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Waiting to Play - Measuring Game Load Times and their Effects on Player Quality of Experience
[Game Load]

Waiting to Play - Measuring Game Load Times and their Effects on Player Quality of Experience


Shengmei Liu, Eren Eroglu, Miles Gregg, Federico Galbiati, Atsuo Kuwahara, James Scovell, and Mark Claypool

In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG)
Worcester, MA, USA
May 2024


Before playing, gamers must wait for the game to load. While the effects of waiting on user quality of experience is well-studied for some domains, the effects of wait times on game players is not known, nor is the impact of computer system components, such as the processor or graphics card, on game loading times. We present results from a user study that evaluates the impact of game loading time on quality of experience using a custom tool that simulates game loading and collects player ratings. Analysis of the results shows game loading time has a pronounced effect on player quality of experience, but differs based on the individual game time and game load content. Results from our subsequent measurement experiment show the potential to reduce game load times through hardware upgrades - type of processor and graphics card have significant effects on game load times, but type of storage device less so.

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