ECGC 2011: Goodbye Physical, and Hello Cloud!

[exfileme]

Famed developer David Perry offers his thought of the future, indicating that games will eventually be cloud-based.

ECGC 2011: Goodbye Physical, and Hello Cloud! : Read more

 

[Guest]

Then all telcos start limiting bandwidths, on 3G/4G/ADSL/cable/fiber and whatnot. Then the whole idea of cloud falls apart and everyone just go back to physical medium.

 

[razzb3d]

F**k this. My data&storage is my own. I will NOT be using any cloud based services. Apart from the privacy issues, I want offline access to my s**t.

 

[Guest]

How about...I stay that unique kind of user who likes to buy a physical product, read the cover, insert the disk and read through the manual whilst my game installs on my very powerful customized computer!

 

[davewolfgang]

It ain't going to happen with more and more companies instituting data limits per month. Gaming will use up your month's worth in less than a week.

 

[schmich]

Why is it always black and white with these kind of predicting-bags? Why can't some games be in the cloud whilst others be the way it's always been (plus the whole digital download option). I would like him to show me how play Battlefield 3 in higher than "HD resolution" in 3D in Europe.

Games is quite a broad term. You can't compare a flash game and a full DX11 game that is capable to run on multiple screen in 3D.

 

[K2N hater]

AT&T would say cloud gaming is internet abuse.

 

[crewton]

Cloud gaming is a nice concept but it is trying to work in on a terrible foundation. Having to play my games on the internet requires an internet service provider. The internet is not getting faster (they plan on upgrading to 100Mbps by 2020?) and more users playing more games with the current infrastructure will severly bottleneck anyones game experience.

Not only that, but with 2 companies and probably more to follow charging by the GB for internet usage makes this far too costly for the average consumer. I like his quote on the friend who brings his cell phone over to his friend's house to use on their tv. That poor friend who is streaming his cell phone on their tv at $10 a GB is probably not going to be their friend after his parents see that monthly bill.

Right now I can buy a game for $50 and play it all I want when I want. Instead they want me to pay $50 for the ability to play the game and force me to pay the internet companies hundreds of dollars for the access of my game...That isn't the future of gaming; it's the end.

 

[memadmax]

Not only is it a joke, but prototypes of the concept have tried and failed..

 

[greliu]

I think cloud gaming would only be useful for cellphones and maybe other types of handheld devices that could stream flash-player based games. So, in the end, cloud gaming is great for the "casual" gamer, but for those of us such as my self any many of you who don't like FB games, NO this doesn't work. However, the whole we are going to charge by usage on the internet isn't going to fly. Companies like M$ and Google would venture into the ISP arena, which would actually be great to create some competition. In the end, if other ISP's didn't come in and they wanted this "cloud" bs, the hardcore gaming scene would die and be replaced by games like farmvile, shoot me in the face when that happens!

By the way, with all these negative things I see being said about the "cloud" can someone tell me why these companies are still pushing it?

 

[Guest]

this will never happen... not in the near future anyway due to the fact that gamers dont want it. Imagine the lag issues for online gaming for a game like WoW where you dont have any of the files on your machine.

 

[smuggl3r]

Cloud gaming is a nice concept but it is trying to work in on a terrible foundation. Having to play my games on the internet requires an internet service provider. The internet is not getting faster (they plan on upgrading to 100Mbps by 2020?) and more users playing more games with the current infrastructure will severly bottleneck anyones game experience.

I pay 15$/ month for 100mbit internet in europe. You must be living in a 3rd world country, am I right?

 

[FLGibsonJr]

I am looking on my desk at the games I have played a lot over the last few years, and the ones I am about to purchase:

- IL2 Sturmovik: 1946
- Company Of Heroes
- Silent Hunter 5: Battle Of The Atlantic
- ArmA2
- Rise Of Flight: The First Great Air War
- Empire Total War
- Napoleon Total War
- World Of Tanks
- Scourge Of War: Gettysburg
- IL2 Sturmovik: Cliffs Of Dover
- Red Orchestra 2: Heroes Of Stalingrad

Every single one of them is PC only and have not even been attempted on a console. Most all of them are CPU and GPU intensive and are either simulations or on a track to becoming more simulation like which requires more and more local CPU and GPU computational power. I can see simpler flash games becoming cloud based, but for these more intensive games I see the direction to be the opposite. As these games become more simulation like and need significantly more computational power, and with bandwith and streaming speed becoming more and more controlled and expensive, the need for these games to have access to local CPU and GPU computational power will only increase over time. I think these predictors of the future in this article are talking more about their hopes than anything based on facts.

Regards,

 

[kinggraves]

A guy who runs a cloud gaming service says cloud gaming is the future.

Am I supposed to be surprised?

Billy Mays told me Zorbeez was the best thing ever and I couldn't live without it.

 

[FLGibsonJr]

[citation][nom]smuggl3r[/nom]I pay 15$/ month for 100mbit internet in europe. You must be living in a 3rd world country, am I right?[/citation]

Depends on if you consider the USA 3rd world or not. You can get 105 Mbps service, which also offers up to 10 Mbps upload speeds, at a special reduced introductory rate of $105 per month for 12 months, which is over $1,200 a year for the connection.

Of course, with that same 250 GB bandwidth cap still there, it just means that you can hit that limit faster than you could before.

So really at least for now 105 Mbps is pie in the sky, unless you are wealthy.

Regards,

 

[waethorn]

Farmville isn't a game - it's a timer on an electronic funds transfer.

 

[dimar]

How about getting out of the cloud world into the physical world. Won't happen until the year 3000.

 

[pirateboy]

all your midget pr0n are belong to the cloud!!

 

[cohetedor]

Let's see, in last year alone, AT&T has raised the price of my 2.4mbps dsl connection more than 16%, and lowered my monthly bandwidth cap by 40%. The situation for cloud computing is getting worse in the U.S. not better, honestly I doubt this will even be possible by 2020.

 

[nebun]

in order for this to work we need much faster internet access, there is no way that demanding games will run very well on the cloud...it's impossible

 

[kkiddu]

Seems like I'm not the only one who doesn't want cloud. We're so old fashioned.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]FLGibsonJr[/nom]Depends on if you consider the USA 3rd world or not. You can get 105 Mbps service, which also offers up to 10 Mbps upload speeds, at a special reduced introductory rate of $105 per month for 12 months, which is over $1,200 a year for the connection.Of course, with that same 250 GB bandwidth cap still there, it just means that you can hit that limit faster than you could before.So really at least for now 105 Mbps is pie in the sky, unless you are wealthy.Regards,[/citation

I live in Sweden, got 100/100 mbit for about 22$ and it hits about 96-98 mbit speed when speedtesting both ways and its without ofcorse without any caps. Guess i can live with that =)

 

[d_kuhn]

Right, because we all know the internet has bandwidth to burn. What works for crappy flash games is not going to work for state of the art games. The cloud is a handy toy that may become a powerful tool in some areas, but some people seem to want to push it in directions it's singularly ill suited for - high bandwidth gaming is probably on the top of the bad idea list.

And the size of the pipe to your house is virtually irrelevant (though the price of broadband in Europe varies and in general is as much as in the US). The backbone would not support that much bandwidth demand.

 

[ProDigit10]

HA!
Flash games perhaps, but no way anyone with a brain is going to play 3D games over cloud! Waay too much bandwidth!

The only thing cloud is good for is for cellphones to play basic gaming like flash type of games, cardgames, chess, or things like that, but forget 3D!
Netbooks is the only possible target for cloud, and no hair on my head is going to trade my laptop or desktop for a cellphone.

Serious gaming can only be done in the bedroom or on lan parties. Not on a cellphone, or somewhere on the go!

 

[Diversian]

So, after perusing through the trolling, it seems the only real issue is bandwidth. Many here probably have a steam title or two or 100, or are PS Plus subscribers, or have an XBox Live account, and still have custom rigs that require their own personal generators.

This guy is selling his business, which is a good one. He will make loads of cash, even if the industry doesn't move that direction for good.
If we watch the trends though, it's all about control and market share. We will most certainly be forced to try and play cloud based games having terrible pings. What will happen then is likely nirvana, where we will have internet providers offering us 0 latency at a premium price however they may manage to conjure such infrastructure. Though we lose some of the "sport" of creating our custom machines, and the touch of our physical media, we will adapt. I'm more looking forward to them developing good content. How we come to play matters less, as long as we are competitively able beat down some zombies with guitars with the precision and grace that we do today.