Video Games Will Be “100% Digital” by 2022

[Uvaman2]

Is this guy for real?
How many hours do you need to play, so that the streaming bandwith exceeds the single download size? Let's say you play in 4K, that is a reasonable expectation beyond 2020 and at 30fps, let's not get greedy here. That's 1GB of data / second. Let's say they have a damned efficient compression algorithm. So it compresses it 100:1. It is still 10MB/s. Let's round that up to 40GB / hour! So in 2-3 hours you waste more bandwith than the size of any game available now! And I don't know about you, but I tend to spend 20-80 hours with a game, with some having over 500 hours to their name.

1 gb/s?! Can't be, video is 7gb/hr... Plus i think it would be very unlikely for 4k video game streams... even in 2022.. so 1080p video is about 1gb/hr, so 500hr/ would be 500gb.. not bad? I think? .

 

[Denpepe]

1 gb/s?! Can't be, video is 7gb/hr... Plus i think it would be very unlikely for 4k video game streams... even in 2022.. so 1080p video is about 1gb/hr, so 500hr/ would be 500gb.. not bad? I think? .

Aren't movies running at 24 fps? I have a 144 hz monitor so multiply that by let's say 6 then, forgetting about it beeing 1440p for arguments sake.

 

[Exavior]

I haven't tried the service but PlayStation Now is a streaming service. It only requires 5Mbps. Playing a game in HD is no different than watching a HD movie on Netflix.

 

[Rahh]

You get less content with digital only. There's still a special place in my heart for getting art, lyrics, and additional content with my physical purchases for the same price as they are doing digital. Some of the things like the Warcraft Collectors set and a few others I've bought have been well worth it to me.

 

[Armenius]

it's the future whether you believe it or not. All media will be digital and on a cloud and that is how it should be mainly because from a conservation standpoint it'll create less waste on the environment. It's bad enough enough we're plaguing the oceans with our plastic and god knows what else, but we need to transition as a species to a more environmentally conscious society and anything that can distributed or saved on a server or network should be mandatory.... That is until we start talking about Zuckerberg and Bezos pushing your date, which is an toooooooootally different conversation altogether.

The "Cloud" is a bunch of servers that use a lot of power. And how is most electricity still generated? Fossil fuels. The power use of individual users is not going to be offset by the end user using a lower powered device compared to what we have now.

As far as the streaming only option, I wonder if any of those 'analysts' have played a streamed only game over an internet connection that represents the median speed and ping times in the US? I am guessing that if they would do that and then consider that 50% of the country would have a worse experience then they just did, they might reconsider their projections.

Even the digital only option probably screws the lower third or so of the US. A 5 gig update can take hours on a 6mb connection.

Easy to make these predictions when your office building probably has some of the best Internet connections in the world and you make enough to afford some of the best home connections.

How quickly we forget the Xbox One debacle which occurred for the very same reason.

1 gb/s?! Can't be, video is 7gb/hr... Plus i think it would be very unlikely for 4k video game streams... even in 2022.. so 1080p video is about 1gb/hr, so 500hr/ would be 500gb.. not bad? I think? .

1080p 60 FPS is about 1.5 TB/hr uncompressed. If we assume HEVC at 100:1 that is 15 GB/hr. 4K 30 FPS would be double that. If you use YCbCr 4:2:0 you can further decrease bandwidth to a third, or 5 and 10 GB/hr, respectively.

I haven't tried the service but PlayStation Now is a streaming service. It only requires 5Mbps. Playing a game in HD is no different than watching a HD movie on Netflix.

PlayStation Now games stream at 30 FPS and 720p. "Full HD" 1080p would require at least 10 Mbps, preferably 25. Streaming video isn't the same as streaming a game, though. The former requires no user input, so latency is fine so long as it doesn't degrade the image quality. If you're waiting more than 50ms for your input to translate to movement they you're going to have a bad time. And that is in addition to the input lag of whatever display you're using.

 

[Uvaman2]

Aren't movies running at 24 fps? I have a 144 hz monitor so multiply that by let's say 6 then, forgetting about it beeing 1440p for arguments sake.

Yeah, that would he another point against streaming... It wouldn't be any of those refresh numbers or anything like that... By your standards ( and many others ) it would be what we call " garbage" hehe... Me, i can live with a lot less graphics provided good game play things like that.. but i certainly understand though.

 

[motomonkey]

I can't remember the last time I bought a physical PC game? I'd say it's been well over 10 years. Same with software like Windows/Office - just download the ISO and put it in a flash drive to install (obviously depends on what/how you are installing it.)

I've tried a few of the streaming services. They were not as bad as I thought they would be, but not great. I'm referring to the service Sony offers for the PS4 (Play Now?). We tried it for a while during the free period and canceled it.

I did buy a copy of Win10 on a flash drive for my current build, it was on sale somewhere so I grabbed it. but other than that, I am trying to remember when I bought a physical copy of any program.

 

[M76]

1 gb/s?! Can't be, video is 7gb/hr... Plus i think it would be very unlikely for 4k video game streams... even in 2022.. so 1080p video is about 1gb/hr, so 500hr/ would be 500gb.. not bad? I think? .

Bear in mind that movies are much easier to compress. You can compress a game stream to be 7gb/hr, but then you get the quality you get on a twitch stream at best. I wouldn't even consider playing with that IQ.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Yea I don't understand that either. Why the fuck companies will take the risk and set up farms to run these streaming games. I am not sure, instead of making a game and selling it digitally and let people worry about their hardware when the gaming industry is already doing so well with all time high in market cap.

If done right I think k it will have appeal to many out there. Paying a subscription fee per month, rather than a large up front investment generally tends to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Just look at how many idiots constantly re-up their 2 year phone contracts so they can get the latest phone with a discount...

I have no problem with these streaming services existing as an alternative for those unable or unwilling to get a proper local setup, I just hope it doesn't become dominant to the point where local PC gaming is hurt by it, just like how console gaming becoming dominant got us countless bad console ports and games designed for the lowest common denominator.

 

[NKD]

If done right I think k it will have appeal to many out there. Paying a subscription fee per month, rather than a large up front investment generally tends to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Just look at how many idiots constantly re-up their 2 year phone contracts so they can get the latest phone with a discount...

I have no problem with these streaming services existing as an alternative for those unable or unwilling to get a proper local setup, I just hope it doesn't become dominant to the point where local PC gaming is hurt by it, just like how console gaming becoming dominant got us countless bad console ports and games designed for the lowest common denominator.

well phones have no discount anymore though. May be in other countries but certainly no in the U.S. I am sure to some it will be great. But I don't see this happening to almost everyone. I am fine with subscription gaming. But I don't know about streaming every game. May be they can do it over low speed connection to under served communities in other countries, where they are limited to 5 to 10 mbps. It would make sense to push a constant stream because it would take them forever to download a game. I wouldn't like it a bit. I am fine with ea model where you pay monthly and download any game you want to play. If steam did that I could understand.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

well phones have no discount anymore though. May be in other countries but certainly no in the U.S.

My bad. I didn't know they had ended the scheme. I switched to Fi when it came out, so I haven't looked at major mobile providers offerings in years.

 

[Minomine]

Out of curiosity, what's the last physical PC game you bought that didn't also require an online account (Steam, Origin, etc.) to run?

PC gamers haven't really been given a choice of digital or physical for a long time now.

The last physical PC game I bought was Overwatch. I've slacked off a lot on PC and went back to my consoles for the most part, until I can get a video card at a reasonable price...

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

1 gb/s?! Can't be, video is 7gb/hr... Plus i think it would be very unlikely for 4k video game streams... even in 2022.. so 1080p video is about 1gb/hr, so 500hr/ would be 500gb.. not bad? I think? .

Well, I'd imagine that the real time nature and low latency requirements of streaming might necessitate using a somewhat faster compression algorithm than we are used to with other formats that are compressed up front.

 

[tetris42]

The last physical PC game I bought was Overwatch. I've slacked off a lot on PC and went back to my consoles for the most part, until I can get a video card at a reasonable price...

That reinforces what I was getting at. You can still buy physical copies of PC games, but they're empty husks. They lose all resell value once you play the game, and it still requires you to get online to play it. The practical difference between physical v. digital on PC has become basically non-existent. The only real difference is you get a box and the pre-load files (sometimes not even that).

 

[twonunpackmule]

Games have been 100% digital for me for well over a decade on PC, not counting the unopened "collectors" boxes of games I worked on.

I think the last physical game I bought was Mass Effect 1, the same day as the console I bought to play it, and oddly, those were my final console-related purchases since then, hardware or software.

I buy the occasional physical game these days on PC. Mainly pure digital. I think the only times I don't go digital is when the game isn't available digitally and I don't believe in pirating if profit from my purchase is still possible.