Arstechnica has an article up which talks about the future of gaming and its relation to the “cloud”. It brings up some interesting points, and also include some feedback from Stardock’s own Brad Wardell.
"The concept of virtual storage is to let a player’s 'stuff' become ubiquitous—accessible from anywhere. This way, they don’t have to worry about a new machine losing their mods or saved games or other key data," Stardock CEO and president Brad Wardell told Ars. "I am pretty convinced that it is going to become the dominant way for games to deal with transient data. When implemented correctly—that is, store it locally in the event the user loses 'Net access or the service is down, and store it on the cloud when possible—you end up with a much better customer experience while decreasing the support costs for the developer."
Read the full article over at Ars!
I rare agreement from me as well.
Let's not forget, piracy isn't just external. How do you think movies and albums and games wind up hitting the public before they are even released. There doesn't seem to be a lot of love between employers and employees in the game industry, especially if success means long hours to layoff. There are leaks in the system, and when there is a leak, that copy gets pirated and hacked... this is not going to be a perfect DRM system. I think cloud computing is a DRM system trying to be disguised as something else. Only when cloud saves and etc are an option for paying customers will I think otherwise. It's not really a service if its forced on you.
There will be "Cloud Saves" , Nesrie. At least if you're talking about being able to save your game progress. Most people don't have the time to sit down and play through a whole game all at once. As such players will have to save their progress. I know OnLive will have lots of games at launch that require you to "Save your game" in Mid play. People still need to eat, sleep, and go to work and school.
Don's completely right though. I say more or less the same thing in a few posts and my bigger post on the subject. The only people in the Gaming Community who will benefit from "Cloud Gaming" are the companies that run it. My only worry is that it will prove so successful there won't be any consoles made anymore and there won't be a need for average consumers to buy High End PC's. All the consoles and their games will be integrated into their own "Cloud Systems".
You completely misunderstood what i was saying. I have heard of cloud saves. I know what they are and how they work. Here is the difference though, you have some publishers mentioning cloud saves a service, as an option, as something that allows you to save to your own box and to their server, aka locally and externally, the benefit being a new box, no problem, no transfers, just grab it from your account. then you have Ubisoft cloud saves only, no internet connection, yanking of the server, fu paying customer, buy our new games. one is a service, one is DRM both fall under clouding saving. I have no idea where you got the idea that i was saying if there will be cloud saves, they have them now.
as if someone wont be able to hack the cloud. damn water drops are are rusting out my sword!!!
Ahh, yes, I see now. I wasn't sure if you knew exactly what that kind of "Cloud Save" was. It seems you do . My mistake.
Yes, hackers can try to hack the Cloud. The difference is when a hacker tries to hack the Cloud the Police will be able to trace them, or the companies will trace them and hand their address to the Police, and the hacker will go to jail for trying to hack into a protected system to steal video games.
The FBI and CIA track down hackers attempting to hack government systems every day. I'm sure a Multi-Million Dollar gaming company can do the same thing and they probably can do it with better tech then the government..lol.
As Nesrie already mentioned, Piracy would have to become more internal than external; developers or people in the company releasing the game to the internet and allowing it to be pirated. This happens now, again as Nesrie mentioned, however it would become the sole supply of pirated games if Cloud Gaming was adopted as the normal method of game delivery. The problem is that companies would have the ability to restrict access to the final code, or minimise the list of possible people, apply some reasoning and prosecute. Gone is the provided anonmity of the 'internet pirate' - they'd know it was their own employees and the backlash would be immese. Employees would then be treated like criminals; like the way Activision treats its employees now.
It's difficult to respond to all of the sentiments at once, but here goes. In regards to MMO's being a pay-for-play model and that they are not well supported, I almost agree. The one way that I sever my agreement is that they are better supported than any other games out there. Excepting only those games that have allowed community-based support (I can't say anything bad about such standards except for they have horrible tax consequences to the IP holder).
As for the idea that I would be upset that there is a mandatory subscription fee, I'm scoffing. I welcome a subscription fee. I hate that I have to pay full price for a game that I may play three times and then never play again (DoW2). Or a game that I buy at full price and then because they're scrambling to recover losses or make final gains, they sell for a third of what I paid for it (DG). You have to remember that with subscription fees comes new opportunities for competition (for example, groups like Team 17 might offer all of their games ever made for one subscription fee).
As for abuse of fees for the cost of gaming this is already present in the ever-increasing introductory cost of games. You have a group of people in a small office meeting room that have some schmo pretending that he poured over the numbers to come up with the ideal price, when in reality, he got on Amazon and figured out how much the competitors were charging and he added five bucks. Then the publishers negotiate the right to put their surcharge on it and to have certain promotions. This system has to stop. It is not based on market demand as there is no immediate indication of whether people would stop purchasing at a certain price. An immediate indicator of a bad price is when 3000 people who were subscribing suddenly stop paying one month.
I can't speak to the security of pirates because for every better mousetrap there will live a stainless steel rat.
Well this is a hit or miss. Some MMOs have a long life and great support, great communities. Some stand alone games also have great support and great communities. My point is, however, not that MMOs are bad, but that they prove, so far, that just because there is a subscription involved, doesn't mean that the level of support, the quality of a game, that anything is going to be better. More money to the publisher/developer does not equate to a better gaming experience for gamers necessarily.
Please show me, outside of so called F2P MMO games, where we're looking out subscription fees INSTEAD of box prices. I have had this beef with MMOs for awhile, that they want their 50-60 bucks up front PLUS sub fees right out the door. I just don't see publishers walking out into a room and saying hey, here's the thing, we want to sell you Dragon Age or MW 2 not for a 50-60 dollar price tag but 10 dollars a month even though we know that most of you will burn through the game in one or two months. Or maybe they lump them together and toss in some throw away games and it's 60 bucks a month for one AAA title and bunch of crap no one wants.
I think the pricing for games in general is all over the map. Some games are sold for 10x more than they are worth, fail and leave the customer with a fancy toaster and no support, others are very well made but get no attention because they don't make sexy cover art for IGN, Gamestop, or any of the traditional places games are marketed and don't hit retail shelves at all.
It's not mine. So feel free. =D
I have read up to this point and I wanted to say great post. This is exactly what I was thinking. Prepare to pay
Be afraid be very afraid...
Great post
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