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Facilitating Serverless Match-based Online Games with Novel Blockchain Technologies

Published: 23 February 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Applying peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture to online video games has already attracted both academic and industrial interests, since it removes the need for expensive server maintenance. However, there are two major issues preventing the use of a P2P architecture, namely how to provide an effective distributed data storage solution, and how to tackle potential cheating behaviors. Inspired by emerging blockchain techniques, we propose a novel consensus model called Proof-of-Play (PoP) to provide a decentralized data storage system that incorporates an anti-cheating mechanism for P2P games, by rewarding players that interact with the game as intended, along with consideration of security measures to address the Nothing-at-stake Problem and the Long-range Attack. To validate our design, we utilize a game-theory model to show that under certain assumptions, the integrity of the PoP system would not be undermined due to the best interests of any user. Then, as a proof-of-concept, we developed a P2P game (Infinity Battle) to demonstrate how a game can be integrated with PoP in practice. Finally, experiments were conducted to study PoP in comparison with Proof-of-Work (PoW) to show its advantages in various aspects.

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Internet Technology
ACM Transactions on Internet Technology  Volume 23, Issue 1
February 2023
564 pages
ISSN:1533-5399
EISSN:1557-6051
DOI:10.1145/3584863
  • Editor:
  • Ling Liu
Issue’s Table of Contents

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 February 2023
Online AM: 07 October 2022
Accepted: 29 August 2022
Revised: 17 May 2022
Received: 24 June 2021
Published in TOIT Volume 23, Issue 1

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Author Tags

  1. Peer-to-peer game
  2. blockchain
  3. consensus model

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  • Research-article

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  • Shenzhen Science and Technology Program
  • Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society
  • Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
  • Guangdong Pearl River Talent Recruitment Program
  • Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission

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  • (2024)Challenger: Blockchain-based Massively Multiplayer Online Game ArchitectureNetworked Systems10.1007/978-3-031-67321-4_3(50-66)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
  • (2023)The Meta-FusionInternational Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing10.4018/IJCAC.33175213:1(1-24)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Guest Editorial Special Issue on Social Studies, Human Factors, and Applications in MetaverseIEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems10.1109/TCSS.2023.331319910:5(2160-2164)Online publication date: Oct-2023
  • (2023)A novel model for Sybil attack detection in online social network using optimal three-stream double attention networkThe Journal of Supercomputing10.1007/s11227-023-05677-380:6(7433-7482)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2023

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