A video that needed to be made. If the PS4 featured native backwards compatibility then the extra cost to the system would still be a better deal than what they're trying to sell to us with Playstation Now. Even some of the system's biggest releases are ports of PS3 games barely a year old. It's really scandalous if not desperate.
Lots of truth in your comment.Many of them said backwards compatibility was unimportant to them. Next-Gen is here, nobody wants to play those old last-gen games. Well somebody does dammit, because all these remakes,remasters,and definitive editions are posting record sales numbers. Its crazy.
Sony would have to add the Cell CPU (which is purely computationally more powerful than the CPU in PS4). The PS4 with backwards compatibility would probably cost $600. That would be a shot in the foot.
That's a lot of money upfront (some of the cost could be softened by trading your PS3, which would be pointless to keep if the PS4 had backwards compatibility) but I think use of Playstation Now over the console's life cycle asks for much more. I'm sure there's a better long term solution out there that won't have new gamers hunting down over-priced PS3s in ten to twenty years time.
Well, Lets look at some real world numbers. PS4- $400 Remakes,Remasters, Definitive editions@ new prices. Tomb Raider $50 Last Of Us $50 Metro Redux $50 GTA V $60 Sleeping Dogs $60 Another 30 dollars or so in taxes and your well over 600 dollars , not counting another controller and a playstation plus membership. 600 dollars for a PS4 with BC doesnt look so bad.
Google's Stadia, or the "Netflix of videogames", is taking this idea to a new level, being compatible across multiple consoles. As AAA games become increasingly costly and consoles' services and maintenance end up resembling more and more a computer's (often without the corresponding perks), the sole reason to buy a gaming platform becomes the inferor price for the same features and the exclusive titles. In my optimistic dreams I thought one day consoles would become too inconvenient to be sustainable, and that cheap but powerful PCs couls onw day replace the whole gaming market via their emulators... But now I have a crawling suspect that a sole platform could hog the whole market via gaming-as-a-service only deal, which is literally the worst possible situation for a consumer
'Games as a service' terrify me. I like to own things, archive things. I don't want to live in a world where my access to something I paid for can be grabbed away by some far off entity. I still play some of the first games I ever bought as a kid almost 2 decades ago. I am not sure that will be possible for plenty of kids just getting started in games today. This kind of service is just like all the cloud application disasters (because that is what we call network computing now) in the computing world. At least there, its an attractive pricing model and you can use it to get around needing an actual IT staff. The end of ownership means the end of a lot of our rights as consumers though. It also tethers us to corporate entities that in the end can only be counted on to care about their profits, not the games they have made.
it's not gonna work even if they force it down our throats, people can always roll back to last gen. if anything it should be terrifying risk that could end Sony or just make them stop producing gaming consoles. capitalism can be a very shady thing, but it's always run by the consumer.
People don't necessarily care much. No one minded when we switched from owning movies to streaming them for instance. Capitalism is 'run by the consumer' in that it comes down to their purchasing power in the end. However, consumers don't always make choices in their own best interest, especially when it is a short-term benefit with a long term cost. Plus, marketing can manipulate people to a truly impressive degree, and when all else fails companies can collude to force consumers. I see how DLC/ in game purchases have turned out, and I see what has been going on in other industries (clothing, internet, health products) and I have virtually no faith in the consumer to prevent companies from taking advantage of them.
the video game industry, much like anything in entertainment, is a free market. literally anyone can make a game with a copy of game maker or unity. unless some AAA company buys the rights to these types of software than I'm not worried. as for everything going digital I'm not worried about that either, if Sony or Microsoft dissolve and there online markets vanish turning consoles into bricks, I bet they'll sell the rights of there games to places like steam or GoG well before so, (or any other company for that matter). so you'll see games like Halo or Mgs4 pop up on steam or GoG reinvigorating the market. if you like having physical copy in your hand than I suggest you start collecting now whether or not they'll come back in the future ( -product X +time = $$$) it always worked like that, trust me things from when you where kid will always be stupidly expensive when your an adult. The other markets (clothing, health, food, etc.) are, however, corrupt as F***. I don't want to go too deep into it because of political crap will derail any conversation. but, yeah, video games you know and love will disappear along with your old tv and toys with time or a nuclear holocaust. but I doubt companies will go out of their way to make previous generation console games less obtainable, they trying to battle emulators not enthusiast
Well, first of all, I don't have much faith in free markets to fix things. Companies can be counted on to work towards making a profit and that is it, that does reliably lead to some outcomes, but it doesn't solve every kind of issue. Yes anyone (with a very specific set of skills) can make games. That doesn't mean that many games might not be lost. Additionally, publishers refuse to let I.P.s go all the time, even if they aren't doing anything with them. Few games would financially justify porting and updating anyway, even if the source code has been kept. (which is not a given) I also think you don't understand what I am saying. Yes, as long as emulators exist, older games can probably be played. (digital media are flimsy and fail pretty quickly. I do have a massive collection though :P) However, new games could become permanently locked on some server, streamed to players remotely, or at least contain crucial logic on servers the way MMOs do. That is the fear I am getting at. If that happens, then those games only need to be served as long as they are profitable (and the company exists to do so) then they can be deprecated and lost to everyone. Someone growing up as a kid in that world would never be able to go back and play their favorite childhood games when they grow up. A whole section of our culture would fade away. To some extent, this already exists. MMOs are shut down, sometimes without warning, and entire communities evaporate with them. (Private servers can be made in some cases, but that is incredibly labor intensive and very few games will justify it from the few people that are capable) Many of today's multiplayer titles, as well as some single player games especially on phones, also require servers that are never released to public domain. When these games are no longer turning a profit, they will be lost completely. This already happens, but people accept it for MMOs and no one thinks too much about the cultural significance of mobile games these days. People put up a fuss in the early days of non-persistent PC multiplayer games getting shut down, but being angry is tiring, so the companies just waited them out and no one seems to care much if a game loses all its functionality after a year anymore. If games are streamed from a server completely, then there really is no reverse engineering. You'd have to either remake all the assets and logic from scratch or break in and steal from the company. (A serious crime obviously) With music and video there is an 'analog hole' where you can always copy the data, but that doesn't work for games. This is great for companies because it means that no one is going to be pirating or reselling their titles. They control the entire supply forever. People may just accept it because it would make playing games a little more convenient as long as you have a connection. (no pesky files to download ahead of time or physical media to buy) Or companies might just keep pressing it, refuse to let exciting new titles be played otherwise, and gamers would eventually get tired of fighting and accept it like they always do.
This is what always worried me about buying digital. I'm not the most tech savvy guy and the thought of not having the ability to hold onto my product and say 'no, you can't have it back, I already paid for it' is something that has always worried me. I have realized over time that digital copies are actual saved files on a device so i'm not as turn't off by them as I used to, especially with smaller indie games that can't afford the shipping but this is just grim. They will have the power to drop their history as they please, 'What's that, you like Titanfall, we'll to bad it's sequels out and that's all you can play now!'
Exactly, at least you know that as long as your hard drive (which can be put in a new console if your old one breaks rather easily with a screwdriver) is still working that you can have that game forever unless it is multiplayer only (Titanfall much). Then when the game dev turns off the servers you are left with a useless disc (or a bunch of useless files if downloaded) that you can't sell off so you may as well just throw them away. With streaming you don't even get that choice. Its just"No more game for you. Now rent this sequel for £40.00 a month!". I dread that.
This video is important. I agree with your points, but even for somebody who doesn't agree this is a good launching point for healthy discussion on yet another gray-area topic.
Stanley Exactly. And that demo has UNLIMITED USES. I do want to get another copy of Bravely Default & beat that before I play Bravely second. I got the Bravely Default limited edition but wond up losing it. And let's just say that I'm never going to Chuck E Cheese ever again.
Really glad this video exists, cause it explains more eloquently than I could the reasons why I'm terrified by streamed games, which a lot of people don't seem to understand.
While I was in school studying for an MA in library science, I read a lot about the issues concerning offsite digital storage and how this ultimately means that libraries are often leasing or renting digital copies of books from publishing companies. While I agree that latency is a big concern with streaming games, I agree that the big concern is the issue of long-term preservation and curation. One paper I read describes how Amazon had retroactively removed the read-aloud functionality of an ebook, essentially taking away a feature that users had already paid for. I can certainly see certain game publishers doing something similar. Thanks for discussing this topic, George!
The Wii U isn't powerful compared to the Xbox One & PS4..... yet they managed to have a Wii emulator on their system & every game you bought for the WII you can play on the Wii U. Yet the consoles that are sold solely on power cannot do it.....hu....interesting. One of many reasons I don't want to buy an Xbox One or PS4.
Finally someone gets it! Nintendo has been avoiding the terrible habits of game companies for years, yet most people don't notice them at all. They are the opposite of everything wrong about the current gen.
wiias40 They aren't perfect, they rely too much on old IP & gimmicks, hardly ever make anything new that doesn't come under the casual gaming banner & there is the whole TH-cam copyright issue. But at least I can play my Wii games on their new system & at least I don't have to pay them so much a year to play games online. ....plus at least they have more variety than pretty graphics & shooters.
They say it's an architecture change to X86. But that's a bullshit reason because if I can run any console architecture with some easily acquirable software and some tinkering to set it up then the console makers can emulate the PowerPC architecture and Cell CPU architecture that the previous generations used. But if they did that, then their shareholders wouldn't be satisfied with their money making schemes.
ExtremeGamer9951 Yeah, just another example of componies lying to us in an attempt to cover up the fact that they are just trying to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. The annoying thing is they think we'll believe it.
This idea always struck as incredibly baffling. If TH-cam videos have trouble streaming through my internet, I see no appeal in streaming entire games through it.
Super Bunnyhop i just want to say you are becoming one of my favorite youtubers ever! I really enjoy your extremely informed and though-out videos that mention ideas and thoughts that even i may have not thought up or missed.It's very nice to know a gamer who isn't afraid to go against the big corporations.Thanks for your interesting content. KEEP IT UP!
Exactly what I've been thinking. Not just for games, but movies/TV. There's a reason I still stick to DVDs: the quality stays the same, the ads aren't between the movie, and you can easily select what scene you wanna watch.
Agreed on all points. This is a problem I foresaw when the most popular way to distribute games moved from physical box releases to digital-only releases. It's a slippery slope leading us into "the cloud" where we no longer have control or ownership of the "products" we purchase. Collecting and sharing games is a big part of this hobby for me. I enjoy sharing the history of gaming with newer gamers who might not have seen older games, and I can do that because I still have all my old hardware. The idea that a game I really love could disappear forever because I wasn't allowed to archive the data deeply saddens me.
As a PC user, my connection to a physical box has been gradually stripped down over a decade. The manual (if there’s one at all) comes on the disc, the disc itself is beholden to an online account on a third-party software. But it’s also a free market and incredibly difficult for publishers to have the kind of control of their product that they want. If consumers aren't happy with the availability, they’ll just distribute it themselves. Games on the PC are effectively as immortal as they’ll ever be. Meanwhile the danger of your bleak prognosis on consoles seems too distant to worry about right now. Internet infrastructure is just not good enough to support a business model publishers have wet dreams about, and when Microsoft built the first ever console for publishers rather than consumers, the consumers rejected it.
Some people are probably making the jump from Xbox 360 to PS4 as well, I imagine, and as such might be interested in playing the PS3 exclusives they may have missed.
Why would they do that? It has a vast back library of great games, it's cheap, the console lasts for years without tech problems (8+ years on mine, not a single technical issue aside from replacing the odd controller and I do use it regularly), the games are cheap too... It... err.... I've forgotten what my point was but yeah, who wants that outdated hunk of junk when you can have the PS4!... And all the other shit that comes with it.
Sidney Turner You can emulate those, however. Even Sony offers PS1 games as a digital download that you own more than if you just streamed them on PSNow. The hardware of the PS4 is plenty powerful enough to use software emulation of both PS1 and possibly PS2 games. There is no reason for you to believe that the physical console is absolutely the only way to play them. Because right now even if it was, it's not like PSNow supports PS1 or PS2.
That's not true, Sony sell new PS2's on Amazon for £130/$200. And the shelf-life of a disk is much longer (assuming it has been taken good care of) than a consoles. As long as the disk is clean it'll work for many many years so new game disks are pretty redundant for now.
Also worth noting that on PC Diablo 3 and Simcity have already pretty successfully used a kinda "semi" streaming model, where large parts of the game are managed on their servers. From my understanding emulators for those servers have been created, though not sure how well those work. That has brought up the exact same issues of "what happens when servers go away" as straight up streaming, and IMO is worth being as wary about.
My response to PSNow is: Oh hey there, Wii U! What's that? You're still glorifying physical copies and keeping the history of gaming alive? Well sign me up!
This would definitely be my personal nail in the coffin for future generations of games I have enough titles i never managed to play from the last 30-40 years anyway..and there are so many incredible games that i probably won't feel the need for "new stuff with cool visuals" if i look at my "games to play" list there are somethin like 200-250 titles from all generations and consoles who received high praise...i would definitely prefer those than a streaming device heck, i still have something like 20 SUPER NINTENDO games i still have to play...i need to finish Planescape Torment...i've never played Journey...Pillars of eternity intrigues me so much...i have to finish Dragon age 2 and start Inquisition...and i'd love to play Faxanadu & Sweet home for NES.. i could go on all day yeah...i definitely won't miss the next-next gen consoles... Some people argue that this would be cool because even people with low specs machines would be able to play games that would require expensive consoles-computers...then make it an OPTION please...don't force it upon us! This video is one year and a couple of months old, and i tought that the fuzz was over, but i keep hearing this topic here and there..and i don't know what to think..
George, honestly, prior to watching this, I was on board for streaming being the future of the industry. Thanks for making this. Its brought to my attention the potential hazards of that format.
I tried it for a couple months once it went live as a monthly subscription option. crappy resolution, input lag, and it doesnt even fill the screen. I know sony is still sticking it out, but I dont think its going to last, especially with the data caps a lot of isp's have started doing.
I don't think streaming will become the norm. People think streaming has become the norm for music, but a third of record sales still come from physical CDs and people still buy bluray even though Netflix is a thing. It'll just be another option.
Streaming is definitely a change in medium delivery but we've seen it go through other mediums like music, movies, and more. Music streaming has been around for a number of years, yet I can still go to iTunes and order a digital download or burn it to a CD. It's kind of like the argument that cars replaced horse carriages. Of course they replaced them, but if you want to go ride a horse today you can do that and nobody is going to stop you. The issue with Input lag and artifacting is certainly a big one. My hope is that as we advance into these new technologies ISPs will be forced to upgrade the network. They certainly aren't going to do it today without major incentives. A google fiber connection has less than 1ms of ping/lag time and 946 mb/s throughput. This renders lag and artifacts imperceptible. I think a lot of your video is exceptionally valid and addresses a lot of the short term concerns around game streaming. I fully expect these concerns to be addressed in the coming years.
Could this shift to new technologies like streaming be an attempt to ditch old areas like improving graphics that are giving diminishing returns and moving into new areas of technology that have growth potential?
I'd say something you buy on Steam lasts longer than a hard copy. Some of the games I bought in the early 2000s no longer read properly because the disk was scratched(I know it's my fault, but that's not the point), yet my copy of Counter Strike Source from 2004 still works. I've changed 3 HDDs since then and I can just redownload it whenever I want to. Steam is in its 10th year now, and while some old games might last for 50 years there's no real guarantee that you're not going to unintentionally damage them. Digital distribution services might go down eventually but they'll probably last longer than your average CD, I don't see steam going down in the next 10-20 years although it's hard to say what might happen. You have to take care of your CDs and even then you might damage them but you don't have to care about whatever you bought on Steam, it's going to be there as long as Steam exists.
SGR SEAN well thus far it seems like steam will be around a lot longer than Sony will be... Xbox isn't doing that great either, it only recently (likely due to sales and gifts) has been picking up pace, but hey even if steam doesn't stay I still get to keep all my games, they've said even if they go under that the servers will stay up for a while so you can download all your games, so if need be I could go to the store and buy a pack of 100 blank DVDs tomorrow and save all my games onto disks for safe keeping (or obviously on a Hard Drive as well) can you say the same about your digital purchases?
You have a point about the physical media. But I don't like the Steam as a replacement - Steam going down is just one of the things to worry about. Right now Steam is in total control of my games that I have 'bought' from them. I can not download them for archiving on my own, I can not install it without their servers cooperating and I __can't play my games__ without their server giving a permission (off-line mode is very limiting and fragile and doesn't take the problem away). The only solution that I see as ethical is the GOG model. I buy a game form them and both have the conveyance and savings provided by digital download and centralized updates AND can download the installation, archive it on my private physical media and OWN it forever even if GOG disappears tomorrow. No DRM no online-to-play. People need to push for this to be the only viable option for publishers, and aggressively. It is stupid to trust cooperations, they are not people.
Viesturs Siliņš GOG actually lets you have a copy of the game? Huh. Maybe I'll consider repurchasing some of my current Steam games from them. I can have Minecraft and SimCity 4 forever, but yeah, if (or, rather, when) Steam goes down for good, I won't have Terraria or Audiosurf or Game Dev Tycoon.
***** Yes! The only GOG software they add is their unified installation GUI they include in the games (as they sell many of the good old games that where not working any more on latest Windows that they had to fix up to work) and the (optional!) download helper, but you can download the game installation in your browser as well. No DRM, no always running middle-ware. I can't recommend them enough. I have done just that multiple times - re-bought games I own on Steam so that I could run them without the Steam annoyances, so that I would support the GOG initiative and so that I would still have these games later.
A small extra factor to consider in all this: If streaming games becomes the norm, then I assume that every person who wants to play a game now needs two pieces of hardware - one for streaming the game, and one for streaming from. Which could mean anything up to double the material usage, by my count. And I can't help but wonder if we have the physical resources for that. Of course, it could be a lot less then double, as monitors aren't required for the streaming from system, and said system could also be much more powerful and capable of streaming multiple games at once, but then another issue crops up: What about DLC? I mean, if you buy the DLC, how would you make it so that it activates for you on the streaming service while also making sure it doesn't for someone else? Use a different machine for each permutation of DLC? do some sort of sending of your details over the signal to log into an online service - which not only assumes an online service exists (Although how would you do DLC otherwise, I suppose) but also seems to be a hacker's paradise if it's done wrong. Not to mention the part where the consoles in question essentially become always-online machines just like the Xbox One nearly was before just about everyone told Microsoft to shove that idea up their arses, for various good reasons which still exist for this streaming service if it becomes the only way to play games...
Thanks a lot Super Bunnyhop!! The gaming community, especially game journalists whose job is supposedly to understand at a deeper level the trends in video games, surrendered the medium to DRM networks like Steam very, very easily in the name of convenience and low prices. Streaming goes even further than DRM networks and it is necessary to start challenging it from the start and never accept even a single game that is exclusively available through this system.
I was stupid enough to think before that the $50 was for the ENTIRE SERVICE, as in, you'd have access to all the games available on the streaming service (kind of like PS+). Though 90 days would still be a poor amount of time.... But for *ONE GAME?* That's...just insulting. This is what big companies think of your value. That the difference between the value of a game you own (not really, but work with me) vs. one you rent is mere $10 (or less). There might be a trend of game consumption that says we play games less as time goes on, but that's not a reason to attempt capitalizing off of it, especially to the extreme of taking game access away.
Damn thats rough, thanks for the answer. $50 for 90 days MIGHT have been ok if you had to accumulate the days over time PLAYED. 90 days = 2160 hours. just a thought.
What scares me the most is that, should this really become the next main-way of purchasing games, I couldn't have ownage of the games I purchase. It wouldn't be more than a subscription, and should I ever want to play a game from 20 years ago, it would most certainly have been removed from the store already because it didn't prove to be profitable anymore. If there was any way to ensure that this will just be an alternative to owning the game physically or digitally, it would be an awesome addition to the market.
Have you seen the new (not that new anymore now though) Discord store? It doesn't work exactly the same like PlayStation Now, but it goes into a very similiar direction
Thank you for this video, hopefully this realization will cross more people. I can't stand this idea of a streaming only gaming world. Even if it is fixed and runs fluidly with a great pricing system, it still has an uphill battle to win me over as a dominant way to game. Giving up physical gaming just isn't something I'm fond of. Heck even with Netflix if I love the movie or show, I will look to buy it in physical form. ...and if Sony locks up Killzone's future in this stupid system, they lost a big costumer that's been with them for a long time, because I will not have anything to do with them if they start that kind of practice (and with one of my favorite franchises).
Yes. All this stuff is exactly why I'm against this streaming stuff in principle. I don't hate that it exists though. I can totally see how the idea of a "Netflix of games" could be a really good thing for a lot of people, but not me. I want to own my own games. I want access to them whenever and however I want. I don't want to have my game library subject to the whims of companies who only care about immediate profits. I don't want control latency or image artefacting. I want to play games the way they're supposed to be played, and I want them to be my games.
I guess I'm not too worried. Probably because of what you said about competitive gaming. No competitive gaming tournament is going to be using streaming, as long as there is any input lag. Furthermore, as you said, the modding community is huge and alive, and they aren't going to be buying games they can't access. I think (hope :P) those factor alone will keep streaming from becoming "standard". Very popular, perhaps (probably, we often forget how severely outnumbered we ar by "casuals" & monogamers, who don't care about these discussions, and just want to play games sometimes), but not an unavoidable standard.
Ironically the thing that could ride to the rescue here are bandwidth caps. It isn't tenable both to have these huge, bandwidth heavy streams and also caps with insane overage charges. Either bandwidth caps go or the streaming service model does.
The thing I'm most excited about when it comes to cloud gaming is the idea that you can now play high end games on low end hardware assuming you have the bandwidth to support it. Certain games can benefit from this, not all games are made to be extremely competitive or twitch heavy. Not to mention they can bump the graphical quality much higher than what typical consumer grade GPU's can handle. I've experienced this with a service called Gaikai which ironically enough is Playstation Now. I played dead rising 2 on a school PC during class with integrated graphics. The stream was silky smooth because of the bandwidth I was allowed and the graphics were higher than I could even handle on my home rig at the time and smoother too running as a solid 40/60 fps. That to me, is what cloud gaming is all about.
so far their isn't stream exclusive games, but netflix and hulu and even yahoo are already going that route, but with tv shows, people can always record them, with streaming video games, there can always be footage and let's play, but not being able to play it all. remember when flappy bird got pull off the app store or when the P.T demo got pulled? at least those had digital files which can be used, al beit with a bit of modding and hacking, but if they did that with streaming, the footage would exist, but no one would be able to play them.
Interesting. The concept of a massive multiplayer streaming and dealing with the stream to me then the online server...wow, that's a scary thought for Lag.
Also the reality that unless you have super great internet, the input lag is atrocious. I tried out the trial with FC3 on a vita and pc, and both times I literally could not get past the part where you have to hunt the boar because everything you do has insane input lag. My internet speed averages around 35-40 Mb/s
One benefit, though, that this would have is portability. Your small portable game device could stream a console game without having to use a lot of its own power. I think streaming has its place, though you are correct, SBH, that we need to tread carefully. Ideally, this will become ONE way to distribute a game, but never be the only profitable way.
depends. the 3 month rental for example has to be IRT. the hourly rentals I wouldn't know, probably also IRT since playing any solo campaign these days takes you less than 3 hours anyway lol
"see just how high they can jack these prices while still remaining viable/buyable" They lowered the prices at least once from the week and daily renting already
It saddens me that Sony ends up being the company that brings this anti-consumer satisfaction service to the table. I am completely against this service we are NOT IDIOTS! If Microsoft can so easily "turn off" their DRM policies then the PS4 can have backwards compatability. Greedy bastards; this makes me so mad and ultimately stopped me buying both consoles in this new generation.
The whole thing that George mentioned about big companies being able to rewrite gaming history due to the consumer's inability to physically archive the games (other than mere video recordings of gameplay) is exactly what they want. They know that the have oversaturated the market just like they did in the 80s and they know that a another crash is likely to happen and they know that another revival of the gaming industry is likely to happen afterwards because they know that history repeats itself. But with this they will be able to make these cycles of history happen more quickly do to the fact that we will have less to remind us of the mainstream casual bullshit tactics that they will inevitably use again to oversaturate the market after a previous crash.
I suppose it seems the best and lasting option at the moment is to just buy a ps3 if you want to play ps3 games? Shame since I am considering choosing a PS4 in the near future but I think I'm willing to wait off on that purchase if they can sort this out.
I was just thinking the same thing. Xbox 360 users who don't want the Xbone now have the choice between the PS3 OR PS4. PS3's seem to be going way down in price recently, and have an entire backlog of options for games, from Demon's Souls to Journey. Playstation is effectively competing with themselves! Think about how amazing the PS4 would be if it were backwards compatible(I've read a couple things as to why this would be hard, but lets idealize for a sec) People keep complaining about a lack of games on the new consoles, but if you were new to it, you would have a whole generation to fall back on.
As an avid video gamer, game collector and content creator of live gaming streams, it scares me just as much as the creator of this video how as we move on in time that the video game industry is literally trying hard to change video game history for the worse. His fears, although a little exaggerated possibly so for the sake of grabbing more attention, are founded with reason. If it were really the case that video game streaming took over as the primary distributor no one would benefit from this except the industry which you might think in return would mean better games and more content, but look at it this way; has a game with day one DLC or paid content ever had meaningful content come after it's release or years later? Most don't, as the paid post release content is planned pre-release and made even before release and sometimes added onto the disc. It isn't extra, it never was meant to be extra content, it was simply meant as paid unlocks / cheats and there are far too few game developers out there using DLC as a way to actually give more content post release and most of them recite on the PC market which is far more free of a platform than an enclosed console. DLC and the people who claimed it was only a good thing and supported it have seen the blanket of horrors they themselves have sown while the rest of us have been frowned upon for dealing criticism for what most people see as "nothing harmful". People are quick to brand valid arguments as "making them sound like Hitler" to devalue valid critique. Don't let this happen again as it did with DLC and become another painful thing video game enthusiasts like you and me are forced to endure because the soft casual market simply "doesn't care" and "pays for it anyway". They are the enablers but so are you by not voicing your opposition. Even if internet speeds were to increase and become less costly and the latency issues annihilated there's simply the fact that the whole world will never catch up to this well enough to become a thing. Games would lose a huge proportion of their value and your memories are literally floating on some cloud server in Sony's database that you have no real access to. I mean you can at least copy those images and videos you create but what about the game? They will never let you do that with services that rely entirely on streaming as all you're receiving is a video. That's it. Nothing else. You aren't even really playing the game, a program is that you simply remotely give commands to. Just the idea of never having a physical copy of a game in your hands, in your shelves or even in your hard drive is indeed horrible. Even I don't like Steams digital distribution as I have no hard copy for myself but at least the game data is on my hard drive that I can back up again and again and store it away. With streaming you get no copy, no game, nothing. You're just watching a video.
For me, buying a game copy is now even more complicated as I also now have to decide whether to get the physical or digital copy. I'm not going to act like this is a HARD decision but the fact is it's a complication. What I mean is that with physical and digital copies there are pros and cons to look at. With a physical copy, you can trade it to friends or resell it as a second hand purchase, it will always be around, it doesn't take up too much memory on your console or PC and it if your computer/console breaks- you still have the game. But the cons to physical copies are that they can break, they can wither (buying it used let's say is tricky), and they take up space in your room. The pros about digital copies is that they are easier to access, they are good for smaller developers, you can play it on a friend's computer as long as you have the account and the game, and if your computer/console breaks as long as the account attached to those games stays intact the game is fine. However the cons are... well listed in the video. But to name a few cons,one con is if Steam loses your profile you lose the digital copy, since it's digital it can't be shared (or refunded), they require more memory than physical copies, and it won't last the end of time. Though I am for physical copies of games for the most part. They can be shared and will last the end of time. It is a problem to see so many game companies resorting to digital copies ONLY. Something really needs to be done about this as physical copies may just be losing their footing in a market that once needed them.
Yeah I really dislike it because its a way to turn the whole "Our video games are not products, they are a service" line into something true. That alone has so many negative implications.
Fighting games are already picky enough about what kind of monitors you can play them on, and streaming just warrants that they'll be outright unplayable at higher, or even average level of play. GGPO, rollback or any kind of advanced network code is not going to fix that, and it's already bad enough with most fighting games out there now (unless you live in densely populated places like Japan). I can only imagine if people buy into this kind of service and try to introduce themselves into the genre they'll find themselves in a painful situation, and possibly give up on them without a second thought. At that point the only viable fighting games would be over simplified stuff like Divekick (I'm sure even for it wouldn't work, though), and that's not a pretty thought.
I remember OnLive, and I still use it too sometimes. It was fun trying out games for free to see if I'd have any reason to buy them. It's how I got hooked on Just Cause 2 when I got it on Steam over OnLive. Nowadays, they work with Valve in order to have a dual account system, so owning games on one equates to owning on both.
VR might help prevent this from happening. There's only so much that can be done to decrease latency when playing over the internet, but any amount of it when using a VR headset is going to make people sick. That's only if VR goes mainstream, though.
Most video game developers and publishers just need to sit back an rethink every single thing they are doing. Because it sure as hell isn't what gamers want.
I agree with the video completely. At times like this, I have to ask if I'm just old fashioned or if I am truly justified in my reluctance to play games that I cannot tangibly own. It just doesn't feel right to me if I don't have full ownership over the game and my experiences with it.
Don't the newer PS3 models have backward compatibility too? And isn't it better because it was constantly updated software emulation? Someone stop me if I'm wrong.
the technical side of things will only improve as technology progresses. its the greed of game publishers that worries me. giving them such massive control on their products to the point that you can never truly own the game you've just bought is bound to crash the game industry.
The benefits of cloud gaming is limitless graphics/cpu processing power for games of the future. The only downside for now is the internet's speed around the world. Like you said that value of a game includes owning it but nothing is stopping the ability for the cloud to act as the operating system and copying the game into your account to play around with. In the eyes of developers its also the ultimate copy protection, and all around its a great benefit to the industry. The cost of gaming hardware per user will increase in demand and the price of consoles may grow too large in future, where as cloud gaming can be an affordable service. Your looking at the whole thing way too linearly like it will look and behave like it is on PlayStation Now forever. Once input lag is out of the equation, Long Live Gaming.
George, It's always nice to see your brilliant analysis on all things game related and your concern for the future of gaming is very admirable and easily sets you apart from many of your peers who don't think about these kind of important long term consequences. So I want to make a substantive response to tell you what's highly likely to happen based on already established historical precedent, some pretty solid data and I'm going to explain why in the long term your concerns are actually misplaced. So, for starters the easiest thing to talk about with respect to the future of game streaming is when it's going to actually be "happen," as in when the problems will be solved and it will be indistinguishable from local gaming. This is fairly predictable. We just have to talk about the last limiting factor: latency. Latency is highly dependent on infrastructure technology as opposed to speed which has been the determining factor for internet media services reaching mass viability so far (Napster needed a certain proportion of the population to have 56k, TH-cam needed that for early broadband, Netflix needed slightly better speeds, you get the idea). Broadband speed increases very predictably as per Nielsen's Law (here's the equation to determine your speed in bits per second based on the year if you're a "high-end user": y = 200(1.5^(x-1983)) ). In other words the subjective video quality required to attain a close enough approximation to locally rendered video for the purposes of game streaming will most likely be obtained very shortly if it hasn't already. The name of the game then is fiber adoption. Once you have that the entire way between you and the server there won't be enough lag to distinguish streaming from local, unlike say, cable based internet which is the previous paradigm. Fiber adoption on the other hand doesn't have a lot of data to go off of to make a curve with the kind of accuracy of Nielsen's Law. At least based on what I can find. US adoption is slow because on infrastructure in general we blow (see our connection speeds vs. other countries for an illustration), so it's a pretty for-sure prediction that game streaming as a viable model will catch on in other countries and densely populated areas with good internet infrastructure first for that reason. As per the OECD report of 2013 the US has a fiber adoption rate of only 2.3% with roughly 12% annual growth. If you use the exponential growth rate from Nielson's law of 50% gain in internet infrastructure yields year over year and run the numbers, (as in assume that 12% growth improves by 50% year over year and if you use roughly 34% as the critical mass like it was for TH-cam and Napster) then we're looking at around 2019 as the turning point that game streaming reaches low enough latency for enough people to achieve viability as a distribution model. By comparison in 2022 it will be faster to download a game than take a total of 15 minutes to go to a store and back to buy it (this includes a prediction of game disc size increases based on a polynomial regression of game-disc capacity as per the year of introduction of games on CD, DVD and Blu-ray). So in other words physical media will for sure be on its way out around 2022 even without game streaming. Since the numbers for this stuff works per the law of accelerating returns even if I'm off it'll only be by a year or two most likely. With that out of the way let's talk about what will actually happen with respect to physical media and digital downloading when the streaming model reaches viability. So we already have seen two forms of media change from physical media to digital downloading to streaming based distribution models on the internet to use as examples of what happens. I'm of course talking about music (CDs > Napster/iTunes > TH-cam/Spotify/other legal streaming) and video (DVDs > illegal downloading/P2P/Torrents/iTunes/Amazon Video > TH-cam/legal streaming with Netflix/Hulu/etc.). Music went through this cycle the fastest since the technological requirements took the least amount of time. It's the furthest along in the transition and has the most data to look at for our purposes. Here's an article with several charts of recorded music revenue in the US that illustrates the introduction of Napster and iTunes on the money made by the recording industry: www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2. So as you can see around when Napster or illegal downloading was introduced we have a sharp decline in CD sales which was the dominant distribution model, as well as a sharp decline in overall sales. More interestingly when iTunes aka legal download was introduced it started making a lot of money in absolute dollars, relative to the industry it took on more and more of a proportion of the overall sales, but overall sales still went down. This holds true for the per capita and inflation adjusted charts as well in the article. And then, just recently iTunes has officially been declining in sales: www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a541535/digital-music-sales-down-for-first-time-since-itunes-launch.html#~oMY8fA2wKAZWtq And what's the reason given? Streaming services. Keep in mind whether there are legal options are irrelevant, the technology itself determines this transition. All companies can do is try and be competitive or fail to do so and begin losing more and more money. So here's what the model will look like for games: (Cartridges > Discs > illegal downloading/Steam/Console based downloading services > as of yet undetermined game streaming service) So in other words, take a look at the state of the music industry in terms of content creation and distribution and that's about what's going to be happening to the game industry in around 5 years time. Streaming will officially be taking away revenue from digital downloading/physical media and it'll be a smooth transition. Then there's pricing. Other services tried to do what iTunes did before them but a big secret to their success was their pricing (can anyone say Steam sales? If XBL and PSN don't catch on to this they'll be losing money, well, they already are). If it's not competitively priced it's not a viable model. Like that first article mentions single sales went up dramatically with the introduction of iTunes. This is significant because it gave consumers more power in the distribution model which only helped distributors make money. In exactly the same way you can expect that these pricing problems will be done away with by the natural forces of the market for game streaming, if they don't lower prices they won't have a viable model. The exact same thing is true of bandwidth caps because they're completely artificial and done by companies who are only reacting negatively to the changes in our media consumption and distribution. They'll be gone in time. So, finally, the conundrum of not really owning the media. Again as per history of the other two industries here, it's inevitable that consumers prefer the convenience of "now" and in a world that will have an even faster, more responsive and more accessible internet... there will only be drawbacks to physical media and no gains. All the perceived problems of access will be solved by technology. If you're worried about who owns the media, well, take a look at the overall trend in revenue and ownership for the entertainment industry as a whole. In fact just take a look at the trend we already have on TH-cam. The current problems of companies claiming revenues for using their content are still better than the instant strikes of yester-year. As you yourself have said just look around at how much original content now is possible on TH-cam compared to just a few years ago. Just stop and think about the long-term ramifications of better technology to create media, a higher standard of living for everyone, and a decreasing profit from making media. The result? Eventually we're going to live in a world where no one limits access to media, everyone has instant access to it, and there are more choices than you can imagine. I'm sure all this might all sound bizarre or super optimistic but just remember my words down the line. You'll be surprised.
Thanks. I also mentioned to him elsewhere that it's not impossible to foresee that streaming services will allow us to modify game files on their end if the desire is there. All the problems will be solved in time. Again, just take a look at TH-cam. Is anyone complaining that they don't actually own the hard drive with the video files that you're streaming from to watch the videos? No, because you can still download them too if you want. That's also very likely to end up happening in time with game streaming, even if it seems very infeasible now both technologically and commercially.
Very interesting analysis! We cannot predict the future but we can trust probability, and the amount of solid evidence you used to support your argument is pretty impressive. Thanks!
Can't predict the future? Bullcrap. You just have to understand the trends that are proven to be right by the data. Read Ray Kurzweil's article on the Law of Accelerating returns. He made a lot of predictions that were dead on including the growth of the internet in the 90s because he stuck to the data. Here's an easy prediction to make: As per Nielsen's Law by 2020 if you're in the top quarter of internet users or so your down speed will be around 655 megabits per second or better. Quote me on that and come back and tell me if I'm wrong.
You know, although it might seem like Mr. Bunnyhop is tinfoil-preaching right now, he's absolutely right. Companies in the industry are fucking insane when it comes to trying to make as much money as possible, and I don't doubt that the Killzone 6 scenario described will come true. I mean, Sim City DID happen not too long ago.
Wow, sounds crazy. Hope some company like Google doesn't do anything like this.
Now that P.T. has literally vanished from the face of the earth, maybe a retouching on this idea is warranted.
No.
+sputnikdx color me disappointed
CoughCoughPIRACYCoughCoughPTdownloadCoughCough
No.
The Patriots are still lurking somewhere, slowly regaining it's strength for digital domination.
rewatching this video after E3 2019 is uncomfortable
A video that needed to be made. If the PS4 featured native backwards compatibility then the extra cost to the system would still be a better deal than what they're trying to sell to us with Playstation Now. Even some of the system's biggest releases are ports of PS3 games barely a year old. It's really scandalous if not desperate.
Lots of truth in your comment.Many of them said backwards compatibility was unimportant to them. Next-Gen is here, nobody wants to play those old last-gen games. Well somebody does dammit, because all these remakes,remasters,and definitive editions are posting record sales numbers. Its crazy.
Sony would have to add the Cell CPU (which is purely computationally more powerful than the CPU in PS4). The PS4 with backwards compatibility would probably cost $600. That would be a shot in the foot.
That's a lot of money upfront (some of the cost could be softened by trading your PS3, which would be pointless to keep if the PS4 had backwards compatibility) but I think use of Playstation Now over the console's life cycle asks for much more. I'm sure there's a better long term solution out there that won't have new gamers hunting down over-priced PS3s in ten to twenty years time.
thejobloshow the playstation now is that solution.
Well, Lets look at some real world numbers.
PS4- $400
Remakes,Remasters, Definitive editions@ new prices.
Tomb Raider $50
Last Of Us $50
Metro Redux $50
GTA V $60
Sleeping Dogs $60
Another 30 dollars or so in taxes and your well over 600 dollars , not counting another controller and a playstation plus membership. 600 dollars for a PS4 with BC doesnt look so bad.
Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex:HR for 4 dollars each one for just 4 hours.
I have these games on Steam for the same price since 3 years ago. Jesus Christ.
Libe Jenkins And that's just sad.
"Here at Aperture Science,we sell you the streamed game.That's 65% less game,per game!"
This was an early prediction of Google Stadia
Google's Stadia, or the "Netflix of videogames", is taking this idea to a new level, being compatible across multiple consoles.
As AAA games become increasingly costly and consoles' services and maintenance end up resembling more and more a computer's (often without the corresponding perks), the sole reason to buy a gaming platform becomes the inferor price for the same features and the exclusive titles.
In my optimistic dreams I thought one day consoles would become too inconvenient to be sustainable, and that cheap but powerful PCs couls onw day replace the whole gaming market via their emulators... But now I have a crawling suspect that a sole platform could hog the whole market via gaming-as-a-service only deal, which is literally the worst possible situation for a consumer
Nearly 5 years later and you were right about everything. Same as with your PS4 video.
'Games as a service' terrify me. I like to own things, archive things. I don't want to live in a world where my access to something I paid for can be grabbed away by some far off entity. I still play some of the first games I ever bought as a kid almost 2 decades ago. I am not sure that will be possible for plenty of kids just getting started in games today.
This kind of service is just like all the cloud application disasters (because that is what we call network computing now) in the computing world. At least there, its an attractive pricing model and you can use it to get around needing an actual IT staff. The end of ownership means the end of a lot of our rights as consumers though. It also tethers us to corporate entities that in the end can only be counted on to care about their profits, not the games they have made.
it's not gonna work even if they force it down our throats, people can always roll back to last gen. if anything it should be terrifying risk that could end Sony or just make them stop producing gaming consoles. capitalism can be a very shady thing, but it's always run by the consumer.
People don't necessarily care much. No one minded when we switched from owning movies to streaming them for instance. Capitalism is 'run by the consumer' in that it comes down to their purchasing power in the end. However, consumers don't always make choices in their own best interest, especially when it is a short-term benefit with a long term cost. Plus, marketing can manipulate people to a truly impressive degree, and when all else fails companies can collude to force consumers.
I see how DLC/ in game purchases have turned out, and I see what has been going on in other industries (clothing, internet, health products) and I have virtually no faith in the consumer to prevent companies from taking advantage of them.
the video game industry, much like anything in entertainment, is a free market. literally anyone can make a game with a copy of game maker or unity. unless some AAA company buys the rights to these types of software than I'm not worried.
as for everything going digital I'm not worried about that either, if Sony or Microsoft dissolve and there online markets vanish turning consoles into bricks, I bet they'll sell the rights of there games to places like steam or GoG well before so, (or any other company for that matter). so you'll see games like Halo or Mgs4 pop up on steam or GoG reinvigorating the market. if you like having physical copy in your hand than I suggest you start collecting now whether or not they'll come back in the future ( -product X +time = $$$) it always worked like that, trust me things from when you where kid will always be stupidly expensive when your an adult.
The other markets (clothing, health, food, etc.) are, however, corrupt as F***. I don't want to go too deep into it because of political crap will derail any conversation. but, yeah, video games you know and love will disappear along with your old tv and toys with time or a nuclear holocaust. but I doubt companies will go out of their way to make previous generation console games less obtainable, they trying to battle emulators not enthusiast
Well, first of all, I don't have much faith in free markets to fix things. Companies can be counted on to work towards making a profit and that is it, that does reliably lead to some outcomes, but it doesn't solve every kind of issue. Yes anyone (with a very specific set of skills) can make games. That doesn't mean that many games might not be lost. Additionally, publishers refuse to let I.P.s go all the time, even if they aren't doing anything with them. Few games would financially justify porting and updating anyway, even if the source code has been kept. (which is not a given)
I also think you don't understand what I am saying. Yes, as long as emulators exist, older games can probably be played. (digital media are flimsy and fail pretty quickly. I do have a massive collection though :P) However, new games could become permanently locked on some server, streamed to players remotely, or at least contain crucial logic on servers the way MMOs do. That is the fear I am getting at. If that happens, then those games only need to be served as long as they are profitable (and the company exists to do so) then they can be deprecated and lost to everyone. Someone growing up as a kid in that world would never be able to go back and play their favorite childhood games when they grow up. A whole section of our culture would fade away.
To some extent, this already exists. MMOs are shut down, sometimes without warning, and entire communities evaporate with them. (Private servers can be made in some cases, but that is incredibly labor intensive and very few games will justify it from the few people that are capable) Many of today's multiplayer titles, as well as some single player games especially on phones, also require servers that are never released to public domain. When these games are no longer turning a profit, they will be lost completely. This already happens, but people accept it for MMOs and no one thinks too much about the cultural significance of mobile games these days. People put up a fuss in the early days of non-persistent PC multiplayer games getting shut down, but being angry is tiring, so the companies just waited them out and no one seems to care much if a game loses all its functionality after a year anymore.
If games are streamed from a server completely, then there really is no reverse engineering. You'd have to either remake all the assets and logic from scratch or break in and steal from the company. (A serious crime obviously) With music and video there is an 'analog hole' where you can always copy the data, but that doesn't work for games. This is great for companies because it means that no one is going to be pirating or reselling their titles. They control the entire supply forever. People may just accept it because it would make playing games a little more convenient as long as you have a connection. (no pesky files to download ahead of time or physical media to buy) Or companies might just keep pressing it, refuse to let exciting new titles be played otherwise, and gamers would eventually get tired of fighting and accept it like they always do.
Why hasn't Jim Sterling done a video on this sort of thing? This looks scarily up his alley.
SuperZez Because this hasn't caught on much. Thank God.
And now Sony is bringing it to PC.
I hurt myself today,
to see if I still feel
So, do you?
It’s scary how much of this actually is coming true.
Physical Copies >>> Digital Copies
+Mr Madness Sitting on my couch scratching my nuts in my underwear>>> going to a store
XD
+B r a n d o n Yeah because it's not like you can buy physical copies on your couch in your underwear...
.
+william redmond how is doing that a burden?
william redmond yeah because I want to wait four hours on PS4 to get a new game. Discs install faster
This is what always worried me about buying digital. I'm not the most tech savvy guy and the thought of not having the ability to hold onto my product and say 'no, you can't have it back, I already paid for it' is something that has always worried me.
I have realized over time that digital copies are actual saved files on a device so i'm not as turn't off by them as I used to, especially with smaller indie games that can't afford the shipping but this is just grim. They will have the power to drop their history as they please, 'What's that, you like Titanfall, we'll to bad it's sequels out and that's all you can play now!'
Exactly, at least you know that as long as your hard drive (which can be put in a new console if your old one breaks rather easily with a screwdriver) is still working that you can have that game forever unless it is multiplayer only (Titanfall much). Then when the game dev turns off the servers you are left with a useless disc (or a bunch of useless files if downloaded) that you can't sell off so you may as well just throw them away. With streaming you don't even get that choice. Its just"No more game for you. Now rent this sequel for £40.00 a month!". I dread that.
This video is important. I agree with your points, but even for somebody who doesn't agree this is a good launching point for healthy discussion on yet another gray-area topic.
And here we are… yesterday Google made that prophecy true… now more than ever GAYMERS RISE UP
Thank you for making an informant video like this warning people about not throwing money into this trap.
4 hours isnt a rent, ITS A FUCKING DEMO!
there selling DEMO'S!!!!
+Tezla Alchemia At least the 3DS gives a certain number of play sessions!
Demos were great..Damn shame they aren't popular anymore.
Bravely Second's demo has this much content for FREE!
Stanley Exactly. And that demo has UNLIMITED USES. I do want to get another copy of Bravely Default & beat that before I play Bravely second. I got the Bravely Default limited edition but wond up losing it. And let's just say that I'm never going to Chuck E Cheese ever again.
Tezla Alchemia At least they aren't charging 40 bucks for a demo like what Konami did with Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes
Your prediction is right Google stadia is here
And now, in 2020, we have Google Stadia! Oh, fuck!
I agree with you. Cloud gaming literally has been cancer since 2013.
Really glad this video exists, cause it explains more eloquently than I could the reasons why I'm terrified by streamed games, which a lot of people don't seem to understand.
So this is why Darksider on this Playstation now, it's to warn us of the apocalypse
While I was in school studying for an MA in library science, I read a lot about the issues concerning offsite digital storage and how this ultimately means that libraries are often leasing or renting digital copies of books from publishing companies. While I agree that latency is a big concern with streaming games, I agree that the big concern is the issue of long-term preservation and curation. One paper I read describes how Amazon had retroactively removed the read-aloud functionality of an ebook, essentially taking away a feature that users had already paid for. I can certainly see certain game publishers doing something similar. Thanks for discussing this topic, George!
The Wii U isn't powerful compared to the Xbox One & PS4..... yet they managed to have a Wii emulator on their system & every game you bought for the WII you can play on the Wii U.
Yet the consoles that are sold solely on power cannot do it.....hu....interesting.
One of many reasons I don't want to buy an Xbox One or PS4.
Finally someone gets it! Nintendo has been avoiding the terrible habits of game companies for years, yet most people don't notice them at all. They are the opposite of everything wrong about the current gen.
wiias40
They aren't perfect, they rely too much on old IP & gimmicks, hardly ever make anything new that doesn't come under the casual gaming banner & there is the whole TH-cam copyright issue.
But at least I can play my Wii games on their new system & at least I don't have to pay them so much a year to play games online.
....plus at least they have more variety than pretty graphics & shooters.
They say it's an architecture change to X86. But that's a bullshit reason because if I can run any console architecture with some easily acquirable software and some tinkering to set it up then the console makers can emulate the PowerPC architecture and Cell CPU architecture that the previous generations used. But if they did that, then their shareholders wouldn't be satisfied with their money making schemes.
ExtremeGamer9951
Yeah, just another example of componies lying to us in an attempt to cover up the fact that they are just trying to squeeze as much money out of us as possible.
The annoying thing is they think we'll believe it.
TherianthropeAndrewH
Thats why I may get an XboxOne if PS now gets too big for its own good.
Your videos are excellent :-)
This idea always struck as incredibly baffling. If TH-cam videos have trouble streaming through my internet, I see no appeal in streaming entire games through it.
so I guess that didn't work out! If it comes back (and it will) I'll keep what you said in mind!
Super Bunnyhop i just want to say you are becoming one of my favorite youtubers ever! I really enjoy your extremely informed and though-out videos that mention ideas and thoughts that even i may have not thought up or missed.It's very nice to know a gamer who isn't afraid to go against the big corporations.Thanks for your interesting content. KEEP IT UP!
6:49 ? WHAT THE HELL !
I bought DE:HR for Xbox last week for £3/$5 !
Yeah, people are eating this up : / They tell me real gamers support their company.
lonely bathroom but also almost as bad as Sony Ponies.
And Xbots. And PC Master Retards. Including AAA fanboys who are also bitches.
Exactly what I've been thinking. Not just for games, but movies/TV. There's a reason I still stick to DVDs: the quality stays the same, the ads aren't between the movie, and you can easily select what scene you wanna watch.
Agreed on all points. This is a problem I foresaw when the most popular way to distribute games moved from physical box releases to digital-only releases. It's a slippery slope leading us into "the cloud" where we no longer have control or ownership of the "products" we purchase. Collecting and sharing games is a big part of this hobby for me. I enjoy sharing the history of gaming with newer gamers who might not have seen older games, and I can do that because I still have all my old hardware. The idea that a game I really love could disappear forever because I wasn't allowed to archive the data deeply saddens me.
As a PC user, my connection to a physical box has been gradually stripped down over a decade. The manual (if there’s one at all) comes on the disc, the disc itself is beholden to an online account on a third-party software. But it’s also a free market and incredibly difficult for publishers to have the kind of control of their product that they want. If consumers aren't happy with the availability, they’ll just distribute it themselves. Games on the PC are effectively as immortal as they’ll ever be.
Meanwhile the danger of your bleak prognosis on consoles seems too distant to worry about right now. Internet infrastructure is just not good enough to support a business model publishers have wet dreams about, and when Microsoft built the first ever console for publishers rather than consumers, the consumers rejected it.
Damn good video, summed up my thoughts perfectly and by the way
5:47, that was perfectly ominous
*shrug* why don't people just keep their PS3?
Some people are probably making the jump from Xbox 360 to PS4 as well, I imagine, and as such might be interested in playing the PS3 exclusives they may have missed.
Why would they do that? It has a vast back library of great games, it's cheap, the console lasts for years without tech problems (8+ years on mine, not a single technical issue aside from replacing the odd controller and I do use it regularly), the games are cheap too... It... err....
I've forgotten what my point was but yeah, who wants that outdated hunk of junk when you can have the PS4!... And all the other shit that comes with it.
I can still find new PS1, PS2 and PS3 on Amazon.
Sidney Turner You can emulate those, however. Even Sony offers PS1 games as a digital download that you own more than if you just streamed them on PSNow. The hardware of the PS4 is plenty powerful enough to use software emulation of both PS1 and possibly PS2 games. There is no reason for you to believe that the physical console is absolutely the only way to play them. Because right now even if it was, it's not like PSNow supports PS1 or PS2.
That's not true, Sony sell new PS2's on Amazon for £130/$200. And the shelf-life of a disk is much longer (assuming it has been taken good care of) than a consoles. As long as the disk is clean it'll work for many many years so new game disks are pretty redundant for now.
Also worth noting that on PC Diablo 3 and Simcity have already pretty successfully used a kinda "semi" streaming model, where large parts of the game are managed on their servers. From my understanding emulators for those servers have been created, though not sure how well those work. That has brought up the exact same issues of "what happens when servers go away" as straight up streaming, and IMO is worth being as wary about.
Congtulations, you're a prophet.
My response to PSNow is: Oh hey there, Wii U! What's that? You're still glorifying physical copies and keeping the history of gaming alive? Well sign me up!
I feel like I watch all your vids but they always recommend me one I have never seen before
This would definitely be my personal nail in the coffin for future generations of games
I have enough titles i never managed to play from the last 30-40 years anyway..and there are so many incredible games that i probably won't feel the need for "new stuff with cool visuals"
if i look at my "games to play" list there are somethin like 200-250 titles from all generations and consoles who received high praise...i would definitely prefer those than a streaming device
heck, i still have something like 20 SUPER NINTENDO games i still have to play...i need to finish Planescape Torment...i've never played Journey...Pillars of eternity intrigues me so much...i have to finish Dragon age 2 and start Inquisition...and i'd love to play Faxanadu & Sweet home for NES.. i could go on all day
yeah...i definitely won't miss the next-next gen consoles...
Some people argue that this would be cool because even people with low specs machines would be able to play games that would require expensive consoles-computers...then make it an OPTION please...don't force it upon us!
This video is one year and a couple of months old, and i tought that the fuzz was over, but i keep hearing this topic here and there..and i don't know what to think..
George, honestly, prior to watching this, I was on board for streaming being the future of the industry. Thanks for making this. Its brought to my attention the potential hazards of that format.
I tried it for a couple months once it went live as a monthly subscription option. crappy resolution, input lag, and it doesnt even fill the screen. I know sony is still sticking it out, but I dont think its going to last, especially with the data caps a lot of isp's have started doing.
My internet is really bad, I cannot stream games. I have a good PC, I should be able to run those games.
Why isn't every game journalist straight out honest like you? the industry would me much, MUCH better
Click-bait hype machines and positive reactions to services like PS Now leads to a higher chance of sponsorship deals later down the line.
So Corruption ... Typical
I don't think streaming will become the norm. People think streaming has become the norm for music, but a third of record sales still come from physical CDs and people still buy bluray even though Netflix is a thing. It'll just be another option.
Are you argueing with me? It seems you've just proven my point that streaming games won't catch on.
100% agree with you. I had to smile when you showed your Steam games folder :)
Streaming is definitely a change in medium delivery but we've seen it go through other mediums like music, movies, and more. Music streaming has been around for a number of years, yet I can still go to iTunes and order a digital download or burn it to a CD. It's kind of like the argument that cars replaced horse carriages. Of course they replaced them, but if you want to go ride a horse today you can do that and nobody is going to stop you.
The issue with Input lag and artifacting is certainly a big one. My hope is that as we advance into these new technologies ISPs will be forced to upgrade the network. They certainly aren't going to do it today without major incentives. A google fiber connection has less than 1ms of ping/lag time and 946 mb/s throughput. This renders lag and artifacts imperceptible.
I think a lot of your video is exceptionally valid and addresses a lot of the short term concerns around game streaming. I fully expect these concerns to be addressed in the coming years.
Could this shift to new technologies like streaming be an attempt to ditch old areas like improving graphics that are giving diminishing returns and moving into new areas of technology that have growth potential?
I'd say something you buy on Steam lasts longer than a hard copy. Some of the games I bought in the early 2000s no longer read properly because the disk was scratched(I know it's my fault, but that's not the point), yet my copy of Counter Strike Source from 2004 still works. I've changed 3 HDDs since then and I can just redownload it whenever I want to. Steam is in its 10th year now, and while some old games might last for 50 years there's no real guarantee that you're not going to unintentionally damage them. Digital distribution services might go down eventually but they'll probably last longer than your average CD, I don't see steam going down in the next 10-20 years although it's hard to say what might happen. You have to take care of your CDs and even then you might damage them but you don't have to care about whatever you bought on Steam, it's going to be there as long as Steam exists.
Exist being a key word here.
Nothing lasts forever, and that also applies to steam
SGR SEAN well thus far it seems like steam will be around a lot longer than Sony will be... Xbox isn't doing that great either, it only recently (likely due to sales and gifts) has been picking up pace, but hey even if steam doesn't stay I still get to keep all my games, they've said even if they go under that the servers will stay up for a while so you can download all your games, so if need be I could go to the store and buy a pack of 100 blank DVDs tomorrow and save all my games onto disks for safe keeping (or obviously on a Hard Drive as well) can you say the same about your digital purchases?
You have a point about the physical media.
But I don't like the Steam as a replacement - Steam going down is just one of the things to worry about. Right now Steam is in total control of my games that I have 'bought' from them. I can not download them for archiving on my own, I can not install it without their servers cooperating and I __can't play my games__ without their server giving a permission (off-line mode is very limiting and fragile and doesn't take the problem away).
The only solution that I see as ethical is the GOG model. I buy a game form them and both have the conveyance and savings provided by digital download and centralized updates AND can download the installation, archive it on my private physical media and OWN it forever even if GOG disappears tomorrow. No DRM no online-to-play. People need to push for this to be the only viable option for publishers, and aggressively.
It is stupid to trust cooperations, they are not people.
Viesturs Siliņš GOG actually lets you have a copy of the game? Huh. Maybe I'll consider repurchasing some of my current Steam games from them. I can have Minecraft and SimCity 4 forever, but yeah, if (or, rather, when) Steam goes down for good, I won't have Terraria or Audiosurf or Game Dev Tycoon.
*****
Yes! The only GOG software they add is their unified installation GUI they include in the games (as they sell many of the good old games that where not working any more on latest Windows that they had to fix up to work) and the (optional!) download helper, but you can download the game installation in your browser as well. No DRM, no always running middle-ware. I can't recommend them enough.
I have done just that multiple times - re-bought games I own on Steam so that I could run them without the Steam annoyances, so that I would support the GOG initiative and so that I would still have these games later.
A small extra factor to consider in all this: If streaming games becomes the norm, then I assume that every person who wants to play a game now needs two pieces of hardware - one for streaming the game, and one for streaming from. Which could mean anything up to double the material usage, by my count. And I can't help but wonder if we have the physical resources for that.
Of course, it could be a lot less then double, as monitors aren't required for the streaming from system, and said system could also be much more powerful and capable of streaming multiple games at once, but then another issue crops up: What about DLC?
I mean, if you buy the DLC, how would you make it so that it activates for you on the streaming service while also making sure it doesn't for someone else? Use a different machine for each permutation of DLC? do some sort of sending of your details over the signal to log into an online service - which not only assumes an online service exists (Although how would you do DLC otherwise, I suppose) but also seems to be a hacker's paradise if it's done wrong.
Not to mention the part where the consoles in question essentially become always-online machines just like the Xbox One nearly was before just about everyone told Microsoft to shove that idea up their arses, for various good reasons which still exist for this streaming service if it becomes the only way to play games...
Thanks a lot Super Bunnyhop!!
The gaming community, especially game journalists whose job is supposedly to understand at a deeper level the trends in video games, surrendered the medium to DRM networks like Steam very, very easily in the name of convenience and low prices. Streaming goes even further than DRM networks and it is necessary to start challenging it from the start and never accept even a single game that is exclusively available through this system.
Wow I never reall would have thought about this. You make a lot of solid points.
6:14 $50 for 90 days are you fucking kidding me?
sadly no
TheImperfectGuy does the rental time just run even when your not playing the game?
I was stupid enough to think before that the $50 was for the ENTIRE SERVICE, as in, you'd have access to all the games available on the streaming service (kind of like PS+). Though 90 days would still be a poor amount of time....
But for *ONE GAME?* That's...just insulting. This is what big companies think of your value. That the difference between the value of a game you own (not really, but work with me) vs. one you rent is mere $10 (or less).
There might be a trend of game consumption that says we play games less as time goes on, but that's not a reason to attempt capitalizing off of it, especially to the extreme of taking game access away.
Damn thats rough, thanks for the answer. $50 for 90 days MIGHT have been ok if you had to accumulate the days over time PLAYED. 90 days = 2160 hours. just a thought.
Yeah, you can buy the game FOREVER for 10 bucks more
What scares me the most is that, should this really become the next main-way of purchasing games, I couldn't have ownage of the games I purchase. It wouldn't be more than a subscription, and should I ever want to play a game from 20 years ago, it would most certainly have been removed from the store already because it didn't prove to be profitable anymore.
If there was any way to ensure that this will just be an alternative to owning the game physically or digitally, it would be an awesome addition to the market.
Well, they still release Vinyl Discs for new albums so guess we're going to have to go that route for physical games.
Have you seen the new (not that new anymore now though) Discord store? It doesn't work exactly the same like PlayStation Now, but it goes into a very similiar direction
Thank you for this video, hopefully this realization will cross more people. I can't stand this idea of a streaming only gaming world. Even if it is fixed and runs fluidly with a great pricing system, it still has an uphill battle to win me over as a dominant way to game. Giving up physical gaming just isn't something I'm fond of. Heck even with Netflix if I love the movie or show, I will look to buy it in physical form.
...and if Sony locks up Killzone's future in this stupid system, they lost a big costumer that's been with them for a long time, because I will not have anything to do with them if they start that kind of practice (and with one of my favorite franchises).
Great video, really well made and informative. Thanks
Yes. All this stuff is exactly why I'm against this streaming stuff in principle. I don't hate that it exists though. I can totally see how the idea of a "Netflix of games" could be a really good thing for a lot of people, but not me. I want to own my own games. I want access to them whenever and however I want. I don't want to have my game library subject to the whims of companies who only care about immediate profits. I don't want control latency or image artefacting. I want to play games the way they're supposed to be played, and I want them to be my games.
I really like what you do here. Thanking TB for directing me here in one of his recent videos.
I guess I'm not too worried.
Probably because of what you said about competitive gaming. No competitive gaming tournament is going to be using streaming, as long as there is any input lag. Furthermore, as you said, the modding community is huge and alive, and they aren't going to be buying games they can't access.
I think (hope :P) those factor alone will keep streaming from becoming "standard". Very popular, perhaps (probably, we often forget how severely outnumbered we ar by "casuals" & monogamers, who don't care about these discussions, and just want to play games sometimes), but not an unavoidable standard.
Ironically the thing that could ride to the rescue here are bandwidth caps. It isn't tenable both to have these huge, bandwidth heavy streams and also caps with insane overage charges. Either bandwidth caps go or the streaming service model does.
There is more value in physical media than digital media. This is exactly the problem with money.
The thing I'm most excited about when it comes to cloud gaming is the idea that you can now play high end games on low end hardware assuming you have the bandwidth to support it. Certain games can benefit from this, not all games are made to be extremely competitive or twitch heavy. Not to mention they can bump the graphical quality much higher than what typical consumer grade GPU's can handle. I've experienced this with a service called Gaikai which ironically enough is Playstation Now. I played dead rising 2 on a school PC during class with integrated graphics. The stream was silky smooth because of the bandwidth I was allowed and the graphics were higher than I could even handle on my home rig at the time and smoother too running as a solid 40/60 fps. That to me, is what cloud gaming is all about.
so far their isn't stream exclusive games, but netflix and hulu and even yahoo are already going that route, but with tv shows, people can always record them, with streaming video games, there can always be footage and let's play, but not being able to play it all. remember when flappy bird got pull off the app store or when the P.T demo got pulled? at least those had digital files which can be used, al beit with a bit of modding and hacking, but if they did that with streaming, the footage would exist, but no one would be able to play them.
I love the video and think the perspective is really interesting. Its always important to see at least a few critical points of view.
Interesting. The concept of a massive multiplayer streaming and dealing with the stream to me then the online server...wow, that's a scary thought for Lag.
Fuck am I glad this didn't pan out.
Also the reality that unless you have super great internet, the input lag is atrocious. I tried out the trial with FC3 on a vita and pc, and both times I literally could not get past the part where you have to hunt the boar because everything you do has insane input lag. My internet speed averages around 35-40 Mb/s
Great video Bunnyhop, I really agree with you on this video.
"Imagine if Killzone 6 released in 2017"
Implying Killzone is a series people care about XD
implying its fine to say "XD" XD
yup! killzone is dogshit /bargain bin shooter
SHUTT HE FUCK UP YOU KILLZONE HATER
Dont think you knew the definition of "implying"
XDDDDD. XDDDD XD XD CDXDXX
One benefit, though, that this would have is portability. Your small portable game device could stream a console game without having to use a lot of its own power.
I think streaming has its place, though you are correct, SBH, that we need to tread carefully. Ideally, this will become ONE way to distribute a game, but never be the only profitable way.
the timer of the "rental" is IRT or IGT?
depends. the 3 month rental for example has to be IRT.
the hourly rentals I wouldn't know, probably also IRT since playing any solo campaign these days takes you less than 3 hours anyway lol
"see just how high they can jack these prices while still remaining viable/buyable"
They lowered the prices at least once from the week and daily renting already
It saddens me that Sony ends up being the company that brings this anti-consumer satisfaction service to the table. I am completely against this service we are NOT IDIOTS! If Microsoft can so easily "turn off" their DRM policies then the PS4 can have backwards compatability. Greedy bastards; this makes me so mad and ultimately stopped me buying both consoles in this new generation.
The whole thing that George mentioned about big companies being able to rewrite gaming history due to the consumer's inability to physically archive the games (other than mere video recordings of gameplay) is exactly what they want. They know that the have oversaturated the market just like they did in the 80s and they know that a another crash is likely to happen and they know that another revival of the gaming industry is likely to happen afterwards because they know that history repeats itself. But with this they will be able to make these cycles of history happen more quickly do to the fact that we will have less to remind us of the mainstream casual bullshit tactics that they will inevitably use again to oversaturate the market after a previous crash.
Well said. The input lag alone makes this something I would never want to support.
I suppose it seems the best and lasting option at the moment is to just buy a ps3 if you want to play ps3 games? Shame since I am considering choosing a PS4 in the near future but I think I'm willing to wait off on that purchase if they can sort this out.
I was just thinking the same thing. Xbox 360 users who don't want the Xbone now have the choice between the PS3 OR PS4. PS3's seem to be going way down in price recently, and have an entire backlog of options for games, from Demon's Souls to Journey. Playstation is effectively competing with themselves! Think about how amazing the PS4 would be if it were backwards compatible(I've read a couple things as to why this would be hard, but lets idealize for a sec) People keep complaining about a lack of games on the new consoles, but if you were new to it, you would have a whole generation to fall back on.
What we need to counteract this are good archives so that our favorite games of yesteryear are not lost forever.
As an avid video gamer, game collector and content creator of live gaming streams, it scares me just as much as the creator of this video how as we move on in time that the video game industry is literally trying hard to change video game history for the worse.
His fears, although a little exaggerated possibly so for the sake of grabbing more attention, are founded with reason. If it were really the case that video game streaming took over as the primary distributor no one would benefit from this except the industry which you might think in return would mean better games and more content, but look at it this way; has a game with day one DLC or paid content ever had meaningful content come after it's release or years later?
Most don't, as the paid post release content is planned pre-release and made even before release and sometimes added onto the disc. It isn't extra, it never was meant to be extra content, it was simply meant as paid unlocks / cheats and there are far too few game developers out there using DLC as a way to actually give more content post release and most of them recite on the PC market which is far more free of a platform than an enclosed console.
DLC and the people who claimed it was only a good thing and supported it have seen the blanket of horrors they themselves have sown while the rest of us have been frowned upon for dealing criticism for what most people see as "nothing harmful". People are quick to brand valid arguments as "making them sound like Hitler" to devalue valid critique.
Don't let this happen again as it did with DLC and become another painful thing video game enthusiasts like you and me are forced to endure because the soft casual market simply "doesn't care" and "pays for it anyway". They are the enablers but so are you by not voicing your opposition.
Even if internet speeds were to increase and become less costly and the latency issues annihilated there's simply the fact that the whole world will never catch up to this well enough to become a thing. Games would lose a huge proportion of their value and your memories are literally floating on some cloud server in Sony's database that you have no real access to. I mean you can at least copy those images and videos you create but what about the game? They will never let you do that with services that rely entirely on streaming as all you're receiving is a video. That's it. Nothing else. You aren't even really playing the game, a program is that you simply remotely give commands to.
Just the idea of never having a physical copy of a game in your hands, in your shelves or even in your hard drive is indeed horrible. Even I don't like Steams digital distribution as I have no hard copy for myself but at least the game data is on my hard drive that I can back up again and again and store it away. With streaming you get no copy, no game, nothing.
You're just watching a video.
For me, buying a game copy is now even more complicated as I also now have to decide whether to get the physical or digital copy. I'm not going to act like this is a HARD decision but the fact is it's a complication. What I mean is that with physical and digital copies there are pros and cons to look at. With a physical copy, you can trade it to friends or resell it as a second hand purchase, it will always be around, it doesn't take up too much memory on your console or PC and it if your computer/console breaks- you still have the game. But the cons to physical copies are that they can break, they can wither (buying it used let's say is tricky), and they take up space in your room. The pros about digital copies is that they are easier to access, they are good for smaller developers, you can play it on a friend's computer as long as you have the account and the game, and if your computer/console breaks as long as the account attached to those games stays intact the game is fine. However the cons are... well listed in the video. But to name a few cons,one con is if Steam loses your profile you lose the digital copy, since it's digital it can't be shared (or refunded), they require more memory than physical copies, and it won't last the end of time.
Though I am for physical copies of games for the most part. They can be shared and will last the end of time. It is a problem to see so many game companies resorting to digital copies ONLY. Something really needs to be done about this as physical copies may just be losing their footing in a market that once needed them.
Yeah I really dislike it because its a way to turn the whole "Our video games are not products, they are a service" line into something true. That alone has so many negative implications.
Fighting games are already picky enough about what kind of monitors you can play them on, and streaming just warrants that they'll be outright unplayable at higher, or even average level of play. GGPO, rollback or any kind of advanced network code is not going to fix that, and it's already bad enough with most fighting games out there now (unless you live in densely populated places like Japan). I can only imagine if people buy into this kind of service and try to introduce themselves into the genre they'll find themselves in a painful situation, and possibly give up on them without a second thought.
At that point the only viable fighting games would be over simplified stuff like Divekick (I'm sure even for it wouldn't work, though), and that's not a pretty thought.
I remember OnLive, and I still use it too sometimes. It was fun trying out games for free to see if I'd have any reason to buy them. It's how I got hooked on Just Cause 2 when I got it on Steam over OnLive. Nowadays, they work with Valve in order to have a dual account system, so owning games on one equates to owning on both.
VR might help prevent this from happening. There's only so much that can be done to decrease latency when playing over the internet, but any amount of it when using a VR headset is going to make people sick. That's only if VR goes mainstream, though.
Most video game developers and publishers just need to sit back an rethink every single thing they are doing. Because it sure as hell isn't what gamers want.
but the ps4 doesn't feature backwards compatibility because the system architecture is incompatible with that of the PS3 surely?
i'm so glad i'm not the only one that is afraid of streaming as a future industry standard
I also care a lot about game preservation and ownership, and I share your concerns.
I agree with the video completely. At times like this, I have to ask if I'm just old fashioned or if I am truly justified in my reluctance to play games that I cannot tangibly own. It just doesn't feel right to me if I don't have full ownership over the game and my experiences with it.
Very incisive, exposed some bad points I hadn't yet thought of with streaming games. Nice vid, SBH. :)
Don't the newer PS3 models have backward compatibility too? And isn't it better because it was constantly updated software emulation? Someone stop me if I'm wrong.
the technical side of things will only improve as technology progresses. its the greed of game publishers that worries me. giving them such massive control on their products to the point that you can never truly own the game you've just bought is bound to crash the game industry.
What do you think about steam then?
Streaming will become mainstream and we won't be able to prevent it.
What kind of "words" do you recommend to use in google?
The benefits of cloud gaming is limitless graphics/cpu processing power for games of the future. The only downside for now is the internet's speed around the world.
Like you said that value of a game includes owning it but nothing is stopping the ability for the cloud to act as the operating system and copying the game into your account to play around with. In the eyes of developers its also the ultimate copy protection, and all around its a great benefit to the industry. The cost of gaming hardware per user will increase in demand and the price of consoles may grow too large in future, where as cloud gaming can be an affordable service. Your looking at the whole thing way too linearly like it will look and behave like it is on PlayStation Now forever. Once input lag is out of the equation, Long Live Gaming.
You just predicted the future
George, It's always nice to see your brilliant analysis on all things game related and your concern for the future of gaming is very admirable and easily sets you apart from many of your peers who don't think about these kind of important long term consequences. So I want to make a substantive response to tell you what's highly likely to happen based on already established historical precedent, some pretty solid data and I'm going to explain why in the long term your concerns are actually misplaced.
So, for starters the easiest thing to talk about with respect to the future of game streaming is when it's going to actually be "happen," as in when the problems will be solved and it will be indistinguishable from local gaming. This is fairly predictable. We just have to talk about the last limiting factor: latency. Latency is highly dependent on infrastructure technology as opposed to speed which has been the determining factor for internet media services reaching mass viability so far (Napster needed a certain proportion of the population to have 56k, TH-cam needed that for early broadband, Netflix needed slightly better speeds, you get the idea). Broadband speed increases very predictably as per Nielsen's Law (here's the equation to determine your speed in bits per second based on the year if you're a "high-end user": y = 200(1.5^(x-1983)) ). In other words the subjective video quality required to attain a close enough approximation to locally rendered video for the purposes of game streaming will most likely be obtained very shortly if it hasn't already. The name of the game then is fiber adoption. Once you have that the entire way between you and the server there won't be enough lag to distinguish streaming from local, unlike say, cable based internet which is the previous paradigm. Fiber adoption on the other hand doesn't have a lot of data to go off of to make a curve with the kind of accuracy of Nielsen's Law. At least based on what I can find. US adoption is slow because on infrastructure in general we blow (see our connection speeds vs. other countries for an illustration), so it's a pretty for-sure prediction that game streaming as a viable model will catch on in other countries and densely populated areas with good internet infrastructure first for that reason. As per the OECD report of 2013 the US has a fiber adoption rate of only 2.3% with roughly 12% annual growth. If you use the exponential growth rate from Nielson's law of 50% gain in internet infrastructure yields year over year and run the numbers, (as in assume that 12% growth improves by 50% year over year and if you use roughly 34% as the critical mass like it was for TH-cam and Napster) then we're looking at around 2019 as the turning point that game streaming reaches low enough latency for enough people to achieve viability as a distribution model. By comparison in 2022 it will be faster to download a game than take a total of 15 minutes to go to a store and back to buy it (this includes a prediction of game disc size increases based on a polynomial regression of game-disc capacity as per the year of introduction of games on CD, DVD and Blu-ray). So in other words physical media will for sure be on its way out around 2022 even without game streaming. Since the numbers for this stuff works per the law of accelerating returns even if I'm off it'll only be by a year or two most likely.
With that out of the way let's talk about what will actually happen with respect to physical media and digital downloading when the streaming model reaches viability.
So we already have seen two forms of media change from physical media to digital downloading to streaming based distribution models on the internet to use as examples of what happens. I'm of course talking about music (CDs > Napster/iTunes > TH-cam/Spotify/other legal streaming) and video (DVDs > illegal downloading/P2P/Torrents/iTunes/Amazon Video > TH-cam/legal streaming with Netflix/Hulu/etc.). Music went through this cycle the fastest since the technological requirements took the least amount of time. It's the furthest along in the transition and has the most data to look at for our purposes. Here's an article with several charts of recorded music revenue in the US that illustrates the introduction of Napster and iTunes on the money made by the recording industry: www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2. So as you can see around when Napster or illegal downloading was introduced we have a sharp decline in CD sales which was the dominant distribution model, as well as a sharp decline in overall sales. More interestingly when iTunes aka legal download was introduced it started making a lot of money in absolute dollars, relative to the industry it took on more and more of a proportion of the overall sales, but overall sales still went down. This holds true for the per capita and inflation adjusted charts as well in the article. And then, just recently iTunes has officially been declining in sales: www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a541535/digital-music-sales-down-for-first-time-since-itunes-launch.html#~oMY8fA2wKAZWtq And what's the reason given? Streaming services. Keep in mind whether there are legal options are irrelevant, the technology itself determines this transition. All companies can do is try and be competitive or fail to do so and begin losing more and more money.
So here's what the model will look like for games: (Cartridges > Discs > illegal downloading/Steam/Console based downloading services > as of yet undetermined game streaming service)
So in other words, take a look at the state of the music industry in terms of content creation and distribution and that's about what's going to be happening to the game industry in around 5 years time. Streaming will officially be taking away revenue from digital downloading/physical media and it'll be a smooth transition.
Then there's pricing. Other services tried to do what iTunes did before them but a big secret to their success was their pricing (can anyone say Steam sales? If XBL and PSN don't catch on to this they'll be losing money, well, they already are). If it's not competitively priced it's not a viable model. Like that first article mentions single sales went up dramatically with the introduction of iTunes. This is significant because it gave consumers more power in the distribution model which only helped distributors make money. In exactly the same way you can expect that these pricing problems will be done away with by the natural forces of the market for game streaming, if they don't lower prices they won't have a viable model. The exact same thing is true of bandwidth caps because they're completely artificial and done by companies who are only reacting negatively to the changes in our media consumption and distribution. They'll be gone in time.
So, finally, the conundrum of not really owning the media. Again as per history of the other two industries here, it's inevitable that consumers prefer the convenience of "now" and in a world that will have an even faster, more responsive and more accessible internet... there will only be drawbacks to physical media and no gains. All the perceived problems of access will be solved by technology. If you're worried about who owns the media, well, take a look at the overall trend in revenue and ownership for the entertainment industry as a whole. In fact just take a look at the trend we already have on TH-cam. The current problems of companies claiming revenues for using their content are still better than the instant strikes of yester-year. As you yourself have said just look around at how much original content now is possible on TH-cam compared to just a few years ago. Just stop and think about the long-term ramifications of better technology to create media, a higher standard of living for everyone, and a decreasing profit from making media.
The result? Eventually we're going to live in a world where no one limits access to media, everyone has instant access to it, and there are more choices than you can imagine.
I'm sure all this might all sound bizarre or super optimistic but just remember my words down the line. You'll be surprised.
I read your entire message. I agree and I thank you for your contribution.
Thanks. I also mentioned to him elsewhere that it's not impossible to foresee that streaming services will allow us to modify game files on their end if the desire is there. All the problems will be solved in time.
Again, just take a look at TH-cam. Is anyone complaining that they don't actually own the hard drive with the video files that you're streaming from to watch the videos? No, because you can still download them too if you want. That's also very likely to end up happening in time with game streaming, even if it seems very infeasible now both technologically and commercially.
Very interesting analysis! We cannot predict the future but we can trust probability, and the amount of solid evidence you used to support your argument is pretty impressive. Thanks!
Can't predict the future? Bullcrap. You just have to understand the trends that are proven to be right by the data. Read Ray Kurzweil's article on the Law of Accelerating returns. He made a lot of predictions that were dead on including the growth of the internet in the 90s because he stuck to the data. Here's an easy prediction to make: As per Nielsen's Law by 2020 if you're in the top quarter of internet users or so your down speed will be around 655 megabits per second or better. Quote me on that and come back and tell me if I'm wrong.
hahahah I'll take that into account!
You know, although it might seem like Mr. Bunnyhop is tinfoil-preaching right now, he's absolutely right. Companies in the industry are fucking insane when it comes to trying to make as much money as possible, and I don't doubt that the Killzone 6 scenario described will come true. I mean, Sim City DID happen not too long ago.