Presently we are all watching Stadia, which is the latest attempt at streaming computer games to people and in this case it is Google's turn, be a complete disaster. This is to the surprise of nobody that even vaguely knows how computers and games work, seemingly save perhaps those people that funded the thing. Maybe it is a long play to be the one leading the dance if it all manages to actually kick off but right now... yeah.

However a comment on another thread got me curious

What it needs is a killer app : that one exclusive game that otherwise couldn't be possible. A game that fully tells the world 'screw your scepticism because I Am Here To Stay'.

What might this be? What could be done that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for conventional game hardware in consumer friendly packages to pull off that gamers either want, or don't necessarily right now realise they want?

The immediate thought for most is they can have the absolute screamingly fastest setup available and push the kind of pixels in real time that consoles and most PCs can only dream of, but make it available for the masses. We have seen stuff like this before, indeed anybody that ever heard the phrase "arcade perfect home port" experienced a version of that -- arcade machines by virtue of their continuous income could push the hardware boat out massively in a way that home consoles (PCs of the time were not quite games machines) could never compete with, or if they could then it was only after a few years and then it starts all over again as the state of the art has moved on further.
However that is boring so I want specifics if we are doing that, limited to what the real world or near future likely provides -- a 8 CPU and thus 64 core and 16 card SLI setup might be possible in theory but it still limits what can be done practically in the modern world.

I saw in another discussion about upcoming flight sims possibly storing terabytes remotely such that full recreations of real world locations to continent level is an option. Doing that locally is tricky for the time being if 90 gigs is pushing the envelope for a single game install... however storage costs are dropping all the time so might that catch up before long?
Similarly would that be all that interesting? As it stands procedural generation can give me an awful lot if I so desire, and do it in an absolutely tiny package (the original Elite from 1984 could give me a massive universe to explore, though they were told to limit it more than they could theoretically have done, and more directed stuff can do better still).
Some devs regard procedural generation, and the AI that follows from it, as a dirty word or a false promise* (I would probably consider them incompetent or uninspired but we can skip that one for now), there are however still practical limitations to the concept and a bit of human touch still appreciated for the time being. I don't know what the level size limit for the human mind actually is (number of friends has things like Dunbar's number, it is also generally assumed most humans don't think much beyond the horizon but we can probably recall more games maps than that, and characters from works too). This also says nothing about what benefits from more complexity there might be; "I don't have to visit it, but the option being there is enough". Similarly we can achieve that on a normal system now without needing some kind of remote processing or storage.

Maybe instead of graphics we could have AI worth noting. I don't have my own supercomputer but I can talk to one to play chess that will beat even the best humans going if I so desired. Chess is not really the end goal but such things could happily be expanded. Related at this point would be discussions of game complexity, recent efforts with machine learning to produce computers that can compete at Go and things like the old XBLA Magic the Gathering AI being reasonable jumping off points.

*Such things will eventually do far more than today. As it stands AI procedurally generated music, voice overs, news stories, behaviours, levels and more are all things doing very well. Now while story scripts still leave something to be desired it is generally a sooner rather than later anticipation here (most news stories being written by AI are usually simple here is a change in the market, here are some other changes, here are some things that happened leading up to this, which is all some news sites really need for a lot of stories) then song lyrics will probably be the first.
Instead of AI maybe we see some human actors be more viable than they are right now? Though again is that not already something of an option? Surely the likes of World of Warcraft or Eve Online could host a human controlled something but have them paid to run a shop or something slightly tedious.

Multiplayer is a thing here. As it stands for games like Civilisation we have seen some fairly creative ways to essentially do a play by email and not allow people the option to cheese the system taking the best turn they can (start of turn, send scout in every direction loading each time, pick best course of action as a result of info gleaned and send that save back to the server). Being remote then you could consider it essentially immune to this outside of someone hacking in which already is a rare problem, not to mention limiting options for sniffing data they are theoretically not supposed to have.
Somewhat amusingly then for lag (more on that later) if everybody is effectively in the same bit of system memory then it somewhat turns the ping negation and other aspects of "the internet sucks" on their head, obviously still got some problems with lag to work around (maybe some kind of AI takeover if ping drops too much) but it is a different take on the matter and solves several problems all at once. Might it be how we reasonably get 1000 vs 1000 player servers? One idea that has consistently floated around is the option for 1000 people to all join at a given time and recreate a large battle, even if one player ends up being little more than a gunner responsible for a small section of a ship in that particular instance.
It might also allow for some measure of control enough that gambling and other real money going in and out to users becomes a proper option. People have been saying if people can earn a living from games then that will change everything for many years now (far from the first but a good source might be those things for 2012's Diablo 3 with its "real money auction house") but it still remains true that if many people can then that will change things.

We have seen data from fighting game tournaments be fed back into games to improve AI there. Mega CPU plus it all being local to it could make for some serious tweaks here, and possibly some kind of push back/balancing/openings for an interesting story twist if it thinks things are going wrong (we already see stuff like the left4dead director). Theoretically such things could already be done (input + time of input is not lots of data) but I am sure the folks that spend time contemplating metrics are giddy with anticipation of what such services could allow them to do. If nothing else stats + human "invisible" moderation + instantaneous patching means exploits might not propagate far; if player times/damage/funds have achieved these results outside of expected variables then oh no look your glitch gun broke.

Combining with the memory above then maybe we see some more persistent world stuff rather than endless replayed instances. Though frankly that could be done now in some ways (see minecraft)... that said combined with the large level stuff from earlier then maybe not. I would not mind seeing a true survival game like this, especially if pinging out saw my character go AI and attempt to return home/finish the task within my capabilities as it were.

So starting with the assumption that streaming allows those doing streaming games a complete control of essentially a supercomputer, one somewhat immune to hackers, one with only the lag to remote players (which could be made low if certain expensive things are done) being the main issue then what could be achieved that presently is difficult, if not impossible, that would make for a far more compelling experience?
As part of this theorising I can allow some kind of lag negation; if they did it local to the town/city, or even better, then it would be more than acceptable, but that is actual investment and seemingly more than they care to do right here. We can also skip the "I don't own my games", "muh bandwidth caps" and "I want mods" type discussions as they are issues for some but not so very great when all is said and done (people already give their money to Steam for scarcely any better, such caps are a non issue in a lot of the world and *points at consoles*).

 

[cots]

I read about plans to make games that include millions of NPCs along with millions of players all rendered at the same time with unlimited draw distance in online worlds comparable to the size of our planet featuring photo realistic 4k graphics. If latency wasn't such a big issue this would be a selling point for me.

 

[Taleweaver]

Hmmm... On one hand I'm obviously flattered to have inspired a three page thread. But on the other hand, it's not like this is a great place for brainstorming. And I hope to explain why without insulting anyone.

The problem is that thus far posts have been made with the preconceived notion of what a video game is or should be. And for stadia, that's a trap. Not on every part, of course, but on a few crucial ones.

Most in my post (or a similar one about stadia) was that it should get 'into the breach' and stardew valley on the platform. Not because I like indie games so much but because they're not affected so much by lag or high ping (it's less annoying that your crops plop onto the screen 100 milliseconds after than that your fighting combo got broken).
What I was saying was mostly of things to get rid of. Fighting with fast reflexes? No. PvP where hand eye coordination is key? No. Vr? No. QTE's? No! Perhaps somewhere in the near future a standard internet connection comes to the point where these things can reliably work BUT THAT IS NOT NOW!

For a platform like stadia to become successful, it first needs to realiseer that it can never beat home consoles at their own game. It has advantages, but these are currently relatively unexplored. Namely :
-connected through any device
-a lot of horsepower on the other end that'll take care of calculations (compared to home consoles)
-little to no loading times as a result
-the entire user base is, by definition, online

As for disadvantages : it should be assumed that everyone 's responses will have a delay of about half a second. Yes, it's usually better, but if you design a game around that given there'll be mechanics you won't bother to even start with.

So what's left? It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I' d say the following :
-turn based tactics games
-story driven adventure games (including walking simulators)
-virtual board games
-puzzle games that don't rely (as much) on times reflection (1)
-mmorpg's

In my post I originally wanted to say something like 'how about playing on multiple devices at once?'. I didn't because the WiiU wasn't exactly successful, but there is some merit to the idea. Like... Say minecraft or factorio like games. They could have a full stadia experience in which you game, and a minimal interface on your phone where you could check on your stuff and perform some minimal tasks.


(1): and this is perhaps where mag compensaties could compensate,eg tetris pieces farming more slowly if the users experience lag

 

[Nerdtendo]

I'd say massive online infrastructures that maintain a focus on individual players. Imagine the expansive world of no man's sky with the quest (and side quests) of skyrim and also HEY LOOK! There's a person over there doing a thing.

 

[destructor1]

This entire Streaming shit is the worst that can happen. You actually do not own anything, except the right to play a specific game. You can´t sell it if it turns out to to be shitty. This is the worst thing to happen and it should not be used by anyone. Except i dont see why you wouldn´t wanna actually OWN the Game you like to play. And saying this i mean like Physically. A Disc, or a file on Pendrive or something.

 

[smf]

There is nothing streaming games can do that online games don't do better due to being faster and having at least some of the code in the machine you are using to play.

Having the code in the machine reduces rendering latency, but it increases computational latency. Developers have experience of hiding that, but I suspect in ten years we'll see advances in streaming game technology that actually shows some advantage.

 

[raxadian]

Having the code in the machine reduces rendering latency, but it increases computational latency. Developers have experience of hiding that, but I suspect in ten years we'll see advances in streaming game technology that actually shows some advantage.

But not today.

So to sum it up, the Stadia is a waste of money.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Well, if we're talking about getting access to ridiculous specs, Dwarf Fortress stands out to me as something that could benefit from that.

It's a really deep game but eventually, the game's FPS starts chugging due to pathfinding issues. Having insane specs could fix that (and it wouldn't have the same issues most other games that are internet only have in that Dwarf Fortress can be entirely paced at ones own speed.)

 

[smf]

So to sum it up, the Stadia is a waste of money.

Arguably all money you spend on playing games is a waste.

I'm not buying it for various reasons, but I don't feel a need to try to dissuade others.

 

[Kraken_X]

There isn't anything new that a Stadia or 9th gen system can do that an Xbox 360 or even PS2 couldn't do with worse graphics and more load screens. With the exception of VR and motion controls, there really isn't anything that more CPU power can do to make a game more fun. Sure you could have a bigger world with more stuff in it, and shorter load times before areas. Sure, you could have advanced AI for the handful of players who think "impossible" difficulty is too easy. But really pretty much all new games come down to game styles that already exist or that could have been possible on lesser hardware, but now look prettier. Maybe someday someone could make a game like Mass Effect except that the story and characters are all dynamically generated each time you play, but it will be a very long time before computers will be good enough at randomly generated content to rival a team of people working on a project for years, a separate team doing quality control, etc.

That's not to say that Stadia couldn't have a killer exclusive, but that exclusive would be exclusive because of a deal, not because it requires "the cloud".

 

[DarkCoffe64]

Something I came up earlier when thinking something like this:
To try a game before playing it, perhaps?
Like, instead of having to download a demo, you can maybe directly play the game with a timer, like, dunno, an hour or two,
and when the time's up you can't play it anymore, but can then decide if it's worth to buy the game or not, I guess.

 

[Taleweaver]

This entire Streaming shit is the worst that can happen. You actually do not own anything, except the right to play a specific game. You can´t sell it if it turns out to to be shitty. This is the worst thing to happen and it should not be used by anyone. Except i dont see why you wouldn´t wanna actually OWN the Game you like to play. And saying this i mean like Physically. A Disc, or a file on Pendrive or something.

You can say the exact same about steam or other online platforms. It might not be your thing, but you can't that there is a market for it.

Something I came up earlier when thinking something like this:
To try a game before playing it, perhaps?
Like, instead of having to download a demo, you can maybe directly play the game with a timer, like, dunno, an hour or two,
and when the time's up you can't play it anymore, but can then decide if it's worth to buy the game or not, I guess.

Ooh... Very nice idea! Best I've read in this thread so far!
I've seen platforms (steam) try free weekends, but the possibility of just click and instantly play would be a welcome change to all the 'download, install all the components, start the initial configuration' hoops installing a game currently takes.

 

[FAST6191]

there really isn't anything that more CPU power can do to make a game more fun. Sure, you could have advanced AI for the handful of players who think "impossible" difficulty is too easy. But really pretty much all new games come down to game styles that already exist or that could have been possible on lesser hardware, but now look prettier. Maybe someday someone could make a game like Mass Effect except that the story and characters are all dynamically generated each time you play, but it will be a very long time before computers will be good enough at randomly generated content to rival a team of people working on a project for years, a separate team doing quality control, etc.

AI right now for 3d games is usually so much run at you and attack, maybe take cover and maybe run away. Something a bit more intelligent capable of some kind of flanking setup and some actual tactics, or indeed some measure of play itself, would spice things up a bit.

As far as AI generation goes then I don't think it is as far off as you reckon it to be, and if they limit it to more of a prebaked list of options to tie together and location to do it in, and couple it with some AI like above then it could do very well in very short order. Similarly have you not seen people play most Ubisoft efforts year after year?

As far as more CPU not making more fun. Not inherently or obviously like it once might have been but some more/better physics to play with, more items on display to do better at populating a world and while load times and such could create similar things then there is such a thing as too much load time and if we can dodge that then it is not a bad thing.

Hmmm... On one hand I'm obviously flattered to have inspired a three page thread. But on the other hand, it's not like this is a great place for brainstorming. And I hope to explain why without insulting anyone.

The problem is that thus far posts have been made with the preconceived notion of what a video game is or should be. And for stadia, that's a trap. Not on every part, of course, but on a few crucial ones.

Most in my post (or a similar one about stadia) was that it should get 'into the breach' and stardew valley on the platform. Not because I like indie games so much but because they're not affected so much by lag or high ping (it's less annoying that your crops plop onto the screen 100 milliseconds after than that your fighting combo got broken).
What I was saying was mostly of things to get rid of. Fighting with fast reflexes? No. PvP where hand eye coordination is key? No. Vr? No. QTE's? No! Perhaps somewhere in the near future a standard internet connection comes to the point where these things can reliably work BUT THAT IS NOT NOW!

I pondered whether I would be twisting your words with that one but I will stand with my context I gave in addition. I do agree it is hard to break from paradigms and current lines of thought and imagine what could be done, this was more of a fun thought exercise than anything particularly serious though.

QTEs could be done if the lag (which again I can reduce to minimal for this -- stick such things in what is still big boy LAN territory or city level and pings go right down) is consistent -- as it stands while some games will tell me to press when the icon flies through the circle but I learned my mum's awful TV means hit it about 2 circle widths before that to win, or indeed what people ended up doing for Mother 3. Might benefit from a slight twist and having you queue up commands rather than instant results too. Possibly with something similar to how network time servers work if you can get the controller to keep something like time.

 

[Nightwish]

The data would only need to be updated once per tick by the backend and the clients would simply read from it. I believe cache coherence should not be an issue in that case right?

To be more clear, it depends on how much data each player needs. If everyone is seeing more or less the same thing and with little inventory/units/..., it would work well. If players aren't clustered around a smallish location and can affect a lot of different things at the same time, it might not be possible to. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much is too much, it may be less than I thought.

I am still curious at the use of the term datamine here

Yeah, it's a misnomer the gaming community uses. It's just the process of scavenging the game files for content that isn't easily seen or connected to the game yet, it has nothing to do with finding statistical patterns.
I mean, it is correct literally, but someone took the name first, so it's wrong.

 

[Alkéryn]

Have much bigger game worlds / data, and have it only a single time for all player
ex maps that'd take TB's of fast random accesses on memory to work but that are shared between all gameplays and such things but w/e

 

[europat]

You don't own a physical game

 

[elBenyo]

I will say I read all the replies and unlimited RAM and view distances sounds great but.... but!!! The killer app they need is something like SteamOS. They need a virtual PC like a Chromebook, so poor folks like me can edit video on a powerful cloud and then jump into whatever else. Say it's Hulu or a desktop, just have approved Google apps. No, people won't go crazy with it because Google can nuder the OS, to the kin of say WebOS. Avoid another AndroidTV situation lol.

 

[rich333]

i think it needs to create new genres, making the current style of games now is just a test, to iron out latency and other issues.

i think the new genres will incorporate the use of additional sensors or devices. like connecting to cameras google has setup all over the globe, or gps movements from phones (they already have the data). connecting to devices on IoT - all in real-time and interacting with a massive amount of people. Something to bridge the real world into a interactive game

 

[LoggerMan]

Real life remote control cars, 12 remote cars in a warehouse, 12 players control them from their xboxes, paying $1 per race, which is used to pay for the cost of clearing the cars and setting up new cars after each race. Real physics, real video, overlaid with animations.

 

[AlexMCS]

I read about plans to make games that include millions of NPCs along with millions of players all rendered at the same time with unlimited draw distance in online worlds comparable to the size of our planet featuring photo realistic 4k graphics. If latency wasn't such a big issue this would be a selling point for me.

Even that is impossible.
Consider that this is unfeasible for a single player using cutting edge PCs. We would need many clusters for 1 player to get there.
Imagine doing the same for many players, each with their own camera view, implying in calculations for each player.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Real life remote control cars, 12 remote cars in a warehouse, 12 players control them from their xboxes, paying $1 per race, which is used to pay for the cost of clearing the cars and setting up new cars after each race. Real physics, real video, overlaid with animations.

You don't need Stadia to do that. Check out Isotopium
https://www.isotopium.com/