Melcar
Arcane
Fuck mainstream.
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Vapourware Google Stadia - "a game streaming service for everyone"
- Thread starter toro
- Start date
The Decline
Arcane
The vast majority of mainstream users play one or two online games and little else. As long as competitive gaming is a thing streaming will never completely take over.
J1M
Arcane
- Joined
- May 14, 2008
- Messages
- 14,774
Another problem something like Stadia faces is the advancement (or even worse, stagnation) of graphics cards, driving down hardware costs. Each year gigaflops become cheaper.
In fact, given Onlive has been green-lit like 6 times I am surprised nobody has green-lit a thin-client phone that does its rendering server-side.
(Probably just indicates phone hardware still has high profit margins.)
In fact, given Onlive has been green-lit like 6 times I am surprised nobody has green-lit a thin-client phone that does its rendering server-side.
(Probably just indicates phone hardware still has high profit margins.)
I guess I was vague here, when I say "everyone" I don't mean Codex posters. I'm talking about the vast majority of people who don't play games but are still boosters for this shit -- generic "tech" guru types and investors. I should have been clearer on that.
The conversations I regularly have are with these people who don't really know much about the industry, but because they know finance, or generic business, or generic tech, games are going to go down the same paths they are used to when it comes to innovation, payment models, industry consolidation, etc. What these people don't understand is that the control experience is pretty important to a lot of AAA gamers (we've done survey research on this), and gamers will spend more money and be a little inconvenienced for a better experience. Again, as a group and broadly speaking.
I agree, of course, that grandma on her phone or PC playing solitaire couldn't give a shit. But mobile is its own universe, for now.
Monocause
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2008
- Messages
- 3,656
They're not going to solve the latency issues in the next decade or two, and even then I'd wager that you'd still need appropriate hardware and be constrained by your physical location in order to have an acceptable experience playing streamed FPS or RTS games. The "negative latency" solution mentioned by a "Google engineer" is from a technical POV pure bullshit and even if their predictive solution went 95% correct after facing insurmountable cost and effort invested into R&D, that 5% where it's wrong would still be a hurdle pissing lots of people off.
If this was a real idea and not a PR red herring, it was likely made by an engineer who has no clue about the broad domain of gaming and the typical use cases of gaming software and who simply transcribes solutions he knows from other domains. Well yes, a user won't even notice if Google Search throws up couple percent of weird results, or if Google Ads mistargets something. But in gaming, when you want to jump, shoot or do something, you expect it to work 100% of the time and it makes the experience ruined when it doesn't.
On a sidenote, if it did work, it would be a marvel of a technical achievement. Gaming behavior patterns are ridiculous for prediction especially since one of the core ideas of gaming is adaptation. It's easily observable in the so-called "meta" discourse for games such as Starcraft, where certain behaviour patterns go out of fashion and new patterns emerge. One week it might be the way to go to jump like a lunatic in Call of Duty, but then players adapt to it and become proficient in headshotting jumping people, hence a more defensive attitude is taken. Using machine learning to efficeintly adapt to that kind of bullshit trends would be something to see but I'd say we have no chance of seeing that happen until we reach a time when quantum computing and full-fledged AIs take over this kind of prediction.
What remains is still the question of whether you, as a gamer, even *want* this kind of a solution in reflex-based games, as they're a competition of skill between players. So if there's an AI trying to figure out what do you want to do and providing "assistance" - not sure if people would still feel it's a fair competition and any success you have would always be overshadowed by the accusation that the AI latency God was predicting your next move favorably for you.
Also, a funny observation: the "negative latency" solution would also obviously need to help people with aiming efficiently in FPS games. All hail the Google Aimbot.
If this was a real idea and not a PR red herring, it was likely made by an engineer who has no clue about the broad domain of gaming and the typical use cases of gaming software and who simply transcribes solutions he knows from other domains. Well yes, a user won't even notice if Google Search throws up couple percent of weird results, or if Google Ads mistargets something. But in gaming, when you want to jump, shoot or do something, you expect it to work 100% of the time and it makes the experience ruined when it doesn't.
On a sidenote, if it did work, it would be a marvel of a technical achievement. Gaming behavior patterns are ridiculous for prediction especially since one of the core ideas of gaming is adaptation. It's easily observable in the so-called "meta" discourse for games such as Starcraft, where certain behaviour patterns go out of fashion and new patterns emerge. One week it might be the way to go to jump like a lunatic in Call of Duty, but then players adapt to it and become proficient in headshotting jumping people, hence a more defensive attitude is taken. Using machine learning to efficeintly adapt to that kind of bullshit trends would be something to see but I'd say we have no chance of seeing that happen until we reach a time when quantum computing and full-fledged AIs take over this kind of prediction.
What remains is still the question of whether you, as a gamer, even *want* this kind of a solution in reflex-based games, as they're a competition of skill between players. So if there's an AI trying to figure out what do you want to do and providing "assistance" - not sure if people would still feel it's a fair competition and any success you have would always be overshadowed by the accusation that the AI latency God was predicting your next move favorably for you.
Also, a funny observation: the "negative latency" solution would also obviously need to help people with aiming efficiently in FPS games. All hail the Google Aimbot.
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Fair points, but again I think this all takes place in a bubble. "Real gamers" talking to other "real gamers" can't understand how anyone could deal with compression artifacts and 50ms of extra latency, but meanwhile a huge chunk of Assassin's Creeds millions of customers don't give a shit. However you guys are right that local gaming isn't going to vanish for a very, very long time. I'm saying eventually someone will get it right, eventually it will start creeping in and taking over the mainstream, and eventually they will take enough market share they can start bullying us. How long that takes I'm not sure, but it's inevitable.
Subscriptions are more the immediate danger though, and I'm talking about both. Subscriptions are taking over all the other media types so fast people's heads are still spinning. It leads to many of the same things streaming does: exclusives you can't purchase, exclusives scattered around multiple services, exclusive modes for one version or another, no ownership, no control. Not many will care though. It's been embraced with movies, shows and music, there's zero reason to think it won't be embraced with games as soon as someone does it really well.
To follow up on what Monocause said, I can't believe they put Samurai Shodown on this device. I mean a fighting game, really? How do you even decipher it as a meaningful experience through streaming? I'd say the whole platform should be taken out back and shot, but it's Google, so time will take care of that.
Valky
Arcane
A bit too late to worry about subscriptions when you people have been buying from steam for a decade. This has happened and is already the norm.
Yes, technically a Steam purchase is a license added to a free subscription, so is a "DRM free" GOG purchase technically... hell a disc was technically a license... but how things actually play out matters. You pay once, and have endless access as long as the service/disc exists. This is demonstrably different from paying monthly for continued access, losing access as soon as you stop, with no option to pay once and have permanent access. I'm as against DRM as anyone... I get the "you opened this door!" line... but they are different levels of bad.
Valky
Arcane
How things actually played out is that DRM free games are copies that I have unrestricted freedom to use at my full control for playing, while your steam games are encrypted to brick themselves and not run unless you have a third party program running at all times to unlock it. I.E. you are totally dependent on steam in order to use your software whereas my drm free copies backed up on my external are self sufficient.
No shit, and I buy every game I can on GOG for this reason. However it's still a different thing, and you ignored that entirely.
Valky
Arcane
It is equal to a subscription. The only correct option for drm exclusive games it to wholly pirate them, never to purchase a drm exclusive version.
You really don't understand the difference between the subscripton of Google and buying on Steam or you are just playing dumb?
I get what he is thinking but there is still a fundamental difference between subscribing to a license, and buying a license.
Valky
Arcane
FeelTheRads
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
- Messages
- 13,716
You're not buying a license on Steam. If you were to buy it they shouldn't be able to take it away from you. You're renting the license.
This is what happens when you rent a license:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/t/autodesk-perpetual-licenses-suddenly-not-perpetual-anymore/2052430
If I were to rent games I'd rather give money to something like that new Microsoft thing than to Steam.
This is a nice DRM versus no DRM argument. I hate DRM personally. Buy on GOG everyone!
However we're not having a DRM argument. We're discussing the subscription payment model versus single payment model. DRM has zero to do with it. "Har har Steam is a subscription" is fun to point out, but Steam doesn't charge you monthly to access games. It's like arguing whether cake or sorbet is better for you and someone keeps screaming "they're both desserts!" It's like... okay, but so fucking what?
However we're not having a DRM argument. We're discussing the subscription payment model versus single payment model. DRM has zero to do with it. "Har har Steam is a subscription" is fun to point out, but Steam doesn't charge you monthly to access games. It's like arguing whether cake or sorbet is better for you and someone keeps screaming "they're both desserts!" It's like... okay, but so fucking what?
fantadomat
Arcane
It is not about DRM per se,but more about ownership.
That just leads down an endless hole of semantics since you never technically "owned" media, even on disc. Think more along the lines of access... pay once for perpetual access, versus pay monthly for limited access.
Edit: to be clear since everyone took it wrong and I wrote it like shit I guess, I'm not saying "U NEVAR OWN DISC!" I'm saying the language is a technicality... Steam is a "subscription," discs are "licenses." It's all legal bullshit for lawyers. We're debating business models, not technical terms.
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fantadomat
Arcane
I never really owned a disk,i am a digital child
. Still i do put my shit on a storage HDD,so i kind off own the shit. You have to shank me to take it away.
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 11,253
Okay zoomer.I never really owned a disk,i am a digital child
But you do recognize you paid once for that stuff (or not at all in your case), and you don't need to pay someone monthly to keep accessing it... yes?
Valky
Arcane
This is false and will never hold up in any court of law. That media on disk like a movie, song, or game is something you own a copy of. No one in history has ever been retarded enough to believe "owning" something like a game means that you now have discretion over the IP and source code. But your copy, you can do whatever you want with it, you can reverse engineer it even. What you can't do with it is violate intellectual property rights and copyright by redistributing it to others or use it in your own products. Those who perpetuate the falsehood "you don't own nothing goy!" are disingenuous, either maliciously or naively.
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