Cloud Gaming

[Icey!]

In a nutshell, Cloud gaming is basically a streaming service like Netflix. Except it's games instead of movies and shows. Quite recently, gaming companies have been pushing digital gaming heavily, because it's cheaper to make digital copies than physical copies, and they have a lot more control over a digital copy. However, one main flaw with digital is that they take up storage, and it can definitely add up, so companies are toying around with a subscription model where they would stream the games to you over the net. this has some pros like the consumer not having to upgrade their hardware for a little longer, or like what I said earlier with storage. But some obvious cons are that if you don't have an internet connection than you can't play your games, or plenty of input lag. Personally for me, I wouldn't mind having a streaming subscription for gaming, but I still would puffer to own my games than having to pay them to use their servers.

[Nightdrift]

HMMM...I've always been someone who preferred to own physical copies of things, too -- though I can understand why studios have turned towards digital/cloud subscriptions, and some of the benefits. I wonder how the current state of the video game industry (overworked and generally unsustainable) correlates to the direction video game marketing models/strategies are taking ;0

Incidentally, while I was on a call with some friends on New Years Eve, one of them revealed they had a collection of old video game CDs from the 90's/00's...and the games actually played just fine on a modern computer, too. I get the issue of physical space for the consumer, but until cloud subscriptions can create the magic of that, I'm sitting firmly in Camp Physical (I say, as if I have purchased a video game in the last year : P).

Great topic by the way, it's fascinating to see how digital gaming has changed so much in the last thirty years.

[xandra]

i honestly like xbox cloud gaming for being able to game while traveling, but that's really the only benefit for me! i was recently housesitting for a friend and i was able to play xbox games on my ipad with my xbox controller, and it really helped pass the time.

i do still want copies of everything, even if they're digital copies!

[Cobra!]

I'm firmly in the camp of physical, because I think they're better in terms of archival and not relying on any corporations to access your work, (Unless that game
is online-only, but that's another topic for another day) but at least it's still possible to archive digital games.

I think streaming services will completely eliminate the ability for us to archive games. It will be impossible to even download them in order to archive them. Once they're taken down, they're gone. There's also the issue of needing a persistent internet connection, and I can only speak for myself, but my internet is far from stable or fast enough for that.

So to me, a streaming service would be bad in every way. I would not want it to happen, but as always with these things, it's probably going to happen, and there's nothing we can do about it...

[Icey!]

I think streaming services will completely eliminate the ability for us to archive games. It will be impossible to even download them in order to archive them. Once they're taken down, they're gone. There's also the issue of needing a persistent internet connection, and I can only speak for myself, but my internet is far from stable or fast enough for that.

That's a pretty good point, archiving becomes harder with this approach, it's pretty hard to have the game downloadable with a subscription model since people would exploit that by downloading the games and play them offline.

[Melooon]

So my questions are what is a game and what will games become?

In the past a game was made up of a fixed set of files that you'd get on a cart or disc, that was the game and you'd play it.
Today, games are a fixed set of files you tend to download, that are then often updated with MANY extra files as patches or expansions.
Tomorrow? I think perhaps the idea of a fixed set of files making up a game may no longer exist. Games will be made up of data pulled from many sources and combined into quasi-fixed-worlds.

However is the game of the past the same as the game of the future? Nope! They are different things evolving in different directions.

All that is a long winded way of explaining why I actually think cloud gaming is potentially great. However I don't see it as a replacement to traditional games, cloud gaming will allow games to evolve into something totally new, the traditional games of today will continue to exist as an almost separate media form.

Today though I agree with xandra; as an additional way to access your games, it can be really handy (Assuming you have the internet to make it work) I would never buy a game on a purely streaming service, but having the option to download or stream is good.

[Nightdrift]

So my questions are what is a game and what will games become? [...]All that is a long winded way of explaining why I actually think cloud gaming is potentially great. However I don't see it as a replacement to traditional games, cloud gaming will allow games to evolve into something totally new, the traditional games of today will continue to exist as an almost separate media form.

This is a really interesting perspective I hadn't considered, thanks for outlining it! A lot of my opinion definitely stems from disappointment and mistrust in the current way some AAA games with DLC have been handled or released (poorly), and a general mistrust that cloud-based gaming will end up in a similar state...but this broadened definition does render some of my angst moot.

I'm firmly in the camp of physical, because I think they're better in terms of archival and not relying on any corporations to access your work [...]
I think streaming services will completely eliminate the ability for us to archive games. It will be impossible to even download them in order to archive them. Once they're taken down, they're gone. There's also the issue of needing a persistent internet connection, and I can only speak for myself, but my internet is far from stable or fast enough for that.

Hahaha, I feel that. The (huge quotation marks) "archivist" in me definitely feels some amount of angst to know we may never be able to fully encapsulate one of these evolved games into a cartridge that has the same experience for someone playing maybe 1,000 years from now. This kind of goes for MMORPGs too, how after some amount of time, the user base rises and falls, sometimes the servers close down altogether...

Going back to Melon's thought, there is something potentially cool (and a little bittersweet) about these kinds of games becoming "moments in time"/more transient. I would still like to...see major industry game developers...actually give their studios time to develop well-functioning games off the riff rather than have to make massive patches after launch, but that's probably a different topic altogether.

i honestly like xbox cloud gaming for being able to game while traveling, but that's really the only benefit for me! i was recently housesitting for a friend and i was able to play xbox games on my ipad with my xbox controller, and it really helped pass the time.

This is definitely the biggest pro in my book, I cannot deny LOL. I recently changed computers after many years of using the same one, and being able to just access a lot of games without the hassle of digging out a physical copy or finding serial numbers was really nice!

[easy_breezy]

I'm suspicious that it's another anti-piracy measure

[Icey!]

I'm suspicious that it's another anti-piracy measure

That's something I will never unsee

[aoeu]

I'm suspicious that it's another anti-piracy measure

On the topic of game streaming becoming yet another anti-piracy measure, I actually found this interesting article (http://snowymouse.com/post.php?id=1-video-game-streaming-is-the-perfect-drm) about game streaming a while back. It brings up plenty of good points about the faults and flaws of game streaming and the likes.

As for my stance on this, I would say that it would be best to have game streaming as an option and not as the de facto standard of the gaming industry as a whole. It's important for people to be able to actually download the software they buy, so that users aren't SOL if the games' servers go down one day.

[Kutan]

It's a great idea, but in my experience, it hasn't been terribly useful to me. I get streaming for free with Game Pass; most of the titles available for download on Game Pass are also available for streaming, and your progress carries over. Same with GeForce Now; if you buy a game on Steam, Epic, or elsewhere, you can use GeForce Now to stream it from their servers for free. Really cool that it's available! But the big draw of streaming is being able to play your games on the go, anywhere-- and this just doesn't work when you need a rock-solid, high bandwidth internet connection. Mobile data won't cut it, and Starbucks won't give you the bandwidth you need. And with portable tech getting cheaper and cheaper (look at the Steam Deck, for example), it's getting easier to play your games on the go and keep them offline.

One really useful application though, even though it's a server you run yourself and not a streaming service, is Parsec (or alternately, Steam Remote Play Together). I love having this available-- it lets other people access your PC, so you can play a game together on the same screen. You can play anything in your library together in realtime, just like you were having them over for a pizza & games night. You can even take turns playing a single player game, and so on.

I think like Melon said, streaming services will likely lead to new types of games, rather than offering a better or more convenient way of playing existing games. You can develop games that require massively powerful PCs that are way out of the reach of consumers, but you can stream those games into the home. I figure it'll be an experience akin to PLATO games; we'll all be "terminals" connecting to a "mainframe" to play an online game that's way, way beyond what our hardware can do.

[Darmodej]

pretty hilarious how all the big game/internet companies are doing these death marches like nfts or this now that even a hedgehog will understand will blow up in their face skateboard rake style.
i'm more curious of what will happen after they fall down. will there be another gaming crash like in the 80s or will this be a golden age of indies

[debleb]

i think cloud gaming has its benefits; it lets you play even quite modern games on lower-end hardware and portably, it doesn’t need time to install and download, and it doesn’t take up tons of space on your hard drive.

however, the drawbacks are too much for me personally  .  there’s too much input lag to be work too well with any of the games i’d be that interested in picking up and playing anywhere (read: rhythm games  ) and my internet’s not really good enough for it. plus there’s the issue of preservation! it’s not very easy to archive games if nobody has the files!

i also like being able to own my games in some way even if that’s just as the files on my computer. you don’t get that at all with cloud games    ! they can take your game away as easily as just taking it off the service.

also saw it here earlier but yeah i can see the push for cloud gaming having something to do with anti-piracy too. i’m not gonna blame game devs for trying to prevent piracy but i like not paying for ubisoft games and methods like this which do impede the use of the game somehow (which cloud does in plenty of ways, for all the ways it can also help) are especially bad in my books.

[sig]

If I download my games from Steam I can at least pretend they're mine