Community Network Game project

For immediate release: 10 August 2010

Hugely popular online games could soon have an extra dimension with gamers being able to share content and insert it into the game environment.

De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is taking part in a project to distribute user-generated content and embed it into Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) – games that can support thousands of players simultaneously and can include role playing adventures, such as World of Warcraft, or virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

The Community Network Game (CNG) project intends to promote social interaction within and across games, making gaming a more sociable experience.

User-generated content could include video, 3D computer graphics and pictures. For example, a user may stream live video of the game to other users for the purposes of collaborative play, coaching or simply as a sharing experience.

Enabling thousands of users to share user-generated content represents a significant challenge to networks. DMU will be involved in the development of a peer-to-peer (P2P) system that will allow a large number of MMOG gamers to share a high volume of user-generated content without interrupting game play and without the need to upload the data to a server.

Professor Raouf Hamzaoui of the university’s Faculty of Technology, an expert in multimedia communication, is leading DMU’s part of the project.

He said: “Massively Multiplayer Online Games allow a large number of users to inhabit the same virtual world and interact with each other in a variety of collaborative and competing scenarios.

“MMOG gamers become members of active communities with mutual interests, shared adventures and common objectives and the ability to share their own content would enhance this, but it has significant implications on networks.

“In developing a peer-to-peer system, we intend to make this load more manageable to ensure the gaming experience remains as smooth as possible.”

The project is part funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme and is led by Exent Technologies Ltd, a digital entertainment media company specialising in the marketing, merchandising, monetisation and broadband-based distribution of PC video games.

Other partners include: Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Institut Telecom, Kaltura Ltd, RedBedlam Ltd, the European Games Developer Federation and i2 Media Research Ltd, based at Goldsmiths, University of London.

ENDS

Notes to editors

For more information please contact the De Montfort University Press and Public Relations Office on 0116 207 8353.

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