SONG - Simulating Online Networked Games Database

Traffic Traces

Part of the purpose of the SONG database is to provide a publically accessible set of traffic traces that can be used by researchers to investigate the traffic generated by networked multi-player games. This page provides the interface via which these traffic traces may be downloaded.

Since we intend these trace files to be used for research purposes, it is essential that each trace file is accompanied with appropriate documentation indicating all relevant information about the conditions under which the traffic was captured, and how much - if any - pre-processing has been performed on the available data. This information is outlined in the comments of each traffic trace and included with each download

Download traffic traces

Data Use for Third Party Research

All the traffic traces available for download on this page are made available under the terms and conditions of the license included within the trace file. If no license is included, then they are made available under the terms and conditions of this licence. Essentially, the data sets are free to use as long as you acknowledge the source of the traffic traces.

Each traffic trace is accompanied by a Technical Report (in PDF format) containing complete details regarding the network/user/environmental conditions under which the data was obtained.

Privacy Concerns

In some cases, the data captured and made available in these data sets may have been captured from a public access network. In these cases it has been necessary to first anonymise the collected data prior to posting it on this site. The type of anonymisation performed is documented in the accompanying Technical Report for each trace file.

Similarly, in cases where data has been gathered on private networks with no identification information, there is still the possibility of users (game players) providing potentially identifiable information through the use of techniques such as the in-game chat capability implemented by many networked games. In these cases, the relevant data will be anonymised and the details will be recorded in the acompanying Technical Report. It is possible that in some data sets this data may be left in plaintext format, if this is the case then the users will have been informed prior to playing and will have used this particular piece of game functionality in the knowledge that their potentially identifiable communcations will have been recorded.