Video Games: Grinding To Oblivion

[Alcibiades]

The Steambox concept doesn't appeal to me. My desktop display is far better than my television, and I do most of my PC gaming with keyboard and mouse anyway. What I could see myself doing is finally getting an SSD and using SteamOS on it, and only booting Windows from my regular 1tb HD when I need it. Especially if Valve is serious about performance improvements under their flavor of Linux. That could be really cool.

[Werthead]

I don't think that's fucking possible. ..what would be the point of high end expensive pc's then? ?

That's the whole point. You get rid of the need of high-end expensive PCs and more people will then play them.

Incidentally, this is the way the entire market is going. There is a good chance that PS4/XB1 will be the last conventional console generation (and if it isn't, the next lot will certainly be). After that, the way forwards will be devices capable of streaming games at high speed from remote servers. You'll never buy a game on disc again, just be able to play instantly remotely.

This is extremely bad news if you make gaming PCs, PC parts, or are a retail shop, but great news for customers, assuming the internet infrastructure evolves to the point where it is viable in the USA (since it's pretty much already there in most of Europe and Asia).

The no locked hardware thing should be a major concern though.

I suspect there will be a minimum level for SteamOS to work, which will be rather higher than the OS needs but what compatible games will need. However, I don't think the emphasis is on the SteamBox itself playing games in the long-term. The long-term plan will be streaming. Valve know that people are iffy about that, so are emphasising the other things first (which is why they barely mention the streaming capability in the initial press release). They may even be counting on Sony doing the legwork on streaming for them with the PS Gaikai system.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Well until the government here in Canada pulls their heads out of their asses, there's no way game streaming will go anywhere in this country. It costs a fortune (north of $100 per month) to have an internet connection that makes game streaming viable. Contrast that with a place like Sweden or even the UK, where the same speeds (roughly 50Mbps) or better cost very little.

Edit: well, after googling for a bit, it turns out that of the developed countries, Canadians pay the most for internet service. Go figure :(

[Shryke]

That's the whole point. You get rid of the need of high-end expensive PCs and more people will then play them.

Incidentally, this is the way the entire market is going. There is a good chance that PS4/XB1 will be the last conventional console generation (and if it isn't, the next lot will certainly be). After that, the way forwards will be devices capable of streaming games at high speed from remote servers. You'll never buy a game on disc again, just be able to play instantly remotely.

This is extremely bad news if you make gaming PCs, PC parts, or are a retail shop, but great news for customers, assuming the internet infrastructure evolves to the point where it is viable in the USA (since it's pretty much already there in most of Europe and Asia).

It's really not that likely. Streaming games is still not a terribly good way to play them or a terribly efficient business model.

Simply on the face of it (and this is part of what fucked OnLive) streaming games increases the hardware requirements. You still need the computer running it but now you also need a terminal. You can't run this shit like a server.

And then there's the lag issues.

[Werthead]

Yup. About two years ago I used the OnLive service to play both Space Marine and Deus Ex: Human Revolution start to finish. There was no problem at all and playing them on my old, shitty single-core PC was almost the same as playing them at medium-to-high on a brand-new machine. The biggest limitation in visual quality was that the resolution was limited to 720p, but given it's not that much worse quality than 1080p, that could be borne. The tech's gotten a lot better already, as has internet connectivity in the UK.

The headache will be the USA, where connectivity quality is all over the place.

It's really not that likely. Streaming games is still not a terribly good way to play them or a terribly efficient business model.

I think it's inevitable. It's good for the customer in terms of cost (you don't need a £700 minimum gaming PC, even a cheap-arse laptop should be able to handle it, or a tablet) and it allows companies to keep pushing technical boundaries without being limited to a closed-development system for years on end.

I would agree that the business model is iffy right now due to the technical issues, but ten years from now it should have been easily overcome. Playing them isn't a problem at all, it's indistinguishable from playing directly on your console/PC.

Obviously there are big problems with mods (though OnLive allegedly had a plan to get around that by remotely allowing mods to be made and hosted), DLC and the whole 'owning your game' concept, which is why I think it'll be approached more like Netflix for games to start with.

Simply on the face of it (and this is part of what fucked OnLive) streaming games increases the hardware requirements. You still need the computer running it but now you also need a terminal.

You're right that this is what screwed OnLive. They were a small, essentially start-up company and the amount of money they had to operate the service was not substantial. That's why a more established company coming in should do better. We'll see how Sony does next year with the PS4 service, which will be an important litmus test for the concept.

And then there's the lag issues.

When I did it, there were no lag issues. OTOH, when you have 10 million people logging in on Day 1 to play GTA7 or whatever, that might be a different story.

[Clueless Northman]

That's the whole point. You get rid of the need of high-end expensive PCs and more people will then play them.

Incidentally, this is the way the entire market is going. There is a good chance that PS4/XB1 will be the last conventional console generation (and if it isn't, the next lot will certainly be). After that, the way forwards will be devices capable of streaming games at high speed from remote servers. You'll never buy a game on disc again, just be able to play instantly remotely.

Well, this would work if the cost of the box is actually ridiculously low, as in 200$. Then, it would make sense to buy expensive games, instead of waiting for dirt-cheap sales 2 years after release, or go with P2P.

Then, we would've gone from an era where the cost of buying the hardware would be 95% of the total cost (pretty much every game being easily copied back in the day) to an era where the games would be 95% of the cost.

But still, people would need to have some basic computer - though it means mostly that we'd need our current gear to last for the next 20 years, since they'd probably be good enough for non-gaming activities way into the 2020s :D

[The Anti-Targ]

Yes, Onlive was the trailblazer, destined to go out in a blaze oif glory only for others to eventually use it's dead corpse as a footstool to success in the game streaming department.

Sony is committed to it in the coming generation by making PS4 "backwards compatible" with PS3 through Gaikai. I can even see Sony going the way of a PSN+ Premuim sevice where you pay a bit more and you get to play the PS4 library via streaming rather than buying the games.

I would like to see a world where there are multiple hardware providers, even if there are only a few OS's. I prefer a console world that looks more like PC on the hardware front, but without the dominance of a single OS provider.

[Kalbear]

FYI- nvidias pax booth was basically nothing but top of the line games being streamed. That was their whole deal. It was pretty impressive.

[Kalbear]

Also, no hardware locking isn't about a performance issue - it's about having to deal with really shitty driver concerns. It makes programming to gaming systems infinitely more complex and painful.

[Shryke]

A streaming service allows the user to save because it offloads almost all the cost onto the business. And that's the problem.

Unless they find some other way to run these games, you are basically talking about having racks of, like, PS3s in a warehouse somewhere. One for each simultaneous user.

[Francis Buck]

Some new stuff for MGSV, including an english version of the trailer and a decent amount of gameplay. I've never really played any of the MGS games, but this one has me interested. The daytime gameplay (I didn't watch the night one) looked really cool and very smooth. The graphics are great too.

I'm still kind of baffled as to why the voice acting in these games is so fucking awful though. They're super popular, have a ton of credibility, and they must make a lot of money. I mean it has to be one of the bigger Japanese franchises in the West, no? And yet the bad guy is almost hilariously bad. I was actually intrigued when I heard Kiefer Sutherland was playing Big Boss, because the dude who played Snake before was fucking pathetic. I mean I know that for longtime fans it's kind of part of the charm, but shit man, I could never take it seriously whatsoever. I'd rather listen to the Japanese voice.

That being said, the game mechanics sound really cool. Open-world military stealth action is a pretty unique crossbreed. I'm actually really looking forward to this for next-gen.

[Werthead]

Unless they find some other way to run these games, you are basically talking about having racks of, like, PS3s in a warehouse somewhere. One for each simultaneous user.

Or rather having several massive supercomputers which can handle hundreds of simultaneous connections simultaneously.

The problem with criticisms of the streaming process - "It doesn't work, it's impractical!" - is that it's been shown to work just fine via OnLive and Gaikai, and apparently in a moderately profitable way by the latter. OnLive tanking was more down to its own failures with communication, PR and advertising than any flaws with the technical aspect of the thing. Gaikai did well enough for Sony to snatch it up and have it run their entire back catalogue (not just PS3, but also PS1 and 2 games as well).

Whether it's viable for big-budget, Triple AAA releases on release day is another question. The SimCity debacle suggests you need a massive infrastructure to cope with something like that. Sony could do it, but given their long-term economic trajectory has been downward for a decade or so, they might not be able to invest the required money. But we'll see.

[Shryke]

Or rather having several massive supercomputers which can handle hundreds of simultaneous connections simultaneously.

Which don't exist at this point and aren't looking to any time soon. This isn't a problem you can just throw a powerful server at.

The problem with criticisms of the streaming process - "It doesn't work, it's impractical!" - is that it's been shown to work just fine via OnLive and Gaikai, and apparently in a moderately profitable way by the latter. OnLive tanking was more down to its own failures with communication, PR and advertising than any flaws with the technical aspect of the thing. Gaikai did well enough for Sony to snatch it up and have it run their entire back catalogue (not just PS3, but also PS1 and 2 games as well).

Whether it's viable for big-budget, Triple AAA releases on release day is another question. The SimCity debacle suggests you need a massive infrastructure to cope with something like that. Sony could do it, but given their long-term economic trajectory has been downward for a decade or so, they might not be able to invest the required money. But we'll see.

So your examples are 2 companies, one of which failed and was bought out on the dirt cheap for the maybe potential of it's technology?

Streaming Gaming is simply not anywhere close to ready for the big time and the costs associated with the back end are some of the biggest issues.

[kungtotte]

Streaming is never really going to be good enough for hardcore gamers because the laws of physics dictates that there will be additional lag. Even if you have massively distributed data centers and decked out infrastructure so that everyone is rolling with sub-10ms ping that's still an unacceptable amount of extra lag for any multiplayer game and would be pretty annoying for games dependent on timing even in singleplayer.

And realistically you won't achieve those kinds of pings for most people, it'll be more like 50-100ms and that is pretty insane.

[Alcibiades]

Today's Steambox announcement doesn't mean a whole lot. They're just saying that, next year, someone will sell you a computer with SteamOS already on it. They're hinting at a controller or something to do with input tomorrow.

[Werthead]

If people talking about the lag issue can go away and play at least two games on a streaming service for at least 30 hours and then get back to me, that'd be great.

Otherwise don't keep telling me it's laggy and impractical when it is neither of those things based on playing a pretty intensive action game (Space Marine) and an RPG (DE:HM) to completion on such a service two years ago when both the streaming technology and internet connectivity was inferior to what is available now, let alone what we'll have a few years down the line. I'm starting to have flashbacks to the people who were going mental when Steam launched screaming that no-one was ever going to buy a game online as it'd take far too long to download it and the infrastructure wasn't up to it.

Today's Steambox announcement doesn't mean a whole lot. They're just saying that, next year, someone will sell you a computer with SteamOS already on it. They're hinting at a controller or something to do with input tomorrow.

Yeah, this was a bit crap. They need to say which manufacturers are on board, what specs they are looking at and what the prospective price will be. These are fundamental questions. At least the boxes look somewhat small and unobtrusive in the picture, though again it's going to be a question whether people will want an extra box to put next to their console, DVR/satellite/cable box etc, or have the room for it.

They did at least confirm you could take SteamOS off and put Windows on if you wanted to. Also, interestingly, you can modify the source code of SteamOS, so people can take what Valve's done and tailor it if they think they can improve on it or get more performance out of it. Also, the Valve box sounds like it's going to be a heavy hitter, with maximum customisability. The others will be more locked and based around aspects such as graphics power, media sharing or 'quietness', apparently.

I'm not sure if the multi-model approach is the way to go. If you're going for simplicity, having half a dozen different varieties seems a good way of diluting it. Valve really seem to be aiming this more at their existing audience than bringing in a new one, which is interesting but possibly ultimately futile.

[Merentha]

I mean, I really like my current set-up, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to happily let Valve try whatever they want.

[kungtotte]

If people talking about the lag issue can go away and play at least two games on a streaming service for at least 30 hours and then get back to me, that'd be great.

I bought a 120Hz monitor because a 60Hz monitor doesn't refresh fast enough for competitive multiplayer.

In that light, why do you think that any extra lag incurred by the system would not be a problem for me?

[Fez]

If people talking about the lag issue can go away and play at least two games on a streaming service for at least 30 hours and then get back to me, that'd be great.

I regularly get lag just from streaming Netflix. I feel like a game would be considerably more taxing on my internet service.

[Werthead]

I regularly get lag just from streaming Netflix. I feel like a game would be considerably more taxing on my internet service.

That's why any such service depends on how good your internet infrastructure is. If it's rubbish, then clearly it's not going to work very well. Valve (and Sony for that matter) are banking on it improving rapidly in the near future (within the next decade). It is possible for it to do so: my connection with Virgin Broadband, which has always been the basic package, went from 5mpbs to 30mpbs in about five years as they improved the technology. Of course, the USA is considerably larger so it will presumably take longer. But with these streaming services the argument will be how long the USA's technological inferiority (in this area, for understandable reasons) can hold back Europe and Asia from enjoying such services.