long” do gamers play from various scales.

Subscription time

Consecutive gameplay days

Daily gameplay activity

UnsubscriptionWe define that if a player has not shown up in game for longer than 3 months, than he has “quit” the game.

In our traces, many of the observed accounts are censored.

We do survival analysis for the censored accounts.



Basic conceptDeal with censored data

Evaluate the failure

Referencehttp://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stsurvan.html

Survival Analysis


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twSubscription Time

60% of users will survive longer than an year after their first visits

The game is indeed a very attractive game!


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twConsecutive Game Play Days

The highly addicted gamers tend to play consecutively every day.

ON and OFF periods.

We define an ON period as a group of consecutive days during which a player joins the game everyday, and OFF period is the opposite.


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twCumulative Distribution of ON/OFF Periods

OFF periods are slightly longer than ON periods

80% of ON and OFF periods are shorter than 5 days

Players tend to alternate between ON and OFF periods shorter than 5 days

Extremely long ON and OFF periods exist


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twSeason and Vacation

Some extremely long OFF periods exist.3% of OFF periods are longer than 30 days.

Even after a long OFF period, gamers may come back and play game as seriously as before.

We define OFF periods which are longer than 30 days as “vacations”, and the active periods between two vacations as “seasons”.


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twCumulative Distribution of

Seasons/Vacations

50% of seasons are longer than 60 days

20% of vacations are longer than 180 days

Even after a long vacation, about 20% of gamers still return


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw Daily Activities

The daily activities are important predictors of users’ subscription time.

Users’ daily behavior includes:Daily playtime

Daily session count

Session playtime


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twCumulative Distribution of Daily Activities

25% gamers play longer than 5 hours per day

75% gamers play longer than 2 hours per day

Significant knees around 1 hour and 5 hours

More than 80% gamers login less than 2 times per day

WoW is attractive, and gamers tend to play long after his/her login.



Overview



When do gamers play


Conclusion


Current Work


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twWhen Do Gamers Play?

We observe:Average daily playtime on each day of a week.

Average number of gamers on each hour in a day.

From our intuitionPlaytime on weekends would be obviously higher than on weekdays.

Number of gamers at night would be obviously higher than in the morning.


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twWhen Do Gamers Play (2)

Average daily playtime on different day

The difference between weekends and weekdays is not significant


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twWhen Do Gamers Play (3)

Average number of gamers at different time

The peak hours are from 21pm to 1am

The coldest hours are from 4am to 10am

Support our intuition!



Overview



When do gamers play


Conclusion


Current Work


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.tw Predictability

Can we predict what will happen based on the gameplay history of gamers?

Our analysisShort-term vs. long-term behavior

Evaluate temporal dependence


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twPredictability of Short-term Behavior

Is short-term behavior a reliable indicator?


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twPredictability of Short-term Behavior

Is short-term behavior a reliable indicator?

Long-term behavior is weakly correlated.


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twPlayers’ Game Hours in Consecutive

PeriodsDoes temporal dependence exist?


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twPlayers’ Game Hours in Consecutive

PeriodsDoes temporal dependence exist?

The strongest correlation



The strongest correlation

Players’ Game Hours in Consecutive Periods

Does temporal dependence exist?



Does temporal dependence exist?

Players’ Game Hours in Consecutive Periods

Weaker than weekly playtime

Weekly patterns are the most regular for most people


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twSummary of Predictability

The more stars represent the stronger correlated



Overview



When do gamers play


Conclusion


Current Work


Network and Systems Laboratorynslab.ee.ntu.edu.twSummary of This Paper

We study players’ game hours for WoW, during a 2-year period.

We analyze “when” and “how long” gamers play WoW.

Our results indicate that although short-term prediction is feasible, long-term prediction is much more difficult.

Our goal is to construct a model that can predict whether a player will leave a game.

pin-yun tarng / an analysis of wow players’ game hours network and systems laboratory...

Documents