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Cloud Gaming: Will we Soon See a "Netflix" for Video Games?by@limarc
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Cloud Gaming: Will we Soon See a "Netflix" for Video Games?

by Limarc AmbalinaDecember 4th, 2020
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Microsoft has put in a lot of capital towards earning the goodwill of gamers. Stadia was a disaster from the start - jerky controller, overpriced games, and the looming threat from publishers like EA simply yanking their games away. Want to watch a show in Hi-Def - sorry Netflix controls your resolution, not your ISP. Want a lesser known show (the West Wing, for crying out loud is not on Netflix, Disney+. Prime or any of the services I get in India. Guess what I gotta do.

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Cloud gaming is a very exciting prospect within the gaming industry. While we've seen the lukewarm reception of Google Stadia, the idea itself is relatively new. Just like Netflix was rejected at first, perhaps cloud gaming is the future of the game industry as a whole.

This Slack discussion by Utsav Jaiswal, Arthur, Massi Faqiri and I occurred in Hacker Noon's official #slogging-beta channel, and has been edited for readability.

LimarcNov 30, 2020, 1:57 PM
Do you think Google Stadia and/or Cloud Gaming will take off and we will soon have a “Netflix for video games” or is this a pipe dream?
Utsav JaiswalNov 30, 2020, 2:09 PM
Putting my money on xCloud. Call 'em what you will but Microsoft has put in a lot of capital towards earning the goodwill of gamers. Stadia was a disaster from the start - jerky controller, overpriced games, and the looming threat from publishers like EA simply yanking their games away (assuming they arrive in full force first). nVidia's debacle (similar to Stadia) was a warning sign for a lot of us gamers.

Coming to Netflix. Now that I use several of these subscription-as-service services (stand down, Pirate), I see problems that I never faced sailing the high seas. Want to watch a show in Hi-Def - sorry Netflix controls your resolution, not your ISP. Want to watch a lesser known show (the West Wing, for crying out loud is not that small a show) - not on Netflix, Disney+ , Prime or any of the services I get in India. Guess what I gotta do.

Wrapping this up - I think, we're gonna get local caches of decentralized storages with community-level ownership somewhere in the future. This will allow me to buy a show/game and and enjoy it with my community at LAN level speeds with minimal pings.

(Rate my rants on a scale of 😭 - 😞- 😐- 😂 - 😍)
LimarcNov 30, 2020, 3:00 PM
Very interesting points that I never thought of just because I’ve never had to deal with some of the issues like bandwidth (I’ve had a spoiled life). I feel like the company that finds a way to deal with those finer details will come out on top.

I think the popularity of many models like Humble Bundle have shown there is a huge market for subscription-as-service gaming models.
ArthurNov 30, 2020, 5:37 PM
Cloud gaming is the future. It's stupid that you need to buy a whole PC that you will use for gaming only for 20% max.
ArthurNov 30, 2020, 5:37 PM
For a long time, i used my machine for local setups. It's logically solid.
ArthurNov 30, 2020, 5:39 PM
When i split my project into a lot of parts - it was hard to jump between folders and install upgrades. Then i started to use cloud ide. And execution time is higher. Plus it's connected to github, so i don't feel a lot of pain
Massi FaqiriDec 1, 2020, 2:19 AM
I am a big believer in cloud. I think most of the things on cloud including gaming belong to the future and that is where we are headed.
LimarcDec 3, 2020, 4:55 AM
I agree Massi Faqiri perhaps then the future of gaming tech will rely more on internet service providers than individual game companies. If everything is on the cloud, there will be little difference between xbox and playstation in the future.

Lead image via Alexander Jawfox on Unsplash