In sync with fair play!: delivering a synchronized and cheat-preventing second screen gaming experience

There is a need to deliver personalized experiences in terms of synchronization between television broadcasts and second screen applications to avoid frustrating experiences. However, within a second screen gaming scenario based on TV broadcasts, if players synchronize with a delay higher than the real delay of the TV broadcast, they will have an unfair advantage over the others. To solve this issue, we introduce a software-based solution called Sync2FairPlay that can be integrated in any second screen gaming application. It provides a universal synchronization mechanism that helps users to achieve a pleasant second screen experience, while automatically dealing with cheating to provide a fair gaming experience. We also describe the user tests performed to validate our idea and the different components of Sync2FairPlay.