Amazon announces 'Luna', their own take on cloud game streaming

Quoting: 1xokValve is much smaller than Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Valve is basically a family business. Okay a pretty big one but just small compared to a company like Amazon. Amazon has almost unlimited computing power. Valve can't build something like that even if they wanted to.

This always triggers a personal hangup whereby people inappropriately conflate Size, Amount, or Marketshare with success -- and yet we live in a world where 1% of the world controls over 50% of the money, and 1% of a poison substance in water can still kill.

I often see numerical arguments about the % of Linux users vs other groups that misrepresent the reality of how much money and games users of Linux demographic buy vs other operating systems.

And they think that somehow scarcity of available-content doesn't effect sell products when they are trying to compete against a hundred billion other games in the MASS MARKET.

Like somehow because Amazing is "BIGGER" and have various Market-Territories and SCOPE they are suddenly "BETTER" or ready to enter the gaming space or any have any clue what they're doing. It took Xbox probably a good 5 years around 2000 where Microsoft was loosing money, they had no idea what they were doing, and we're trying to get solid talent and grounded in the Gaming Industry.

It's like a person who has 5 million dollars and wants to instantly build a house, as if money was the only metric that effects things has no concept of staging contractors and a order of operations.

Some people aren't aware that in the past Valve has actually been the most profitable company per employee in the United States.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/15/valve-makes-more-money-per-employee-than-google-or-apple/

I agree the entrance of Amazon into the digital game content steaming market is significant and interesting, but as a gamer my interest is pretty low from what I know so far.

I am however very interested in if they are using AWS or other Linux and doing things that will benefit Linux via kernel patches, MESA improvements, etc...

I really don't want to pay to "rent content" and rely on some "gaming farm thing" being online to enjoy the products I pay for. (Exactly how long will it be before the Gaming Provider injects a 3 minuet ad every 15 minuets in addition to the upfront high service cost. They literally can't help but rape the customer for as much money as they can from exacting cash from customers and advertisers.) Some people will love it, but these are separate markets with maybe some overlap.

We're approaching a "lost age" where this content could disappear from the future once these services shut down in failure or move on. I'm not going to play the [streaming] game.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, no hard feelings it's just a primitive and over-simplistic appraisal I see so often propagated by low IQ people, and it sounds good until you really stop to think about it and realize the truth in what Yoda says "Size Matters Not"


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 25 September 2020 at 1:01 am UTC

Quoting: Mohandevir

QuoteHow long until Valve throw their Steam Controller onto the sofa and announce their own?

We always have the choice, but Valve is in a position where it could crush everyone of them, if they don't wait too long. I'm affraid that's what might play against Valve... Valve time.

The train is leaving the station, they should jump onboard before it's too late. New market... Better early than late.

I don't know enough about the industry but in my fantasy land brain, I would love for Valve to get Stadia built in.

Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.

Since I think cloud-gaming is worse then gaming on Windows, I hope more services pop up so people get fed up and the whole thing dies. Stadia was/is hyped because it runs Linux. Now there are games on Stadia which are not available on Linux, so it did not help in that regard. Yes, you can use stadia on linux. But, unlike having the binaries on your PC, this might break and you loose access. And they even started with exclusives ..

tldr;
Fragmentation is the chemo-therapy for the cancer which is cloud-gaming.

Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.

If this continues and if they start having exclusives, piracy will surge. Nobody wants more than 1-2 subscriptions, if any.

Not that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20

Quoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20

I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?

Quoting: 3zekiel

Quoting: Liam DaweNot that it matters to the vast majority (us Linux fans don't count for much...) it's based on Windows https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1309271277325049856?s=20

I wonder, should we jump on the stadia train for now? I mean, they are the only one who kinda support us for now... Do you think that a strong stadia will encourage more devs to go for Linux ?

Stadia unquestionably has more positive repercussions for us, since it forces developers to adapt to Linux and Vulkan, whereas Luna makes that completely irrelevant. No matter what you think of streaming, Stadia is clearly a better deal for our ecosystem than Luna or GeForce Now.

Minor stuff, but one of the problems that GeForce now has, with a Windows backhand, is the fact that you have to deal with the Windows desktop. It's pretty easy to minimize the Steam/Uplay/Epic window to the tray without being able to bring it back in full screen. You get the feeling that it lacks a K+M, when it happens. I don't know what it's going to be like on Luna, but that's my oberservation; It's not a fully integrated solution. You really have the feeling that you are dealing with a Windows desktop. On this aspect, Stadia is much more polished, even if still incomplete.

Imo, it feels like a badly integrated PC-Console hybrid that's even worse than what the Steam Machines were, concerning the critics it received, at the time...


Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 12:30 pm UTC

In fact, what is really sad, imo, it's that cloud gaming is an excellent opportunity to create new techs and get out of the DX-Windows paradigm. If these cloud providers could work together with open source techs, they could do some fascinating stuff that Microsoft alone can't do. But no, they prefer easy solutions with their limitations and perpetuate the vendor lock-ins (Amazon-Nvidia-Microsoft).

I wonder how they expect to solve an issue if it's related to the underlying OS? Cry in Microsoft's ear and wait for an approximate solution not custom tailored for their needs, instead of taking care of the issue themselves? Windows has unsolved issues that goes back to Windows XP and beyond... Oh well...


Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 September 2020 at 2:54 pm UTC

Quoting: kuhpunktKinda worried about the future honestly... so much fragmentation, everybody wants its own thing.

Well, that happens every time there is a new market in ascension. In the future some of then will close and we will see 2~3 still existing when cloud gaming matures.

We can look at console history to see a lot of companies that tried to be on this market and failed, leading to what we have today