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I dunno. Cloud gaming (theoretically) means that anyone could play from anywhere at any time. Surely such a powerful idea enables some cool new experiences out

• meheleventyone 6y ago
  We already have that with mobile gaming. Cloud native (and streaming) offers a couple of advantages over installed games. Cheating becomes much harder, although not impossible. And people can launch the game easily without an install. It has some real trade offs as well. Increasing felt latency is the one people love to talk about. But a huge increase in compute and bandwidth cost for the game operator is the other. Both in terms of the wiz bang features people imagine which are also possible with an installed game. And because for each player at peak CCU you have to run the game for them, encode video and transmit that to them. That’s quite the ops cost increase over a traditional game. The bandwidth consumption and compute cost hurt the play anywhere at anytime idea. Firstly because places where bandwidth and latency are acceptable for play are not ubiquitous and there is no clear roadmap for that to happen. Secondly because the hike in compute cost per user free accounts are considerably more expensive to allow. Adding subscriptions removes ubiquitousness, allowing free players will bring dark patterns to convert that would make Zynga blush. Platform subscriptions will result in a chase for ‘engagement’ and more of the latter. All without anyone able to offer more than vague affirmations that there is anything creatively interesting. Cloud native is really good for one thing though. Getting investor money.