I agree that your point on cloud gaming is probably valid for companies trying to maintain a rigid grip over software piracy when the companies still build things that can be stolen -- But I don't think it's strictly necessary for the development of anti-cheat systems.

In the next version of Windows, we're seeing a rapid acceleration in the amount of hardware/software fingerprinting and secure storage going on in home computing, with the introduction of the TPM 2.0 and UEFI requirements.

I am almost certain that Microsoft is progressing to be able to sell a completely hardware-protected memory address space to game developers, so that they no longer HAVE to worry about cheating. Because if everything from boot onwards is both signed and supports DRM, it's the perfect place to authenticate everything that happens afterwards.

This is interesting in that it will almost certainly lead to an explosion of DRM, DLC, and software sold via subscription models. And while this kind of thing will probably be initially well received by players hoping for decent anti-cheats, it will almost certainly lead to users forfeiting even more control to corporations over the final direction of the software programming.

(This kind of control may eat itself alive given enough time; we'll really only know after humanity has already gone that far!)

I'm really glad we have thoughtful people like you here. Gives me a little hope and motivation.

What's worse, MS and hw companies are joining efforts and may pressure Linux platforms as well (remember the story with the UEFI shim signature).

I am almost certain the MS store built into the Win11 will be this antichrist of consumer control. They have all the pieces. They just need to put them together in the coming years.

Cloud gaming would lose practical consumers' control much more than Netflix did. At the very least, one could always point a video camera at the screen to copy video (suppose for one's own records). But with games, there is no chance to do anything like this. Netflix had an interactive Black Mirror episode called Bandersnatch(2018) that I speculated at the time was appealing from a business perspective because copying interactive content is much harder than straight video.

I'm imagining a better world for both gamers and corporations. One where DRM and anti-cheat aren't included, you pay for the game you can run locally, and you pay a subscription for cloud gaming access which has exclusive access to a set of game/world servers.

Want to mod, LAN, or play casually? Play locally.

Want to play without cheaters? Choose your friends wisely or play on cloud gaming.

Lack of DRM drives interest in the game, which drives interest in cloud gaming subscriptions due to wanting cheat-free gameplay.

AFAIK cloud gaming hasn't shown any signs of "taking off" so far, despite many desperate attempts. I think we're safe for a while. And even if, there will be new game companies discovering that now free niche of "cloud free gaming". Some of the other problems you describe already exist for locally installed games though (e.g. most multiplayer games are useless when their matchmaking servers are switched off).

I fear with install sizes getting g bigger and bigger with no signs of slowing down, game streaming will become more attractive to more people in the coming years

A middle way would be to stream assets from the internet as needed, but run the game locally (basically the internet becomes the hard disk, and the hard disk just an additional cache level). This may require designing games for this asset loading strategy from the ground up though (on the other hand, this was always the case that games had to designed around the limitations of their storage device, especially in the game console world).

Relevant patent from Valve filed last year:

https://www.freepatentsonline.com/11123634.html

> AFAIK cloud gaming hasn't shown any signs of "taking off" so far, despite many desperate attempts. I think we're safe for a while.

Are you kidding? What's the most recent game you have that will let you set up a non-hotseat multiplayer game involving only computers you control?

I guess we're talking about different things then. I understand "cloud gaming" as Stadia, (or the older attempt Onlive), where the game is running on machines in datacenters and sends a video stream to the user.

That's pretty much what happens if you're running multiplayer through a third-party server, except that instead of sending video data, it's sending you game input and having you render the video locally.

But that's just the difference between downloading a starcraft replay file and watching it in starcraft, versus downloading a video of a starcraft game and watching it in a video player. One is a compressed video, and the other is also a compressed video, but with a different compression scheme.

>It's been obvious for a while that the big gaming companies have it in mind, and the only reason it isn't as big as it could be, is due to tech limitations FOR NOW.

I'll begin to worry when the speed of light increases, making gaming through streaming practical.

Indeed. Multiplayer network lag is one thing, but network lag between INPUT and SCREEN is preposterous.

There is sub 100ms input lag in good conditions with cloud gaming, and it goes as low as 60, and it will be better as more servers come online as everything from gets optimized for latency. Is it worse than PC with same games? Yes. Is it worse than game consoles? Not really. But it removes whole sets of "who shot first" problems, and if we are talking about actual latency for your decision to take effect(input lag+network lag) cloud might just be better in many scenarios.

This is kind of already happening with the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. So you get hundreds of games to play, but you actually don't own any of them.

I understand you meant it in a different light but I thought I'd give it a mention.

Welcome to the wonderful world of SaaS, where even the last upsides of software have been replaced by a money extraction machine.

The thing it, users seem to prefer the "own nothing, pay little per month" approach.

In movies, everyone is now making their subscription services, that are really popular; while services for buying movies online existed for years and were not really all that successful.

You can buy movies on iTunes for maybe 15 years now and on Google Play for ... a while too; but it has never been as successful as Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount Whatever, is now.

People just prefer the subscription model.

But maybe gaming is fundamentally different. Apple Arcade is not really successful, but maybe it's because Apple is being Apple, I don't know. Xbox... has a game pass thing? I don't really follow that that much

>while services for buying movies online existed for years and were not really all that successful.

>You can buy movies on iTunes for maybe 15 years now and on Google Play for ... a while too

I don't know about itunes, but the last movie I ""bought"" on google play couldn't be downloaded, I had to watch it through their interface and firefox on linux was not supported. I believe they don't offer the thing anymore as well, probably happened during one of their countless service mergers and shuffles. I can't find it anymore, anyways. 0/10 would not license a movie through google again.

Do you know what isn't going away? The files I ripped from blurays that stores are selling for about five bucks a pice, 12 if you take three. Unless I get an mkv I can play wherever I want for as long as I have it, I'm not buying.

Xbox Game Pass is a huge success, it seems. And tbf, that’s to be expected when you look at the game list it unlocks.

The tech is okish most time good. Geforce Now works fine even with FPS. Stadia is OK. You can get a decent PC on Paperspace for an OK price. All said it is not Great and you have to have a solid Internet connection but it works for casual gaming. Like an hour of Battlefield 1 or Red Dead Redemption on Stadia

Barring a revolutionary new material that effectively eliminates current levels of latency, cloud gaming is not happening anytime soon.