XEP-0196: User Gaming

This document defines an XMPP protocol extension for communicating information about the games a user plays.

WARNING: This Standards-Track document is Experimental. Publication as an XMPP Extension Protocol does not imply approval of this proposal by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Implementation of the protocol described herein is encouraged in exploratory implementations, but production systems should not deploy implementations of this protocol until it advances to a status of Draft.

Document Information

Author Information

Peter Saint-Andre

Email: stpeter@jabber.org
JabberID: stpeter@jabber.org

Legal Notice

Discussion Venue

Relation to XMPP

The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 3920) and XMPP IM (RFC 3921) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.

Conformance Terms

The following keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".

1. Introduction
2. Protocol
    2.1. Container Element and Child Elements
    2.2. Transport Mechanism
3. Security Considerations
4. IANA Considerations
5. XMPP Registrar Considerations
    5.1. Protocol Namespaces
6. XML Schema
Notes
Revision History

1. Introduction

Publish-Subscribe [1] and Personal Eventing via Pubsub [2] can be used to publish a wide variety of "extended presence" information about users. This document specifies an extended presence payload format that communicates information about the games a user plays. This information may be of interest to a user's contacts and can also be used in social networking applications.

2. Protocol

2.1 Container Element and Child Elements

Information about games is provided by the user (or automated integration with gaming systems) and is propagated on the network by the user's client. The information container for gaming data is a <game/> element that is qualified by the 'http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming' namespace. The game information itself is provided as the XML character data of the following children of the <game/> element:

Table 1: Child Elements

Element	Description	Example	Datatype	Inclusion
character_name	The name of the user's character in the game	Stentor	xs:string	OPTIONAL
character_profile	A URI for a profile of the user's character	http://wow.example.com/profile.html?12345	xs:anyURI	OPTIONAL
name	The name of the game	Worlds of Warfare	xs:string	REQUIRED
level	The user's level in the game	66	xs:string	OPTIONAL
server_address	The hostname or IP address of the server where the user is playing	wow6.example.com	xs:string	OPTIONAL
server_name	The name of the server where the user is playing	WOW Example	xs:string	OPTIONAL
uri	A URI for the game or relevant gaming service	http://wow.example.com/	xs:anyURI	OPTIONAL

NOTE: The datatypes specified above are defined in XML Schema Part 2 [3].

2.2 Transport Mechanism

When a user starts playing a game, its client may publish that fact to a special pubsub or PEP node (if a PEP node, the NodeID is "http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming"). The gaming information SHOULD be communicated and transported by means of the XEP-0060 protocol, especially the subset specified in XEP-0163 (as shown in the following examples). Because gaming information is not pure presence information and can change independently of the user's availability, it SHOULD NOT be provided as an extension to the <presence/> stanza type.

Example 1. User Publishes Gaming Information

<iq type='set' from='stpeter@jabber.org/work' id='gaming1'>
  <pubsub xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub'>
    <publish node='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
      <item id='1feea9cceec2537e1b561e66d45bc566e276f22f'>
        <game xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
          <name>chess</name>
          <uri>http://www.chesspark.com/</uri>
        </game>
      </item>
    </publish>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

The gaming information is then delivered to all subscribers:

Example 2. Gaming Information is Delivered to All Subscribers

<message from='stpeter@jabber.org' to='maineboy@jabber.org'>
  <event xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#event'>
    <items node='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
      <item id='1feea9cceec2537e1b561e66d45bc566e276f22f'>
        <game xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
          <name>chess</name>
          <uri>http://www.chesspark.com/</uri>
        </game>
      </item>
    </items>
  </event>
</message>
.
.
.

When the user stops playing the game, the user's client SHOULD send an empty <game/> element to the node with the same ItemID:

Example 3. User Publishes Stop Information

<iq type='set' from='stpeter@jabber.org/work' id='gaming2'>
  <pubsub xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub'>
    <publish node='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
      <item id='1feea9cceec2537e1b561e66d45bc566e276f22f'>
        <game xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'/>
      </item>
    </publish>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

Example 4. Stop Information is Delivered to All Subscribers

<message from='stpeter@jabber.org' to='maineboy@jabber.org'>
  <event xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#event'>
    <items node='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'>
      <item id='1feea9cceec2537e1b561e66d45bc566e276f22f'>
        <game xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'/>
      </item>
    </items>
  </event>
</message>
.
.
.

3. Security Considerations

The games that a user plays may be sensitive. A client must provide a way for a user to configure which games or types of games will not be published (e.g., via user preferences).

4. IANA Considerations

This document requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [4].

5. XMPP Registrar Considerations

5.1 Protocol Namespaces

The XMPP Registrar [5] shall include 'http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming' in its registry of protocol namespaces.

6. XML Schema

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<xs:schema
    xmlns:xs='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
    targetNamespace='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'
    xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/gaming'
    elementFormDefault='qualified'>

  <xs:element name='game'>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence minOccurs='0'>
        <xs:element name='character_name' type='xs:string' minOccurs='0'/>
        <xs:element name='character_profile' type='xs:anyURI' minOccurs='0'/>
        <xs:element name='level' type='xs:string' minOccurs='0'/>
        <xs:element name='name' type='xs:string'/>
        <xs:element name='server_address' type='xs:string' minOccurs='0'/>
        <xs:element name='server_name' type='xs:string' minOccurs='0'/>
        <xs:element name='uri' type='xs:anyURI' minOccurs='0'/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>

</xs:schema>

Notes

1. XEP-0060: Publish-Subscribe <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0060.html>.

2. XEP-0163: Personal Eventing via Pubsub <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html>.

3. XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/>.

4. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols, such as port numbers and URI schemes. For further information, see <http://www.iana.org/>.

5. The XMPP Registrar maintains a list of reserved protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of XMPP extension protocols approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation. For further information, see <http://www.xmpp.org/registrar/>.