The All-round Dilemma and Reform of Cloud Games

The 6th Annual Digital Entertainment Industry Summit (DEAS) of Gaming Gyro was held in Xiamen Panji Hilton Hotel from December 11th to 13th, 219. This annual meeting will be based on? Looking for? Tao? With the theme, we will gather the strength of the times, build the annual digital entertainment industry grand meeting from all directions and angles, * * * build the digital entertainment brand in China, and work together with * * * to build a harmonious ecology of digital entertainment.

At the meeting, the topic is? In the era of cloud games, how to find your own position? In the round table, Ren Peiwen, Chief Operating Officer of Game Gyro, Wu Tao, Chief Technology Officer of Youzu Network, Ding Xuefei, General Manager of Jinshan Cloud Game Cloud Division, Bao Bo, China Production Director of Yingbo, and He Jin, Vice President of Guangzhou Zhuo Yuan Virtual Reality Technology Co., Ltd. discussed what impact cloud games will bring to the game industry.

Game Gyro: What do you think of the current concept of cloud games? Why is it so popular?

Wu Tao: Cloud game is not a new concept, nor is it a new technology. Cloud game technology research has appeared several years ago, and there are corresponding products. Before the United States, there was a company Onlive that provided cloud game products. Unfortunately, this company did not continue to operate.

Now the time is ripe, because the network bandwidth has reached Gigabit, and technically speaking, the bandwidth required for cloud games is about 1 MB/s.. So at this point in time, Google and Microsoft began to see the advantages of their own infrastructure, and they are all laying out cloud game content and acting as new channels in the content and entertainment industries.

ding xuefei: from the perspective of cloud computing vendors, in fact, from the very beginning of games, cloud computing and public cloud were introduced in the 3G era, and some card games were applied to smart phones for the first time, which was the first time that game content was combined with smart devices.

At present, when 5G is coming, why is it said that cloud games are about to break out in the 5G era? First, the infrastructure is mature. Secondly, from the perspective of the types of games, Ready Player One, a virtual world game scene with a strong sense of substitution and immersion, is the final form of cloud games.

on the other hand, the demand for bandwidth and computing power of cloud games for cloud computing is a very significant growth demand, because in the 4G era, mobile games are mainly on the mobile side, taking advantage of everyone's fragmentation time. After the infrastructure is improved in the future, cloud computing will play a very important role in the multi-screen interactive scene of cloud games.

Bao Bo: I think cloud games may be a new platform for the game industry. The game industry is basically divided by platforms. At present, it accounts for about 5% of mobile platforms, 25% of host platforms and slightly less than 25% of PC platforms in the global game industry.

In the future, cloud games will have their own fields in addition to these three platforms, and will greatly gain users from the three platforms. Every time the game industry introduces a new platform, it will make the industry bigger. Ten years ago, the mobile game industry was almost small, and it became like this in just ten years. Now that the cloud infrastructure is getting better and better, it is very likely that the cloud game will become a new platform in the end, just like the VR platform in the future.

He Jin: Every time, it brings a brand-new market due to the change of the network. I think the arrival of cloud games is not only an additional channel for games, but also a broader market.

Game gyro: Every new concept will lead to changes in related industries. For example, the popularity of smart phones has led to the outbreak of mobile games. What impact will the arrival of cloud games bring to the game industry?

● Short-term impacts and long-term benefits of cloud games

Wu Tao: This matter can be seen in the short term. Cloud games first bring impacts and changes to host games, and host manufacturers actually have a hardware threshold. The content of digital games is a truth, but the era of cloud games may no longer be limited by hosts, so I think host manufacturers should be a little nervous.

But in the long run, it is good for the studio of console games, because their products are not only the former console side, but also the cloud games can expand the user boundary and give the studio new opportunities, such as adapting the products to the cloud games and playing them in fragmented time.

On the other hand, cloud games may bring changes in product promotion. Now the promotion of mobile games actually goes through several stages. First, there are advertisements on advertising platforms and media, and then after clicking, they will enter the process of downloading, downloading, installing, logging in and registering after installation, and then creating roles and playing games.

it becomes simple in this era of cloud games. You can click in a game when you see it. This process is much simpler than before, and the simplification of intermediate links is likely to bring revolutionary changes to marketing promotion.

● Two problems of cloud games: solving the problem of cloud games and video transmission rate

Ding Xuefei: When 5G and cloud games are coming, the main opportunities or challenges for cloud computing companies at this stage are as follows: One is how to make the games realize cloud games quickly. The second is video transmission, mainly the large-scale video streaming transmission of cloud gaming, which are the first two requirements to be solved by cloud games.

At the same time, I mentioned various interactive PaaS and SaaS services, which is what cloud computing vendors should do in the first stage. However, in the second stage, Mr. Wu also mentioned that cloud games can make some top-quality host 3A masterpieces, and after cloud gaming, they can have a better user experience. On the other hand, a controversial topic is whether it is necessary for mobile games to be cloud-gamified. The experience of mobile games is very good now. At this stage, we cloud mobile games, in fact, it seems that the game is moved from the local side to the cloud, which increases the bandwidth and GPU costs, so the biggest pain point for cloud computing vendors and vendors who want to do cloud games at this stage is the cost.

what can be done in the second stage is layered rendering. For example, the rendering in the game is now divided into scene rendering and character rendering. The local client does a complete rendering locally, such as ten people fighting, which means that there are ten local clients rendering once each. If layered rendering is put in the cloud, the scene can be rendered only once for a large multiplayer online game. Then push the perspective that everyone sees to the player's perspective by video streaming in the way of slicing from each angle. In fact, it can be calculated, which brings great savings in computing power, because the main computing power consumption is in the scene, which is the challenge we think about the second stage of cloud games for cloud computing companies.

in retrospect, cloud games have significantly improved such a product category of cloud computing, or specifically the cloud host, GPU and bandwidth. At this stage, cloud computing also needs to make a lot of reserves, so from the perspective of cloud computing vendors, this is a very big opportunity brought by cloud games.

I mentioned earlier that the cloud game is the first deep binding of content and computing power, that is to say, for cloud computing vendors, such as Jinshan Cloud, it is positioned as the first stage to help cloud game companies realize the cloudization of games, reduce the cost of reaching, and then make more high-quality content fully realize the cloudization.

what kind of layout should we make in the second stage? In fact, cloud computing vendors always play the role of serving game developers and customers in the market of cloud games. This is Jinshan Cloud's position in the cloud game market in the future.

● Cloud games need a subversive product

Bobo: The most important thing for any game platform, including cloud games, is to have subversive games. The mobile platform thrives in China because it has some subversive products. In just a few explosions, the number of gamers in China can be changed from 2 million to 67 million in three to five years, which is determined by the explosion, attracting a large number of players to play games on this platform.

game gyro: in addition to cross-platform, there may be some multi-ends. You have also cooperated with Netease in a VR game before. What is your position under the changes brought by cloud games?

Bobo: The special feature of a cloud game is that it can actually lead users from other platforms to their own platforms, as long as there are corresponding operating methods on the devices. In this process, what a company like ours should mainly do, I think, is to greatly lower the technical threshold of multiplayer game development and improve the quality at the same time.

second, everyone should pay more attention to the production of high-quality content for cloud games. Cloud games can really be used as challengers for console games, because their products like Sony and Nintendo are of very high quality, and the quality standards for stand-alone games or some online games are defined by these companies every year.

The game consists of several elements, namely, art, art, voice, narrative and technology. The art of our domestic games is well done and the technology is good. If the narrative and game design evolve forward, the quality of our domestic games will be upgraded again.

He Jin: VR now has two pain points. One is that the input cost is relatively high, with an average of 5, to 6,, which is more than 1, yuan. Second, at present, it is more difficult for the overall content providers to make profits, and the profit model is not working, so it is more difficult to make profits.

Cloud games will bring great changes. The first one is that cloud games will solve the problem of calculation. For VR, the PC-side cost will be greatly reduced, which will save a lot of costs. The second is that the arrival of cloud games will realize the establishment of online content distribution, such as pay-per-click payment, and the content will be more abundant.

game gyro: what are some problems or biggest challenges brought by cloud games?

● It costs 6-7 yuan per hour to make a 18P game.

Wu Tao: I think from two angles, one is the product, and the other is the technology. First of all, on the product level, I just mentioned that cloud games are a technology or a technology that may bring new experiences. How to design products, who to target, what to do and how to do this content is a fundamental problem.

technical problems and network problems will be gradually solved with the commercialization of 5G and the increase of the penetration rate of 5G mobile phones. But the cost is really a big problem. For example, the server we use, if I play 72P cloud games on it, it will cost about 1.5 yuan to 2 yuan for an hour, and it will cost six or seven yuan for a higher quality 18P P.

a question is whether users should pay for cloud games after paying for a 5, yuan mobile phone. Some people say that they don't need to be so expensive in the future, but they can play this game on a display screen. I think this is impossible. The mobile phone must be constantly evolving, and the computing, functionality, rendering ability, VR and AR capabilities of the mobile phone itself will be further improved.

if we talk about cloud games just for the sake of cloud games, and ignore the problem of cost transfer, and finally ask users to pay the bill, I think this logic will not hold, and your products may not be used by anyone.

I still think that we should find a difference in products, and give full play to the technological advantages of cloud games and the possibility of technological innovation in a short period of time, such as interactive film and video games, which can be achieved at this stage through the threshold of software technology.

In the longer term, I think that 5G or even the future 6G will interact with the virtual world or the digital world, from the earliest words to images to videos. This kind of interactive data can be larger, and our experience will be richer and more immersive than now. Our perception and transition from the real world to the digital world or the virtual world will be more natural, and the two worlds will be more integrated. In this scenario, it will definitely have a lot to do with cloud games, and it can create a big virtual world.

● Possibility of paying for cloud games: buyout of high-quality content and subscription system for other content members

Ding Xuefei: We have predicted that the form of cloud games will not be a single terminal in the 5G era. For example, I played multiplayer online games with friends outside, which used to be a local area network. Now I can play while walking, and turn on the TV as soon as I get home. The picture inside is the picture I just played on my mobile phone. This is some new changes that may be brought after the coming of cloud games in the future.

Secondly, the fees charged by the companies of cloud game toC are mainly based on membership. We have also discussed with the cloud game platform companies that are cooperating with China now how to charge in the future.

because the charge is directly related to the cost mentioned above, just how much money I have worked out in one hour, and the bandwidth and cloud computing resources at this stage include how much is left after I share it with CP developers.

This problem will naturally be diverted at a certain stage, just like the laws of nature, which belongs to the business logic determined by market demand. Just like a high-quality movie, the initial source of income is in the cinema, and later it will be available to VIP members on video websites for free viewing, and at the same time, Blu-ray discs will be sold. In fact, movies and games belong to content, and high-quality content is produced. As long as it is high-quality content in the head, someone must pay for it, just like the current 3A category.

let's imagine that the most reasonable way in the future may be the best quality content, the latest content may be some one-time paid subscriptions, and other games may be membership subscriptions, so as to share the overall operating costs in this way. This is just some thoughts of our cloud computing vendors in the field of cloud games in the future.

● The cloud platform is inherently difficult to provide the ultimate experience for some game categories

Bao Bo: I began to think that there are many good points in cloud games, such as the game that the anchor is playing, which can be taken away by clicking a button on the cloud game platform. Later, I saw the game tests of STADIA and GeforceNow, and my mental journey changed greatly.

Cloud platforms are inherently difficult to provide the ultimate experience for some game categories, such as action games, which are delayed because there are no more than 5G or 6G on the server side.