Within Google Cloud, a computer is muttering: Shall we play a game? Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of SaaS? On a rainy Wednesday morning in San Francisco, Google pitched its Cloud Platform (GCP) to power games, and brought friends along to sing its praises at the annual Games Developer's Conference. It's an easy sell. Game makers represent the ideal market for on-demand infrastructure because their IT requirements tend to be …
"Not only will Google rent you the kit you need to run and deliver your game, but it can help collect analytics and support systems that promote player engagement, on any platform it can reach."
That is precisely why, even if it gave the best experience in the history of mankind, I won't touch this stuff with a ten foot pole. Google and other advertising companies already spy on and manipulate me far more than I can stomach.
In principle this has been tried before on smaller scales. Although I cannot imagine most people's internet connection piping in 4k or 8k streams without "breaking the internet" or at least overwhelming their local connection.
Games are for more lag sensitive than movies - there is a need for upload removing a lot of capability of buffering. Even simple games can stutter and stall on standard internet connections. Beyond that, if you are trying to play people in foreign countries you run into the laws of physics becoming a barrier, not just hardware that could be upgraded. Latency will be a big challenge. This is why, at least in general, large MMO games have relatively simplified combat physics and behaviours over the complex versions that most locally played games have.
Regardless of discussion on Google being an appropriate host... I just don't quite get how this will work for many people to an acceptable standard..
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