Communication architectures for massive multi-player games

Massive multi-player games are characterized by a large number of participating players. It is therefore essential that an appropriate communication architecture is deployed in order to support an ever growing number of players. Several such architectures have been proposed, including client-server and peer-to-peer architectures. In this paper, we propose a systematic method to assess the scalability of different architectures in order to identify the most appropriate one for specific game types. The model proposed is very general in that it covers centralized, distributed, and hybrid architectures and it is applied to the client-server, peer-to-peer and the newly introduced federated peer-to-peer architecture. Quantitative expressions that capture the effect of various game types are derived, and the trade-offs among the architectures are identified.