Server based game augmentations. The transition to cloud. Really possible?

[Billy Idol]

Never going to work where I live. SO, if I am playing with people with good connections while I have a 512kbps connection, will the game disable cloud computing for all? Or will I see the game different than others ? Or will I be not allowed to play the game at all !!

If the game cannot cater to all without the cloud, the game limits its audience, if the game can cater to all without using cloud support for calculations, then that means devs have to make sure those calculations don't affect the gameplay at all !

What are game devs going to do with such a system which either makes their game "unplayable(no-buy)" for half of the world ........... or.............makes sure the extra work they put in for the cloud based effects doesn't really affect gameplay at all?

They recommend 1.5Mbps in the yesterday released official statements. With 512kbps...you are not their target customer.

 

[joker454]

Never going to work where I live. SO, if I am playing with people with good connections while I have a 512kbps connection, will the game disable cloud computing for all? Or will I see the game different than others ? Or will I be not allowed to play the game at all !!

If the game cannot cater to all without the cloud, the game limits its audience, if the game can cater to all without using cloud support for calculations, then that means devs have to make sure those calculations don't affect the gameplay at all !

What are game devs going to do with such a system which either makes their game "unplayable(no-buy)" for half of the world ........... or.............makes sure the extra work they put in for the cloud based effects doesn't really affect gameplay at all?

My hope is that their data from last gen has showed them that the majority of their customers are online, and hence they can make online a requirement now. That would cut out guys in your position. I don't want to sound selfish and all but at some point things just have to keep moving forward, they can't be held back by edge cases otherwise it hurts everyone else and stifles new ideas. In your case you will miss out on these new types of cloud based games because of your more limited internet where you live, but ultimately there will be other games with no online requirement that you can move on to on the other platform and still get your more traditional style shooter fix.

 

[Boxercide]

They recommend 1.5Mbps in the yesterday released official statements. With 512kbps...you are not their target customer.

I still don't see how this is anything real time. I assume that's little 'b' as in bits, not bytes. I have a pretty nice connection averaging ~30 down. But the .5 MB upload is BRUTAL. I'm not uploading data at that slow rate, getting it processed, and then Dling it again.

 

[Strange]

I still don't see how this is anything real time. I assume that's little 'b' as in bits, not bytes. I have a pretty nice connection averaging ~30 down. But the .5 MB upload is BRUTAL. I'm not uploading data at that slow rate, getting it processed, and then Dling it again.

Yes that's bits.

1.5 Mbps is 192KB/s theoretical max.

100Mbps (which is pretty top tier. I have for 100Mbps/20Mbps in Taiwan, for about ~1500NT=~50USD/month), or 10M/100M Ethernet is around 12.5MB/s.

Most people usually have 100M Ethernet at home. The bright ones know that upgrading your home LAN to Gigabit is priceless. :smile:

 

[RenegadeRocks]

My hope is that their data from last gen has showed them that the majority of their customers are online, and hence they can make online a requirement now. That would cut out guys in your position. I don't want to sound selfish and all but at some point things just have to keep moving forward, they can't be held back by edge cases otherwise it hurts everyone else and stifles new ideas. In your case you will miss out on these new types of cloud based games because of your more limited internet where you live, but ultimately there will be other games with no online requirement that you can move on to on the other platform and still get your more traditional style shooter fix.

Frankly speaking, I am not an edge case, but all developing countries have that limitation. I get 4mbps, but only for 10GBs(I manage above 20 GB in that) but after that mine and for everyone in my country, the download speed drops down to 512kbps. Upload speed is always 512kbps, no matter what plan you choose. Going by that, instead of spreading gaming and spreading their product to newer countries, MS is limiting its product to just a few developed nations. Yes, it is spreading it to families and non gamers in those countries but making their product unviable for all others. I have been a gamer since i saw them cartridges and no console, untill now, has banned me from buying it like this !?!

Anyways, that was not my question. My question was : What good is the cloud for the developers if all the people can't access it? Is spending money on a cloud reliant game worthwhile if it cuts down on sales numbers, as a lot of gamers can't play it? Why would any developer want to limit their audience? and if they make the cloud stuff optional, in the sense that it doesn't affect gameplay, then is the time and money spent on that tech worthwhile?

I don't see a 'win' situation for the developer anywhere. They are losing ppl who were earlier their customers ! The new Titan game from Respawn is rumoured to use cloud services for AI and physics. My whole country has lapped up their CODs since forever and now my whole country cannot buy their game ! Add to that a new console already has lesser number of customers. Isn't that stupid?

and if the AI and physics doesn't affect gameplay, then why is someone paying for all thiose cloud servers anyway and working on all that tech too.

Where is the carrot for the devs? i don't see it !

 

[Strange]

Frankly speaking, I am not an edge case, but all developing countries have that limitation. I get 4mbps, but only for 10GBs(I manage above 20 GB in that) but after that mine and for everyone in my country, the download speed drops down to 512kbps. Upload speed is always 512kbps, no matter what plan you choose. Going by that, instead of spreading gaming and spreading their product to newer countries, MS is limiting its product to just a few developed nations. Yes, it is spreading it to families and non gamers in those countries but making their product unviable for all others. I have been a gamer since i saw them cartridges and no console, untill now, has banned me from buying it like this !?!

Anyways, that was not my question. My question was : What good is the cloud for the developers if all the people can't access it? Is spending money on a cloud reliant game worthwhile if it cuts down on sales numbers, as a lot of gamers can't play it? Why would any developer want to limit their audience? and if they make the cloud stuff optional, in the sense that it doesn't affect gameplay, then is the time and money spent on that tech worthwhile?

I don't see a 'win' situation for the developer anywhere. They are losing ppl who were earlier their customers ! The new Titan game from Respawn is rumoured to use cloud services for AI and physics. My whole country has lapped up their CODs since forever and now my whole country cannot buy their game ! Add to that a new console already has lesser number of customers. Isn't that stupid?

and if the AI and physics doesn't affect gameplay, then why is someone paying for all thiose cloud servers anyway and working on all that tech too.

Where is the carrot for the devs? i don't see it !

I'm also quite bewildered that Respawn Games actually bought into it. EA mindset perhaps?

 

[MfA]

Where is the carrot for the devs? i don't see it !

Money from Microsoft ... also freebies. Earlier access to tools and specs, free advertising, waving of some fees, free on site devrel programmers, etc. There's a lot of ways they can incentivize developers without handing out money.

 

[Rangers]

Money from Microsoft ... also freebies. Earlier access to tools and specs, free advertising, waving of some fees, free on site devrel programmers, etc. There's a lot of ways they can incentivize developers without handing out money.

kinda OT but IW always seemed to prefer Xbox anyway. COD's always ran significantly better on Xbox, etc.

So simple developer preference/bias probably also played in.

 

[joker454]

Frankly speaking, I am not an edge case, but all developing countries have that limitation. I get 4mbps, but only for 10GBs(I manage above 20 GB in that) but after that mine and for everyone in my country, the download speed drops down to 512kbps. Upload speed is always 512kbps, no matter what plan you choose. Going by that, instead of spreading gaming and spreading their product to newer countries, MS is limiting its product to just a few developed nations. Yes, it is spreading it to families and non gamers in those countries but making their product unviable for all others. I have been a gamer since i saw them cartridges and no console, untill now, has banned me from buying it like this !?!

Where do you want to draw the line? If you are more concerned about everyone being able to play then the $499 console price point restricts untold millions of people around the world from being able to play. Should the new consoles then target a $149 price point? That would ban far less people from being able to play, in your country and others, so would you want that? Or do you just want what doesn't affect you? Where do you draw the line so that the majority of people don't as you say get banned from playing?

Anyways, that was not my question. My question was : What good is the cloud for the developers if all the people can't access it? Is spending money on a cloud reliant game worthwhile if it cuts down on sales numbers, as a lot of gamers can't play it? Why would any developer want to limit their audience? and if they make the cloud stuff optional, in the sense that it doesn't affect gameplay, then is the time and money spent on that tech worthwhile?

New consoles by definition limit their audience. To get things moving forward you have to give people a reason to buy in, and providing new experiences is a major part of that. Plus it's a chicken and egg question, it has to be standard and required otherwise devs will not be able to use it as effectively as they could. They will always have to deal with internet issues, but if they also have to consider the fact that cloud is totally optional and they have to effectively make two games then most won't bother and we're back to square one. It has to become standard otherwise cloud gaming won't advance.

 

[XpiderMX]

The cloud computing is marketing (Avalanche Studios):

http://gamingbolt.com/interview-wit...loud-functionality-pushed-as-a-marketing-tool

 

[Scott_Arm]

The cloud computing is marketing (Avalanche Studios):

http://gamingbolt.com/interview-wit...loud-functionality-pushed-as-a-marketing-tool

And in the same interview he says this:

Of course it can be used to perform high-latency computations, but it won’t really increase your FPS or anything like that. That is not to say that the cloud functionality isn’t an advantage, it’s a great advantage! It offloads the burden of running a backend infrastructure for connected games, which is a huge win and opens up for very interesting game designs

 

[joker454]

I'll cast my vote and say hey, why don't we actually give the brain power around the world a chance to see what they can do with cloud over the next few years before declaring it dead in the water. The good news is that there is finally a platform with cloud computing support standard, now let's see what happens with it.

 

[MfA]

And in the same interview he says this:

So basically saying the same thing I said earlier, Microsoft can offer an unbeatable deal on server resources for multi-player games (and is irrelevant for single player games, although I'm sure Microsoft will try to pay a lot of devs to convince us all games are better off as multiplayer and failing ala Sim City).

 

[Scott_Arm]

So basically saying the same thing I said earlier, Microsoft can offer an unbeatable deal on server resources for multi-player games (and is irrelevant for single player games, although I'm sure Microsoft will try to pay a lot of devs to convince us all games are better off as multiplayer and failing ala Sim City).

Connected games can still be single player. Maybe this will make co-op campaigns more prevalent.

 

[TrungGap]

I'll cast my vote and say hey, why don't we actually give the brain power around the world a chance to see what they can do with cloud over the next few years before declaring it dead in the water. The good news is that there is finally a platform with cloud computing support standard, now let's see what happens with it.

Rant>
I agree...A few years ago (6+), I worked on an application that was connected. Meaning the business logic was on our servers, however the grunt work was on the client local machine. It would perform predefined functions. It was because we want to control (update) the business logic without requiring the user to patch their software. Of course, that was a long time ago...I imagine with future games, even single player games can be server/cloud driven. This allows more dynamic story telling...Games, that can aggregate news to make the environment more lively. Or imagine, if a lot of people are buying house in their games, and that somehow influence the price you'll be paying for in your game.

Now, of course all this could be done locally and the concept of cloud assisted gaming isn't the same notion as server driven game...but the point is the developers must be slowly rethink/learn how develop games. We must start somewhere to understand about latency, distributed jobs, and the all the other networking goodies. We must redraw the boundaries.

I would love it, if they allow some sort of asynchronous job processing, so the game could be offline the job would continue to run...now, that would be awesome. This would open up new game possibilities.

And I'm glad there's a platform(s -- com'on Sony you know you want to do this) that's allowing devs to do this...Now, it won't be perfect. It might be not successful (in term of cost vs benefits). It won't be easy. But it's a start. LIVE is not where it is today without the original xbox's LIVE.
</Rant

 

[Silenti]

Just a note. I cannot provide a link as it was something I read in the past couple of days and the potential significance of only just hit me. The 300,000 servers is both Xbox Live AND Azure. The quote was from MS itself, and not just an article. Last I saw people were still debating whether it was just new servers for Xbox Live or if they were counting Azure.

 

[joker454]

but the point is the developers must be slowly rethink/learn how develop games. We must start somewhere to understand about latency, distributed jobs, and the all the other networking goodies. We must redraw the boundaries.

Yup, I couldn't agree more! Devs arguably have had similar redrawing of boundaries over the years like going from floppy/cartridge format to cd, or going from 2d to 3d. Each of those hops required rethinking games and game design. I remember the first time I played The 7th Guest and was like wow this is cool, everyone was talking about that game at the time and it sold many cd drive ad-ons. Or playing Metal Gear Solid on Playstation 1 and seeing what optical disc + 3d can offer to gaming. So, what will be the cloud based game that gives me those same feelings of wow, now this is something new. It may take a few years but either way I'm excited to see what develops.

 

[Tap In]

Just a note. I cannot provide a link as it was something I read in the past couple of days and the potential significance of only just hit me. The 300,000 servers is both Xbox Live AND Azure. The quote was from MS itself, and not just an article. Last I saw people were still debating whether it was just new servers for Xbox Live or if they were counting Azure.

no Azure was well on its way to over a million alone a couple years ago. what he meant was they were adding 300k more (they are actually adding 10-20k/mo as they grow) but Live WILL be incorporated worldwide into Azure server farms spread world wide

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Where do you want to draw the line? If you are more concerned about everyone being able to play then the $499 console price point restricts untold millions of people around the world from being able to play. Should the new consoles then target a $149 price point? That would ban far less people from being able to play, in your country and others, so would you want that? Or do you just want what doesn't affect you? Where do you draw the line so that the majority of people don't as you say get banned from playing?

Does that change the fact that countries, whole of their population, who can afford gaming have been lost as potential customers? They are losing customers who are already there, already loyal to them.

You can stretch the argument in any direction for the sake of arguing, I wouldn't go that way.

I can understand MS proclaiming cloud power as its a console manufacturer who wants to show that its product is better. The question I asked was why would a developer limit its audience doublefold by making it mandatory in its game? LIke you said, a new console has a smaller install base, on top of that only a few have access to the cloud. It is weird unless MS stuffs them u with money more than what they will lose by losing those customers. I don't see every dev going that way at all. With every studio trying to go multiplatform and reach as many ppl as possible, only a suicidal dev would want to limit its sales that are already limited due to exclusivity. I don't see any dev not funded by MS using it. or Why would a any dev, unless bribed by MS, use it? it goes against selling their game.

I wanted to know, if there was actually a carrot for them , other than MS money.

 

[Billy Idol]

I'll cast my vote and say hey, why don't we actually give the brain power around the world a chance to see what they can do with cloud over the next few years before declaring it dead in the water. The good news is that there is finally a platform with cloud computing support standard, now let's see what happens with it.

Agreed. Back then, people also did not believe that Cell could be useful and help to achieve parity or in some first party games achieving state of the art, even here at B3D. It took a while...most devs hated it/still hates it...but it did happen.

So I think we should really wait and see. I learned that some of the devs out there are smart people that will come up with creative ways to use whatever resource you throw at them and especially some of the really like the challenge of a new tec.

Whereas the majority of them will probably use it in a standard way like dedicated servers, I really think that at least first parties will surprise us