The Cloud and Gaming

I’m a fan of new technology. I remember when I first heard about "Cloud Computing" when CERN  finished the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. I was immediately interested in how decentralized computing would impact the Personal Computer. My mind went off on a million different tangents, I still wonder if one day I'll be able to plug my monitor into the wall and have a processor the speed of the sum of all un-used processors on planet earth... but here I consider it's impact on gaming.

Now that I’ve started working in the game industry I can’t help but wonder if the video game industry will migrate towards offering games as a service (GaaS :P ) or if we’ll see developers, producers and publishers, afraid of change, decide to more slowly settle into offering gamers satisfaction over the Cloud.

The economic benefit of having players pay a monthly fee for access to games instead of a one time fee for a disc seems undeniable. And gamers, imagine if you could turn on your Playstation or Xbox and choose to play from the cloud instead of a disc or a downloaded game for just 30 dollars a month.

But where are all the service providers? Such opportunity with so few takers leaves me somewhat confused. Is it because we are limited by technology? Or is it because we’re afraid of something different?

Once games are on the cloud will that mean you have to pay a monthly fee to play video games at all, or will folks who want to stay traditional be able to? With talk of the next XBox being released to consumers without a CD ROM drive old timers may be forced to move with the times... I don't know that I like that thought.

Heres to the Future!

-Josiah Blaisdell