Media and application aware network architecture

A method for providing interactive gaming media content, the method comprising:

• transmitting, from a gaming client, a request to a media delivery system for source data to support interactive gaming of at least a first player and a second player;
• receiving, at the gaming client, a response transmission from the media delivery system identifying one or more client device resource buffers;
• at the gaming client, obtaining the source data from the one or more client device resource buffers after the source data has been pushed to the one or more client device resource buffers at least partially from one or more network resource elements that are part of a network that is separate from the media delivery system;
• and
• at the gaming client, using the source data to render (i) first gaming media content for the first player and (ii) second gaming media content for the second player, the second gaming media content being different from the first gaming media content.

A method for operating a media delivery system to support interactive multi-player gaming, the method comprising:

• receiving a request from a gaming client for source data to support multi-player interactive gaming;
• transmitting, to the gaming client, a response transmission including one or more resource indicators indicating a location of the source data;
• provisioning one or more network resource elements that are (i) part of a network separate from the media delivery system and (ii) capable of providing the source data;
• and
• implementing a media data plane for providing the gaming client access to the source data from the one or more network resource elements.