Cloud Gaming- Cause for concern?

[Thr33X]

Okay, so for all of you (which is most of you) who are playing GTA Online, you've surely heard of, or if you're like me experienced, the sudden loss of your character and all of the stats, money and properties they've amassed through their romps in Los Santos. While Rockstar says they're looking into the data losses and whether or not they can be restored, the whole thing's got me a little worried about how this whole cloud gaming thing is going to turn out once the next-gen consoles roll out next month.

We aren't 100% certain how "failproof" they are going to be, but we know both Microsoft and Sony are banking a whole lot on it...and if Rockstar's troubles are a precedent of the initial bumps in the road, there's the likelihood of a lot of pissed off gamers with hours of play data lost and potentially gone forever.

Anyone else have any concerns about this?

 

[Genocidicles]

I'm more concerned about what will happen in ten years time when they switch off the cloud servers that many games will be 'reliant' on.

 

[Bix96]

IMHO the cloud is a huge smoking pile of sh*t and the worst thing to happen to gaming since its near destruction in the 80s I mean seriously has anything good ever come of it? FF had launch problems as well but the most people had to deal with was logging issues much like every MMO in history but GTAV's d*mn cloud? that deletes characters (something that is completely unforgivable in an MMO style game)and throws players from free roam to matchmaking to single player all while they are forced to sit and wait for 2min at each transition just to say "oops the cloud is down....again lul."
It honestly seems like Sony and Micro went with the easy option and shouted "THE FUTURE!" again and again to get everyone to follow suit regardless of the MASSIVE stability issues that they must know about by now.
Maybe with time the gaming companies can figure all this crap out and I know we haven't seen Microsoft and Sony step up to the plate yet but like you said the consoles launch next month and I think we are a ways off from being able to play a game without fear that the cloud might eat your character that you've invested hundreds of hours in because there is no option to backup your progress locally.

AND BEFORE anyone says "umad" yes I am but not because I have ever had to deal with these issues in fact my character from GTAV is still fine (knock on wood)but because I don't want stuff like this to be the norm, It already irks me that not being able to play for the first week or so of an online games launch somehow became acceptable...seriously after the hundredth time this has happened how can people still say "they had no idea how many people would be getting on! MILLIONS dude." This excuse doesn't even work for R* because they waited two weeks to release multiplayer so they should have known full well the numbers they were dealing with.

TL;DR ahem...The last thing we need is "what do you expect? its the cloud lulz" as a legitimate answer to why some player's level (insert lvl cap) toons are being erased seemingly at random from the cloud in the next big MMO five years down the line.

 

[aozgolo]

Computer clouds much like real ones are very transient and ephemeral, they don't last long in the grand scheme of things. I hate how many so-called forward thinking people neglect thinking very far forward. We are still quite early in the life of PCs and Gaming in general, with billions of people who have been alive longer than either of those two things. Cloud Computing doesn't fit very well into gaming in my opinion when you start discussing "long term value". While it's true we've kind of hit the plateau as far as improving hardware goes, do you really think that a cloud-gaming service will still be around to let you play a PS4 game you buy this year in the year 2033 the same way you fire up a NES game from 1993?

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

its definitely the future of gaming love it or hate the idea but as seen from things like comand and conquer 4 and sim city the world isnt ready for it yet

That's what I'm thinking as well, it's there to stay and it's only going to get bigger and better over time, but they do need to start at some point. The biggest mistake Sony and MS did, IMO, was to announce that they will use such a method before it proved to be an improvement (or in fact completely stable) over what we have now.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The use of 'the cloud' should really be limited to back-ups of savegames and control preferences because:

1) The general internet infrastructure isn't there yet.

2) At this point several companies have proven multiple times they can't handle the responsibility (see Diablo 3, SimCity and now apparently GTA5).

Somehow double-posted, delete this please.

Just send a message to a mod.

 

[Thr33X]

Computer clouds much like real ones are very transient and ephemeral, they don't last long in the grand scheme of things. I hate how many so-called forward thinking people neglect thinking very far forward. We are still quite early in the life of PCs and Gaming in general, with billions of people who have been alive longer than either of those two things. Cloud Computing doesn't fit very well into gaming in my opinion when you start discussing "long term value". While it's true we've kind of hit the plateau as far as improving hardware goes, do you really think that a cloud-gaming service will still be around to let you play a PS4 game you buy this year in the year 2033 the same way you fire up a NES game from 1993?

Well, in typical corporate fashion, maintaining cloud servers are cheaper than actual ones. There's also the now untrue notion that Cloud Servers are easier to run and repair and maintain that actual servers. I guess they must have thought that there would be NO maintenance involved or something...or that people are all of the sudden going to just buy into the idea of "virtual" storage. Not when there's no guarantee that what I buy and store on their cloud's gonna go up into the clouds there isn't.

Maybe it's just me being an old school gamer, but I'm of the same reasoning here as I am with Digital Download Vs. Disc Based games. I like having that physical media in my hands. So too do I like the idea of my data being in a place where I know it's not susceptible to any problems, like my own hard disks. At least then if something does come up, I'd have been smart enough to make a back up of said data elsewhere where I can restore it. With cloud storage, there is no back up...at least not that I've seen. That's a problem to me.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

My real question is what exactly does "the cloud" mean? I mean, I know it has something to do with external data storage and processing, but when console manufacturers are talking about how they're going to implement "cloud technology" into their systems, that tells me absolutely nothing. It seems to just be a vague buzzword that keeps getting thrown around because it sound futuristic without it actually meaning anything. I think this issue needs to be resolved before we can even begin to start talking about any of the other crap related to it.

 

[Thr33X]

My real question is what exactly does "the cloud" mean? I mean, I know it has something to do with external data storage and processing, but when console manufacturers are talking about how they're going to implement "cloud technology" into their systems, that tells me absolutely nothing. It seems to just be a vague buzzword that keeps getting thrown around because it sound futuristic without it actually meaning anything. I think this issue needs to be resolved before we can even begin to start talking about any of the other crap related to it.

Well after some research I can tell you what "the cloud" means. This is a copy/paste here...

Cloud computing, or the cloud, is a colloquial expression used to describe a variety of different types of computing concepts that involve a large number of computers connected through a real-time communication network such as the Internet.

Vague is the best possible word you could have described the concept of cloud computing/storage as. It's either shared data through a network, or software acting as hardware for storage of data, or so many other things that nobody really has a scientific answer for it. It's merely a buzzword that marketers use to get people all excited about because it's THE FUTURE OF GAMING!!!

Except that on several occasions it's uselessness to gaming has been proven. But yet they will keep on pushing it and people will keep on being suckered in. Welcome to capitalism.

 

[Fireaxe]

Blizzard was able to manage this shit 15 years ago with Battle.net, if other companies can't it's because they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

 

[WenisPagon]

If by "The Cloud" you mean server-side storage of important data, it works fine in some mediums but not others. MMORPGs have been doing it even in the days of MUDs, and that works fine. Other online games like LoL keep some aspects of your account on the server to make playing the game on multiple systems easier.

Games with single player features should keep single player data on the harddrive though, IMO. The cloud should be for backing up data, like what GFWL does for Dark Souls (probably the one single thing GFWL is good for).