Better that I don't watch that video at work.

The core idea behind streaming of any content is of course that the creators can extract more money from consumers than they could by selling discrete things. On average that is. And in return the consumer is supplied with convenience. Not a bad idea since it's quite obvious that people pay good money for convenience.

For music this seems to work very well. I've had Spotify for over 10 years and it's been great for me. Although there are some issues with things not being available, they have been rare.

On the Netflix side things are not quite as good. Much more fragmentation and stuff being available one month that is suddenly gone the next. Although still nice, it certainly a lesser experience for me than Spotify is.

Now translate that to games.

First of all, there are two types of streaming services for games. The existing ones that give you access to a remote machine where install your own software. And the new kind like Stadia that provide everything.

Both are actually different to the music/movie/tv streaming services. Bringing your own stuff doesn't really classify as "game" streaming and is more renting of computer power. And Stadia doesn't stream the game, but only the resulting picture and sound. I don't think anybody has ever done a game streaming service where the game is actually loaded onto your own computer on-demand.

So Stadia like services will be the big thing here. And the question on whether this is good depends on the unknown. For giving up ownership you would need to get back a lot of convenience. This may actually be worth it if these services will be more like the music services where everything including a vast history of games is available at your fingertips. But if it starts getting more like the movie/series streaming services, it may become more trouble than it's worth. Right now, we simply don't know how it will turn out.

And of course there is the technical aspect. The response times are currently limited, which excludes a whole range of games to be played comfortably. This will probably hold back things for a while.

Quoting: EhvisBetter that I don't watch that video at work.

The core idea behind streaming of any content is of course that the creators can extract more money from consumers than they could by selling discrete things. On average that is. And in return the consumer is supplied with convenience. Not a bad idea since it's quite obvious that people pay good money for convenience.

For music this seems to work very well. I've had Spotify for over 10 years and it's been great for me. Although there are some issues with things not being available, they have been rare.

On the Netflix side things are not quite as good. Much more fragmentation and stuff being available one month that is suddenly gone the next. Although still nice, it certainly a lesser experience for me than Spotify is.

Now translate that to games.

First of all, there are two types of streaming services for games. The existing ones that give you access to a remote machine where install your own software. And the new kind like Stadia that provide everything.

Both are actually different to the music/movie/tv streaming services. Bringing your own stuff doesn't really classify as "game" streaming and is more renting of computer power. And Stadia doesn't stream the game, but only the resulting picture and sound. I don't think anybody has ever done a game streaming service where the game is actually loaded onto your own computer on-demand.

So Stadia like services will be the big thing here. And the question on whether this is good depends on the unknown. For giving up ownership you would need to get back a lot of convenience. This may actually be worth it if these services will be more like the music services where everything including a vast history of games is available at your fingertips. But if it starts getting more like the movie/series streaming services, it may become more trouble than it's worth. Right now, we simply don't know how it will turn out.

And of course there is the technical aspect. The response times are currently limited, which excludes a whole range of games to be played comfortably. This will probably hold back things for a while.

The video was more about the idea of killing games.
And how "games as a service" is unfair to the consumer.
Streaming is outside the scope of things , it's like looking at a game outside from the window.
This was more about the requirement to use company servers to play a game and how the company can kill the game whnever they want.

Games as a services, games that are constantly updated, are also killing developers. It's a huge amount of work, the stress of it must be insane.

From Twitter:

QuoteThis affects indies too (beyond "needing a roadmap") in that you can't just make a game and release it, if you don't do post launch (free!) content updates people on Steam will quickly start coming in to call your game a "dead game", even going so far as to leave negative reviews

I agree with them too, heck I've even been a little guilty of being a little less excited at times if a game isn't seeing more content after release. Not out of malice though, more that I want more of what I enjoyed with it but it all comes at a cost, especially when so many developers are on the breadline.