Will games move from being a software to a service?

[J T]

I live in Seattle, so Microsoft is a big part of the local economy here (they are in neighboring Redmond) and I hear about them in the local news quite a bit. Microsoft has been talking about Windows 8 lately and they have a vision of the future that is touting the use of cloud computing, where users have their information stored in networks instead of on their personal harddrives, thus allowing them to access it from any computer. Cloud Computing is clearly the big industry buzz term now.

As the technology advances, I wonder if things like cloud computing and streaming services (like OnLive) will become the norm for software. It seems like industry leaders like this idea because it gives them control over their products in that they aren't really products any more, but services. If you get a game through OnLive, you not only don't get a physical copy of it, but you don't even have the data stored on your machine. It's a step even further removed from digital distribution services such as Steam. The whole issue of DRM (as we currently know it) becomes irrelevant if you can't even download the game to your computer, which I'm sure really appeals to companies trying to thwart software piracy. I'm beginning to wonder if individuals will even own their games in the future or if the games will simply exist on servers somewhere and exist only as long as companies are willing to house them and gamers are willing to pay for their service to play them.

It seems strange to me, but entirely plausible that we may no longer own games in the future but we will have to pay for services to play them. Do you think this is where things are heading?

[Croooow!]

I see it heading that way but I don't think the industry will go solely to a service based model. Look at movies: when they are shown in the theater they are a service where you have no rights to the content. When you buy it on DVD/Blu-Ray, however, it becomes a product and you do have ownership over it. TV, whether broadcast or Netflix streaming, works the same way with DVD releases. I think it's natural for entertainment to exist in both forms and the video game and software industries are just learning how they can accomplish both.

[Hatta]

There will always be a market for games people own. It's not going to go away, but it probably will become a marginalized sector of the industry.

[Inazuma]

Yep, that's the future. No ownership, control or rights. We won't even have downloaded files on our local hard drives anymore. Games will be only playable from the cloud which means you will need an internet connection at all times. Thanks to this, they can also sell advertising in their games and have it be current.

Instead of "buying" the games, you will pay monthly fees. When the game gets taken off the server a few years later, it really will be completely gone. You won't be able to play an old game you downloaded like you can now. Anytime anyone wants to play any video game, they will have to pay for it.

And the reason this will happen is because we the gamers are complete fucking idiots and have no idea what is happening. It is really sickening.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

At least we can take comfort in knowing that our cartridge based systems will still be with us and working in 20 years.

But seriously, I don't like it, but I see it going that way. The vast majority of gamers are idiots as Inazuma said, and they'll likely be sucked into this one way or another.

[MrPopo]

Cloud computing has several varients. You have the Steam Cloud, which is just a data backup service, and then you have something like OnLive, where the cloud is running the software. The cloud isn't anything super magical; essentially it's an abstracted piece of computing that in the backend is run by one or more servers that can scale up or down as needed. So let's say we wanted to run Racketboy in a cloud. The URL redirects would see that they direct to a single virtual server, but that virtual server might be backed by one host in off-peak times and ten hosts at peak times, and it scales up or down based on traffic.

So cloud as data backup is universally awesome. You still have the local files but you get the backup to a centralized server for when you switch computers or need to reformat. It's services like OnLive that are potentially problematic for games, because now it allows for the possibility that a game gets lost over time. PSN games are pretty rigidly controlled, but at some point in the future you will be able to download a torrent of PSN games and install them onto your PS3 (possibly modded). There are private servers for a lot of the MMOs. But if the entire game is stored server side that requires someone to crack the server and snag a copy of the game to ensure it can be stored for posterity.

they'll likely be sucked into this one way or another.

You mean having to decide between playing that game you want to play or not playing it?

[jp1]

I like Onlive and I am happy with the service so far. Sure, you can never own the games...it is more like a lease. However, if you shop the sales and take advantage of special offers you almost never have to pay more than $10 for a title and many times it can be much less than that. For a minimum 3 year (this is their guaranteed availability) rental this is a great deal. I like the convenience of not having to worry about hardware upgrades on my end and also the ability to pick up my same saved game from anywhere in my house or even at a friends house. It doesn't bother me at all to not have a hard copy when I am paying a fifth of the price I would at the store.

If prices ended up being similar to what you pay at a B&M store for a physical copy then I would probably have a sour taste in my mouth. The $9.99 playpack all you can eat type service is a novel idea as well but I think they need to expand on it with more quality games. There isn't enough good stuff in there to hold my interest at the moment.

[isiolia]

I think that's where the industry is trying to go, and for some very understandable reasons.

To a fair extent, I think it's the direction a lot of things would have gone originally had the same infrastructure we have now been in place several decades ago. Or, in the case of computing, stayed, since the cloud computing paradigm is in many ways a return to the mainframe/terminal setup of old.

The idea of providing games as a service is far from new. Arcade games are obviously a big example - extending earlier pay-for-play amusement devices.
There have been attempts at temporarily loading games to a console for play - Intellivision Playcable in '81, Atari 2600's Gameline also in the early 80s - Sega Channel n' Satelleview in the 90s.

Probably the main reason we didn't see more attempts with the rise of the internet is the shift to high capacity storage mediums meant it went back to being impractical. Where FFVI might have been feasible to "stream" over a 56k modem, it would be a long time before connection speeds got fast enough that FFVII's multiple CDs would be feasible.

I think there are still a few hurdles before it becomes the standard option. Right now broadband still isn't quite ubiquitous enough. Standards of service, such as data caps, aren't flexible enough. What might fly in urban Japan would still have problems being a viable option in rural America.
Console games tend to lag behind the bleeding edge out of practicality. Higher costs for a niche market don't make business sense. So I don't think we'll see the standard distribution change until high speed internet is practically a given for potential customers.

We're already seeing the option appear though, and it does have advantages. Obviously, yes, from a collector's standpoint it's not especially appealing. Concerns for the long term are valid. That said, I'm fairly sure quite a lot of actual, physical copies of plenty of books, music, and so on have disappeared over the centuries as well. Ones that haven't are largely available for mass enjoyment because they've been shifted to new mediums. Server-side playback of games removes the barrier of needing the old hardware, and really starts to make them as easily "available" as older films and the like - as long as someone out there is including them on their servers. I think that has a ton of potential, just, like anything else, it'd be easy to ruin if not done right.

As long as selling locally-stored copies is an additional revenue stream, however, I think companies will do it. Just 'cause you can stream a movie on Netflix doesn't mean they've given up on selling it to you on Blu-ray as well. It'll probably just turn more into what you do because you really like the game and want to "own" it instead of just play it.

[BoringSupreez]

I think, except for portable games and the Indie PC games, it'll all move to cloud computing eventually. And I hate that.

[Croooow!]

I think there are still a few hurdles before it becomes the standard option. Right now broadband still isn't quite ubiquitous enough. Standards of service, such as data caps, aren't flexible enough. What might fly in urban Japan would still have problems being a viable option in rural America.

This is a very good point to remember for people who feel physical games are going away for good. Internet speed and access are incredibly spotty and inconsistent across the U.S. My parents live only two miles out of my hometown and the broadband they have is so slow they can't watch a Youtube video without it loading for half an hour.