A Cloud Gaming Architecture Leveraging Fog for Dynamic Load Balancing in Cluster-Based MMOs

Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games have been around for quite some time now, attracting millions of users worldwide, making them one of the most successful video game genres. Many load balancing approaches have been proposed over the years in order to optimize Quality of Experience (QoE) and achieve better scalability and user coverage. These usually split the game world into different clusters using a multi-server architecture. However, not many exist that take into consideration conditions that arise from the newly emerged Internet of Everything (IoE) and cloud/fog gaming paradigms. Hence, the aim here is to present a novel cloud gaming architecture that leverages the capabilities of fog computing for achieving a two level dynamic load balancing in cluster-based multi-server MMOs through the use of an appropriate algorithm. The proposed architecture and algorithm are also validated via preliminary simulation experiments, indicating a high user coverage ratio and a balanced distribution of the load in terms of client proportionality in the servers, even under forced strict gaming conditions.