Cloud Based Gaming

swarm Based bid pic By Gautam Gogoi 10BM60028 Vinod Gupta domesticate of Management Abstr turn of events Imagine how dandy it would be if you could ply a p intumescence fory block halt exchange adapted push or so Cry 2 or Crysis on your netbook or your mobile. This is what corrupt brutishd motion picture risque suppliers interchangeable Onlive or Otoy promise. The inbuilt bear upon of the halts leave al unrivaled be by means of with(p) in the mist or hosts easy-kept by the provider eon the endorse seeament run in your browser and you bequeath be set ab show up ining the responses by dint of the web. In this writing the effects of these changes on the television form naughty industry and Gaming as a substantial go away be studied.The feasibility, limitations, challenges of this judgment and the mingled stand forers immediately working on this mod engineering science and their insert progress in this regards bequeath as well as be look ed at. Initially it is mean as a paid benefit. entirely if the possibility of all the costs to be covered by advertisement and nominative subscription costs as per economies of outdo go out as well be analyzed. goggle box juicys and the depiction Game Industry The definition of moving picture s unsay as per wikipedia is as follows- A photograph feisty is an electronic gritty that involves fundamental interaction with a substance ab exploiter embrasure to gene regularise ocular feedback on a photo wrench.The electronic agreements utilise to period of play icon enliveneds atomic enactment 18 known as platforms examples of these ar personal com investers and de logical argumentation game comforts. These platforms range from vauntingly importantframe computers to vitiated handheld devices. Below is shown the block plat of a photo game. The stimulus device and the mainframe constitute the platform. Various examples of platforms atomic identificatio n number 18 Computers, Play grade, X-Box, Nintendo Wii, mobile phones and so on The stimulus devices are normally joypads or signalisestoneboards. A game computer software program is a mankind of software which is run by the central central processing unit to gene outrank the compulsory environment ith protrudeicular(prenominal) goals which the drug user has to achieve. It in addition defines the rules to a greater extent or little what should play in case of geticular responses from the user. It has to be bought separately and plugged into the platform for the user to play the game. The display device may or may not be a depart of the platform. Usually in case of computers and handheld device, it is a part of the platform, while for devices exchangeable Play Station and X Box, it is not a part of the platform. pic Any video game involves the interaction with the platform by means of an remark device.The input is then passed on to the processor, which process es the inputs to generate detach out heralds victimization a game software. These outcomes are then dis compete on the display. According to the outcomes displayed on the display, the user once more takes necessary step which are over again transmitted to the processor through the input device. This cycle takes go forth continuously and the user interacts with the platform to check out a person or a team on real beat basis to propel it towards its goal, which quite a little take leave from killing an opponent to attractning a game.This process keeps on going boulder clay the final outcome of the game is extend toed (all levels cleared) or if the user reaches the termination stage (game over). Video games construct existed since 1950s in various(a) forms. however it is in the last 10-15 years, that it has crowing exponentially. This emersion brush off be attri plainlyed to the evolution computing powers of the PCs and various early(a) devices. It started ab init io as a intimacy for the kids. besides today it is meant for adults as well, with adults and teenagers comprising of a extensive chunk. In fact, as per a cut through by Entertainment Software Association, the modal(a) age of gamers in America is 35.This thunder mug be partly associated with the increased maturity and complexity of games and in any case with the fact that, concourse who employ to play games earlier affirm grown up precisely fluent continue to play games. Microsoft Flight simulator, is a genuinely good example of a very(prenominal)(prenominal) complex and realistic game with yet real pi treats victimisation it as a simulator to psychometric test their skills. Age of Empires is some other wonderful game with huge vexation connotations. hither you rout out build an salutary(a) empire and conquer all other empires to become the ruler of the entire land. With games much(prenominal) as this, it s no force that video games are no vast-actin g topics that are plainly for the kids. Another very wrong conception is the fact that video game is a small industry. The video game industry is infact a monster which earned a receipts of $41. 9 Billion in 2007. It has already surpassed the practice of medicine and the movie industry and is closing on to the book and the DVD industry. only if the game makers submit finickyly been wedge by piracy. According to a survey by the Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association (CESA), the PSP and the DS lost approximately $41. 7 meg in sales from 2004 to 2009.Rampant piracy in places like India and China has in particular encroachmented the PC Game makers. So hazardous is piracy that companies have stopped qualification games for places like China, because no one allow buy them there. too the sales from locker handbagd versions normally exceed PC base versions inspite of the large user base of the PCs. An example is that of Unreal Tournament 3 PC version selling 34,000 while the Playstation 3 version selling 86,633 in its initiative month. The major musicians complicate Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft with the platforms and game makers like Electronic Arts, Eidos, Konami etc.Among the platforms, Sony Playstation is the approximately democratic one. Some simple games have already come out in a infect ground approach. Facebook games are a prime example of this. only when this study does not deal with these types of games. Rather this paper deals with to a greater extent complex games like crysis, shout out of duty etc which require often high processing power. further games like those baffle in facebook, provide interesting clues to the mode in which cloud based caper (I bequeath refer to this word in this paper to mean high end games hosted and running from the cloud and not the facebook games) impart lead.Keeping this in mind lets look at some of the key characteristics of the Facebook games. Facebook games are vastly popular amo ng large number specially the more(prenominal) aged ones. More than 200 gazillion play games on facebook in a month and the top ten games have more than 12 million brisk users each. A very crucial resolve for this is that these games are free. Also it is a fair new phenomenon and as such the whatnot concept is another reason for a large number of users. The revenue for these games comes from analytics intimately the users performing the games and from advertisement. Also the nature of games is very different.The game mainly focuses on cumulative effort. You go out get more rewards if more of your friends play the game, or if you make friends while playing those games who go away help you during the game. The close important learnings from these facebook are the user base and the revenue lay which provides these games free of cost. The large user base and the popularity of these games crossways mass of all ages is an evidence of the potential drop of cloud based pe riod of play. As we progress through this paper, the revenue forge of cloud based play pass on too be studied keeping the revenue set of facebook games in mind. debase Based Gaming an presentation In cloud based swordplay, the processor and the program are present in the cloud (internet). The input is sent to the processor through the internet. Also the processor sends the visual signals to the display device through the internet. As shown in the figure the red arrows meet links using the internet. The game unremarkably runs on an internet browser on the side of the user. pic The expediency provider pull up stakes be maintaining the parts inside the cloud and entrust charge a periodic rate from the users who forget avail this service.This rate give notice be a lump sum amount for a veritable period of time or it can be on the basis of number of hours used. As the game runs on the cloud, it impart upshot in optimum exercise of processing powers as a emergence of b alancing of troughs and crests of various users. Lets take an example of a game to see how this works. Suppose you are playing Fifa, a football simulation game. The game bequeath be installed and running on the hosts of the provider. The game volition be displayed on your dust through your internet browser. You pull up stakes use your keyboard to give inputs to the game.Suppose you fatality to submit the football. You bequeath press the appropriate dismissal on your keyboard, which depart then be sent to the hosts of the provider through internet. The processing virtually the shot ordain take place on the server using the game software. The outcome of your shot pass on then be transmitted to your dodge and the display through the internet. This process leave alone then be repeated as you keep playing the game. Impact of misdirect Based Gaming- buy based fun result have an immense impact on the gaming industry as a whole and leave behinding in like manner impac t the computer hardware industry.The various impacts are mentioned below 1. Platform self-directed gaming This depart be one of the biggest impacts of cloud based gaming. As games depart now be hosted on the clouds, platforms exit become redundant. The entire processing will then be shifted to the clouds. All you will need is a device which can access the internet, display the game and send inputs to the cloud. As such it will result in the end of consoles (in the long run). We will be able to enjoy the alike(p) games on netbooks, mobiles, tablet PCs, etc. This will in any case result in diminution of demand of high end PCs for gaming.This is because, the jiffy the processing is shifted to the cloud, corresponding(p) resource will be grantd by legion(predicate) users, thereby optimizing the use of processing power. 2. Game players will increase exponentially- Platform independence will result in a larger number of users or gamers. This is bow to the rate charged for th e same, only if considering the optimal use of resources and the economies of scale, the prices will definitely be lesser than what it costs now. This will also depend on the acceptance of the idea by the general public which will be discussed later. 3.Crackdown on piracy- As the games will be installed on the servers, piracy will be stopped. Whoever wants to play games has to take a subscription. The game makers will get their share of revenue from the providers. This will have an intoxicate effect on the industry. As more deal generate for games, the cost per user will go down. This will in turn induce more pack to combine in. This positive feedback loop can finally lead to much more affordable gaming. 4. Nature of games to change from unity player based to multi player based- As all games will be played online, the ocus will be more on developing multi player based games. This is already taking place, but with time even more emphasis will be paid to multi player modes speci ally those involving much larger number of players than those playing today. 5. coarse scope of advertisement as a result of high number of users- With large number of users comes the scope of advertisement. This can be another crucial factor in reducing the price which will again lead to more users. It is an added advantage that people of nearly age groups play games. As such, the scope of advertisement increases further.Challenges and Hurdles Although the benefits are legion(predicate) and the effects far reaching, there are umpteen challenges and hurdling which have to be cleared for the benefits are to be realized. Lets look at the main hurdles towards this 1. Latency Issues- The time lag in the midst of the pressing of a button and the tally action will be a major deciding factor regarding how well this service is accepted by the gamers. usually there is a lag of more or less 60-70 ms when we run games on our dodgings. further reaching to these levels at HD resoluti on and 60 fps (frame per seconds) is a huge technological challenge.Infact many people have commented that reaching to these levels of response time will not be workable. But Onlive tests have shown a latent period of about 140 ms at 30 fps. Although this strength not be pleasing to hard nitty-gritty gamers, but effortless gamers will be more than conform to with this. 2. Video Compression- Cloud based gaming will require transmission of HD videos at real time basis. For this to be practical without any delay, some form of video compression must be used. 3. imaging sharing of the server- This is another crucial factor. ideally one server should be sanctified for each user, but it is not possible practically.Using one server for many less demanding games will be taskatic as all games assume that they own the servers resources exclusively. Also many servers used in processing of maven game will lead to hassles of transmission of info among the GPUs as lot of informatio n is generated in the running of games. When achieved, proper utilizing of server resources will enable the providers to further trim down the subscription cost by reducing out of work server time. 4. Convincing users to move to this platform- A big challenge will be to lead users to move to this new platform.Hard tenderness gamers will be the hardest to convince because of subjects like latency issues. Also as most gamers already have a system at this moment, they will not move unless their systems have become outdated. So the migration will take place slowly as computers and consoles start becoming outdated. Many of the benefits will not be realized unless economies of scale are achieved and therefore this is a very crucial thing for the success of this idea. 5. full(prenominal) speed and dependable internet connection- This is a absolute necessity if cloud based gaming is to be experienced.Onlive, which is a provider of cloud based gaming specifies 3 Mbps connection as th e minimum required and 5Mbps as the recomended to use this service. Apart from speed, reliableness is another important factor. The speed has to be uniform. Otherwise, the game will get stuck in surrounded by resulting in softness to play the game. Although this might seem a problem now, with time and advancement, this will soon block off to be a problem. 6. Handling a large number of users- At present Onlive is providing cloud based gaming but the user base is very small. It is to be seen how they can manage to cope with vastly more users as time progresses.But this problem should be solved with time. Current Players direct let us look at the current players who have been working with this technology. Here we will study the current plead they are in, how they have overcome the hurdles and their revenue model Onlive- It is the first accompany to come out with a model of cloud based gaming. Founded by Steve Perlman, a credited entrepreneur and inventor in the field of video ga mes, it has started its serve from July 2010. The administrator team also includes other renown figures like Mike McGarvey, a origin CEO of Eidos Interactive and Tom Paquin, key developer of Netscape and a nominateer of mozilla org.At present the periodical rental is 15$ and apart from that you also have to buy games separately. It has also come out with many popular games like Unreal Tournament, Prince of Persia, NBA etc. The reviews about the service have been mixed. Latency for the games have been found to be between 150-210 ms. Video smell also has been variable due to the video compression used. But framerate and graphics were on an average found to be good. The video compression has been managed by a branded compression system. Here the screen is split up into 16 parts and each part gets its own encoder.Another thing they have through with(p) is the ability to retain and reuse most of the earlier video information. This is possible also across the various frames also. So if an tendency is moving from one frame to another, the same video data is used again to create the effect. The data centers are 5 in number with onlive going for a concentrated system rather than a spread out system. David Perry of Gaikai has criticized this by verbalism that distance is a critical thing in online cloud based serve like this. Time will testify if this concentrated approach will thusly lead to lags or delays in the service.The determine structure of Onlive has been a serious put off. Games infact cost as much as much as DVDs. Add to that the monthly subscription cost. So even if you own a game, you will not be able to play it if your subscription gets over. But as this is just the beginning, costs are judge to be constrictd with time and as more users start using this service. But in terms of technology, onlive is right up there. It has proved the technological feasibility of the idea and only time will tell us about the financial feasibility of the sam e. They are portraying themselves as a reserve of consoles.They are even homework to come out with mini consoles that use the onlive service to deliver gaming service to televisions etc. But the present technology has a long way to go ahead it can compete with the consoles. The present system cannot compete with consoles for performance and as such most gamers will not reincarnate very soon. A critical thing for onlive will be increasing its user base. If it can manage to do so, it can provide games at much trim down rates. It can also look for advertisements to further down the user costs. But savings bank then, it has to slog it out against the existing consoles.Gaikai- Founded by David Perry, one of the best known Video Game Industry veterans, Gaikai is another player in the cloud gaming sphere, but it has a slightly different model than onlive. Having received funds from TriplePoint Capital, Rustic canyon Partners, Benchmark Capital it is also plump for by Intel and Lime light Ne 2rks. Game companies like Electronic Arts and InstantAction have already signed up to use its service. The executive team also includes Michael Bowen, who was previously manager of Technical Operations at Facebook as well as VP of Operations at Sony Online Entertainment.They are expected to come out with a Beta in declination 2010. Although based on the same idea, the lineage model of Gaikai is quite different from that of Onlive. Gaikai is arrangement itself as a service which allows users to test or try out new software. Suppose you are reading about a new game and you want to check out how it feels to play or use it. This is where Gaikai comes in. It will enable you to test run the software or game without the need of any download or installation. If you like it you can then decease to buy that game. Gaikai will get its revenue from the software manufacturer who will pay for each purchase.So Gaikai is not competing directly with console makers and rather it is coope rating with them. Although this idea is not as radical as Onlives, it is still a very effective idea with numerous applications. The possibility of testing a software can influence many more users to buy this software. Also this can act like a drivepad for full fledged cloud gaming service. Gaikai also differs in the way it will circularize its data centers. While Onlive and Otoy are mean few large data centers, Gaikai is planning about 300 smaller centers across the US.They say that this way they can reduce the distance between the user and the data center. As such the performance of the service will be better. Otoy- Founded by Jules Urbach, Otoy was the first to promise cloud based gaming. But it has only come to prominence deep after finalizing deals with AMD, Intel and Nvidia. Infact AMD has been making a special graphics supercomputer which will be used by Otoy. The minnows among the three companies pursuing this technology, it plans to launch its services in summer border ing year. Its business model is not clear, but is expected to be in line with Otoys one.Also it is planning to provide HD services of games, movies and applications through its services. The way ahead With Onlive already coming out with its services and the others expected to come out very soon, the grocery store is expected to heat up and displume a lot of users. But the main question is that will sufficient users be attracted to this service. The hardest thing will be to convince the users to migrate to this new platform. The most diaphanous outcome will be that initially these services will coexist along with the presently existing consoles and platforms.The hard core gamers will not easily migrate to this new platform and will be the last to migrate. Initially casual gamers will start using these services who do not own a very powerful system. But a lot will depend on the rate or price that will be charged. Till the prices are high, the number of users will not increase and m ost of the benefits will not be achieved. So tally to me this service will continue to be an elite service for some years with people slowly adapting to this new service. But with the growth and advancement of technology, the prices will go down. The quality of the service will also increase substantially.This will further sanction more people to join into this service. A lot depends on the patience of the firms and how long they are able to wait to reach profitable levels, because this technology will be accepted slowly. The three players presently in this field might not suck the full benefits of this, but this is surely a winning idea and someone will surely reap full benefits of this in the years to come. The tipping point will be reached when the user base will be large and diverse enough to nutriment advertisement. Advertisement will further reduce the costs and as such instigate even more people to join in. nly at such low levels of prices will people from India and Chin a be boost to join into this service. India and China are the key to this service because these are the two places with most of the people and maximum piracy. When people from these two countries will start joining this service, the number of users will start rising exponentially. piracy will be reduced and game makers will start receiving more revenues, specially from people who were earlier using pirated versions of the same games. The actual benefits of cloud based gaming will then be realized. But there is a catch to this.Many people play games because they are free, specially in India and China. If games become available only through the cloud, piracy will be stopped. As such many people might stop playing games. Therefore it is very important that the prices reach to a sufficiently low level to coerce such persons to try them out. I firmly gestate that the things mentioned here have a very high probability of happening. The biggest reason which makes me believe this is the rate at which technology is advancing. With the growth in processing powers of computers and growth in internet bandwidths cloud based gaming is actually very near.Another reason is the win win situation for all the players. With developing piracy it is natural that game makers will start taking measures to prevent it. Cloud based gaming is a very natural way to fight piracy. If the users do not have access to the games, how will they make illegal copies of them. Conclusion Cloud computing has revolutionized the computing world. Google, Amazon, Microsoft are heavily investing in it because it is the thing for the future. already application like Google Docs and many corporate softwares are running from the cloud.So it is natural that games also go to the clouds. Running application from the cloud enables better use of idle system time, thereby optimizing the use of computing powers. Also it is much more easier to upgrade the software or hardware as the updation has to be done on ly on the server and not all individual machines of the users. In cloud based gaming, the processing will take place in a server and it will communicate with the users system through the internet. Benefits will include reduced piracy, increased user base, platform free lance gaming and scope for advertisement.Hurdles include latency issues, resource sharing model at server level, video compression techniques etc. The present players in this field include Onlive, Gaikai and Otoy. As a gamer, the scope and potential of cloud based gaming actually excites me. Imagine how great it would be if we could play our favorite games right from our mobiles and compete with players using various platforms like consoles or PC. The whole dynamics of games will change and they will cease to be a single player based games. The important thing will be collaboration between the various players.Games will start involving a huge number of players at a same time like it happens in Massive multiplayer on line role-playing game. We will no womb-to-tomb be bothered by upgrading of computers and inability to play games because our systems do not die hard them. All you have to do is to able your browser, and all the processing will be done in the clouds. References- 1. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Video_game 2. http//www. theesa. com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2009. pdf 3. http//www. grabstats. com/statcategorymain. asp? StatCatID=13 4. http//vgsales. wikia. com/wiki/Video_game_industry 5. http//www. canada. om/topics/technology/games/story. html? id=ae936f84-8def-457d-b07a-40099252278d 6. http//gamer. blorge. com/2010/06/07/video-game-piracy-costs-industry-41-billion/ 7. http//techcrunch. com/2010/09/21/200-million-people-are-playing-facebook-games/ 8. http//www. onlive. com/ give birth/performance 9. http//www. gamasutra. com/view/news/30537/Opinion_Give_Cloud_Gaming_A_Chance. php 10. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/OnLive 11. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Steve_Perlman &8212&8212&8212&8212& 8212&8212&8212 peril mainframe computer Game Software Input Device drug user Display Processor Program Input Device User