The Future Of Cloud Gaming: Thoughts On Intricately’s 2022 Cloud Gaming Report
Aug 29, 2022
Overview of the Future of Cloud Gaming
The cloud has been changing the way we think about technology for years now and it’s no secret that cloud services are becoming increasingly popular with both users and businesses alike.
Cloud gaming is a growing segment of the video game industry, with some companies reporting more than double-digit growth year-over-year. In its recent 2022 report on cloud gaming trends, Intricately noted that cloud gaming as a service could reach an estimated value of $5.8 billion by 2022. This high valuation is indicative of the rapid adoption of cloud technology in general and cloud gaming in particular.
As we enter 2022, the video game market will continue to expand, with emerging concepts such as microservices, artificial intelligence, and blockchain continuing to drive innovation across hardware, software, and services.
But what does this mean for cloud gaming? How will these trends impact it going forward? Let’s take a look at Intricately’s report in more detail and see if we can predict where cloud gaming is headed in the future.
Cloud Gaming Market Predictions and Trends
The Cloud gaming industry to grow over 300% while adding new ways to engage with gaming
According to the report, in the next two years, the cloud gaming industry is projected to grow by over 300%.
As streaming services revolutionize, the way we watch television cloud gaming is changing, and how we play, well, I would say cloud gaming is offering us new ways to engage with our gaming addiction. So we don't think it's changing how we play, but it's adding new ways for us to actually go and play computer games.
Are streaming games going to be a reality?
According to the report, the future of gaming is in the cloud, making streaming games a reality, and you no longer need an expensive gaming console. All you need is a fast internet connection.
However, it is not that you no longer need an expensive gaming console. Cloud gaming does not offer the same experience as gaming on a high-end PC. Gamers typically have both PCS and consoles, and handheld devices, they don't pick between them. We've also seen that all you need is a fast, internet connection isn't strictly true, you can have a great ISP connection put to the internet for sure.
If the cloud is too far away as we often say or wherever the game cloud gaming is being hosted, a fast internet connection will not help you at all. You're still going to have problems and because it's video, it's even more sensitive. So most Consoles and PC gaming is running at anywhere from 1080p, which is a high-definition video, up to 4K which is, you know, obviously 4x of 1080 P. So 4x the resolution is an ultra-high-definition quality that requires a huge amount of bandwidth. But gamers will lower the resolution because they're looking to play a multiplayer game and the latency between the player and the game is really important.
And cloud gaming is not targeted toward those types of experiences. So yeah, this is not about switching people from playing games on other mechanisms. This is about adding to the repertoire of how you can consume games and cloud gaming, which opens up the world to more casual gamers.
Buy-and-play vs. subscription model for games
It's a shift in the model from a buy-and-play or free-to-play model to more of a subscription model where you have access to a catalogue of games.
If you're on a commute and you just want to try out some different games and the connectivity is strong (but even regardless of the internet connection), cloud gaming generally is better if it's actually hosted at the edge and on an operator network. So it's a great business for Consumer Edge application where you are taking advantage of the proximity of the edge but also the fact that you're on a managed Network.
So all those challenges are delivering video over the open internet with a very short latency. The requirement is to be able to control a game that's being read in. The cloud is greatly improved by actually deploying it at the edge.
Closing thoughts
Concluding our thoughts on this report, we agree cloud gaming is expected to become one of the most important industries in the next decade. As augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to grow in popularity, so will the need for cloud gaming services.
The 2022 cloud gaming report by Intricately predicts the increase in cloud gaming industry by 300% and we add to this that the cloud gaming industry will be more empowered if built at the edge to help reduce latency. Additionally, we also predict the shift from buy-and-play gaming model to a subscription model where gamers can choose what they want to play.
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