We have Google Stadia (soon), PlayStation Now, Xbox Game Streaming, EA's Project Atlas is coming and more but what about Valve with Steam? Well, sounds like Steam Cloud Gaming is coming.
For those who don't remember or perhaps aren't regular readers, I actually wrote an article back in November 2018 describing how I thought Valve would launch such a service. Well, there's more pointing towards me being right in some way about that.
SteamDB put out a Twitter post today, showing off a code update to the partner site, with new terms developers need to sign which talks about Steam Cloud Gaming.
Everything Valve has been doing over the last few years would add up quite nicely to this. Valve worked on the Steam Link hardware to stream around the home, moving onto the Steam Link application to expand it further to mobile devices, In-Home Streaming was re-branded to Remote Play and started allowing you to stream from your PC to any other outside the home and just recently, Remote Play Together to let you host a local co-op/multiplayer game for others across the world to join in as if they were sat next to you.
The next logical step? Certainly seems like a full streaming service would fit in with where they're going with all this. Now we think about Steam Play Proton, Valve's attempt to get Windows-only games to work and perform well on Linux. If Steam Cloud Gaming turns out to be something you stream from Valve, it's safe to assume it would be from Linux-powered servers so Steam Play would fit in there.
With all these new streaming services coming, Valve did need to do something extra to stay competitive if this is where gaming is going. Like it or not, they're already here and a lot of people already use them. The more that do, the less likely people are to get games from Steam.
This is all speculation though of course, nothing is yet confirmed. For all we know, whatever this Steam Cloud Gaming bit is that developers need to sign could just be the umbrella branding for all of Valve's current and future streaming stuff and not necessarily a brand new thing.
What are you thoughts? What exactly will Steam Cloud Gaming be? Let us know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Nevertheless Nov 6, 2019
Quoting: GuestPresented this way, it sounds more interesting to me than stadia. Because games sold on steam must run on your computer and not only valve's servers. They could technically restrict their Linux effort to said servers to avoid desktop Linux support costs but since they want to be able to escape the windows ecosystem they are probably not going to do that. ^_^
Exactly, I was and am not interested in all the other cloud services because I like to own my games and I like my game library to be in one place as much as possible.
Unfortunately, cloud gaming seems to be a thing now so I am at least glad that Steam has something cooking as well, because with Steam I know I get to own the game but probably also have the option to stream it.
I don't know how they will do it, but at least I know Steam has the bandwidth for it.
- Stop Steam update when I play
- Do not freeze during remote play.
- Be able to restart server remotely.
Nevertheless Nov 6, 2019
Last edited by Nevertheless on 6 November 2019 at 2:03 pm UTC
Quoting: pbSoon enough, 90%+ of AAA games will be released for Linux (running on cloud servers). ;-)
That's a bit like claiming that Nginx run on all PCs when they are browsing the web, though. :)
hardpenguin Nov 6, 2019
This could be anything. It certainly is very interesting to me :)
-You'll choose the option to install your games or play through streaming (the best option, but probably not due to server side expenses)
-You'll choose to install your games or play through streaming, but for that you'll have to play a monthly fee to allow your account to play streaming games (most realistic in my opinion)
-You'll have to buy the "streaming version" of the game to be able to play (But I don't think it will be this one)
My only fear with this project is that, if SCG floop like I still believe Stadia will, Valve might stop to invest in the Proton/DXVK project.
rustybroomhandle Nov 6, 2019
Microsoft has said that it wants to focus on services and devices. Likely to eat into the Google/Chromebook market. The likely result here is that they will be shipping low powered cheap devices just like the Chromebook, but running a basic Windows that's mainly for running these services. Of course, gaming is a non-thing on those. Enter cloud gaming.
Valve's counter to this is to make sure than in a world where Microsoft has a lot of influence over hardware sales, they can still exist in a market where millions of people just have these low powered machines.
Microsoft have been trying to undermine PC gaming for a long time now in various ways, largely because they cannot tax people to run software on Windows. I think the long term goal is to go fully walled garden. The wall in this case is shifting from being Windows, to Microsoft services that can exist on other platforms. (see Edge news for this)
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