My Thoughts On "The Cloud" And Why It Won't Happen

[V8 Ninja]

For the past few years, there's been this idea floating around about gaming and "The Cloud". For those uninitiated, The Cloud is a program/service that allows users to be able to store files on a company's server and access those files whenever they want from a multitude of devices. It's theorized that the combination of gaming and The Cloud will result in libraries of games being accessible on cellphones from anywhere. My reasoning on why this won't work?

You need actual hardware to run the game. Hear me out on this.

When The Cloud gets BIG, companies won't give every person their own computer to store files on. That would be insanely expansive. They'll section off parts of a harddrive for each user so that each user gets a share. However, this also means that users get a share of the computer's resources. Now for current Cloud-based programs and services, this isn't much of a problem considering that most files that are stored on the servers are small files that don't choke-up whenever something unexpected happens. But when it comes to gaming, many and many more resources of a console/computer are being used, and this would conflict the whole "Section Off Harddrives" point that was mentioned earlier. The only way that this Cloud-based service would work is if the service let users download games onto their own cellphones and other devices, which then it wouldn't be a Cloud service; it would be Steam.

My point; unless companies make games specifically for this Cloud-based service, we are a LONG ways away from Cloud Gaming because current games just use too many resources for a Cloud-like structure.

So what do you think? Do you think I'm absolutely right? Or do you think I'm tragically wrong? Tell me in the comments.

 

[Vault101]

hmmmm Im no good with this kind of thing

bottom line...when the zombies come and my internet is down...I still want to be able to play my games

 

[nbamaniac]

I prefer everything in the safety of my internal HDD thank you.

Centralization still has a long way to go.

 

[oplinger]

...Wow, I haven't talked about cloud gaming in such a long time >.> I thought we all already knew cloud gaming would take a phenomenal amount of resources. but...eh what the hell.

For the most part you're right. You're also partly wrong....and partly silly.

You're right in the fact that it would take resources, and users would only get a portion of the resources on the server. You wouldn't get unlimited space, maybe not even unlimited bandwidth for cloud gaming. If the service wasn't very popular, it wouldn't see a lot of money, and it would also be slow and probably very annoying to use.

However, you're wrong in the fact that it would take more resources than bandwidth and hard drive space. For the cloud it's still a central location. While to be cloud gaming the device needs to really just be a view port into the cloud. It can be worked around by using the hard disk of the cloud, and the other components of the user's device. (IE: The user's device would be like the RAM on a desktop.) That way the computational power needed for the cloud service is much lower as it's just transferring files into the device's RAM or temporary files. Just like a browser game. Less like how cloud computing handles word documents and the like.

You're also silly in saying they'd have to design a game specifically for cloud gaming. ...That's sort of a no brainer. If I wanted to run a top end game through the internet, by the end of the day I'd have used up maybe 20GBs of my bandwidth in no time. For some people that's just unacceptable, or impossible (bandwidth caps) So yes they'd need to design a game with cloud gaming in mind.

 

[viranimus]

Your actually pretty spot on as it relates to the way servers work.

First... I would like to chop off the fingers and filet the tongue of the prick who thought calling a server a "cloud" was a great idea. The only thing different from a server and a cloud network is it being better intergrated and much easier to set up for the below average user. Thats pretty much it.

Now with that rant out of the way, The notion of remote access networking does in fact present the whole problem of significant drain on available resources, however... with proper server infrastructure its really not that hard to accomplish. Once your set up with RAID configs you see that it still boils down to predominantly data transfer. Be it over IP or over FSB.

Anyway, its moot, because I hope Onlive and any other attempt at "Cloud" gaming dies a horribly painful death involving no less than 7 steps, the first of which involving an acid Aenema and increasing in sadistic gruesomeness exponentially with each step.

Seriously. It need not exist. Its a bad idea, Its implementation will always be flawed, and it will only serve to hurt the industry.

 

[Voodoomancer]

I thought steam was pulling "Cloud gaming" off just fine? (unless you're taking about the "Install-free" kind, which is just a silly concept with today's tech and market)

Also, data storage tech is advancing ludicrously fast. In a few years storage space won't be a problem.

 

[Crelda]

It is a shame that at the same rate that storage space increases programmers are getting more lazy and/or ambitious and using it all up.

I personally can not see cloud computing on a massive scale being feasible anytime soon. I recently was tasked with providing a mock cloud solution for a project at university. I successfully managed to make myself very unconvinced that what I wrote would make me want to choose cloud as my platform of choice for any project. (Lets hope that doesn't mean it wasn't worth many marks D=)

Another big problem I have with it is how it requires somebody else's machine to be holding all of my data. Imagine how much of an uproar a PS3-esque hack(or even worse, losing it all) would cause for not just the company holding the data but all the companies whose data they hold.

 

[4RM3D]

If cloud is just being used to save resources on the end-user device, then it would have no future, because in a few years my mobile phone can play the newest games. I don't believe raw power or the amount of disk space will be the issue.

The issue would arise if you want many different devices (services) working together doing the same thing in order to process and share data (information). Only then can cloud be useful. But I don't see that happening any time soon for games.

OTOH, companies can't wait to use cloud as a counter-measure against piracy.

 

[exampleAccount]

It will happen eventually, resources and processing power are only ever temporary limitations for computers.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

In the long run, giving subscription prices and how expensive games are it would be much more cheaper to own a PC or a console. Cloud gaming is not worth it, money wise or hardware wise.

 

[Meggiepants]

It isn't just the hardware. The structure of the entire internet would need to be overhauled. The current capacity of the wiring we have now is simply not enough to accommodate all gamers suddenly playing all their games online.

This is truly the limiting factor, and until it gets fixed, cloud gaming is a fantasy.

 

[Luke Cartner]

Cloud computing doesn't exactly work like the poster indicated.
It isn't as simple as just you have your own virtual computer but in a server farm somewhere.
It may look like it is but that really is not the case.
In many ways cloud computing for games already occurs.
Many social games are an example of this. See good cloud/grid/distributed computing looks like it isn;t cloud/grid/distributed computing.
Mean while much of the processing is occurring within a black box you'll never see.
The latency between the server farm and the client is the main barrier for using cloud computing for the graphics portion of a game, just like its a barrier for google maps etc (instead jquery or dojo are used to get you browser to preform the rendering functions). However there is no barrier on any of the other functions being performed 'in the cloud'.

 

[number2301]

I can't see full cloud gaming (i.e. Onlive, Gaikai) becoming the main method or gaming. Purely because while the internet is getting much quicker, computers are doing the same.

A Sandybridge processor with integrated GPU will play some modern games. Give it a year or two and every computer bought will be able to play 2011 games at reasonable settings. Given graphical quality being as high as it is, I can't see any reason to jump through hoops of having the computing done off site.

 

[DaHero]

I tried OnLive and it was laggy as hell, could gaming can't exist until that's fixed.

 

[Woodsey]

Isn't this essentially what OnLive does? If not overtly well?

And the cloud system already exists as a storage facility anyway.