The Destruction and Salvation of PC Gaming

Goodbye beloved gaming PC

I just saw someone playing Crysis at its highest graphics settings on a crappy, low-end laptop.  What if I then told you that you could play Crysis on a Mac?  Why, you’d think I had gone insane; I certainly thought I was.  But at this year’s Game Developers Conference, a newly announced “cloud computing” service, called OnLive, proves that such gaming miracles can happen.

Crysis’s amazing graphics demand extremely high-end PC hardware to run at high resolutions and smooth framerates, correct?  It certainly does, and such hardware also costs a few thousand dollars.

Any given hardcore PC gamer will buy that expensive hardware, carefully and methodically assemble their PC, and then continue to meticulously maintain their computer all so they could play games, such as Crysis, at the highest level of performance with the best graphics.  PC gaming as a whole not only revels in the enjoyment of software, but also in the craft and appreciation of PC hardware.  As a PC gamer myself, I feel satisfied knowing that my choices of specific hardware directly results with fantastic game performance and enjoyable game experiences.

I’m sad to say, my friends, that gamers like us are a dying breed.  Most mainstream gamers just don’t have the time and the knowledge to worry about hardware to play PC games.  On the other hand, with game consoles they don’t need to worry about hardware, so they can just focus on the games.  The lack of hardware appreciation by gamers didn’t kill PC gaming, but the majority of the market share and money remains with the consoles.

No, the utter destruction of PC gaming as we now know it, with its enjoyment of infinite hardware customization, will not die because of the consoles, but with “cloud computing.”  A gamer need only have three things to use a cloud computing service like OnLive: a computer with a keyboard/mouse or controller; a TV or monitor; and a high speed internet connection.  Cloud computing has gamers play their games exclusively over their internet connection: player input goes to a server in the “cloud,” the server does all the game rendering and calculations, and the resulting game video feed goes back to the player.  Cloud computing services thus become the equivalent of the best possible computer to handle all games, while users’ personal computers, and even game consoles, become obsolete as gaming machines.

In a sense, though, some aspects of PC gaming will still live on in the future when cloud computing becomes the standard.  Gamers will always have access to the best hardware as services like OnLive periodically upgrade their servers.  As consumers, we benefit since we no longer have to pay for hardware upgrades every few years, and we can better spend our money on games.  While cloud computing effectively “consolizes” computer gaming by making computers the most uniform, yet best hardware available for developers to make their games, the traditional game console method of committing to set hardware for several years will also disappear.

No longer will we have to wait several years for newer graphical effects in PC games while consumers take their time adopting new compatible hardware.  In fact, the move to cloud computing itself will initially cause a huge graphical leap in games, as game developers will instantly have the best graphical hardware at their fingertips.  “Minimum” and “recommended” specifications for PC games will become irrelevant, especially since developers can rest assured knowing that their customer base already can support the latest graphical effects that they wish to implement.

Whether or not you decide to like cloud computing, this service for games inevitably will happen.  The games industry will support the method with the greatest profit potential, and publishers will love cloud computing’s ability to fight piracy, destroy the used games market, circumvent retail outlets, and gain market share.

Meet the future

Because OnLive is so ahead of its time, issues will initially arise with its implementation of cloud computing.  Since the entire game experience passes through the internet, latency or lag may occur, which can ruin some games, especially multiplayer games involving several people’s compounding lag.  These days, too, market penetration of high speed internet simply hasn’t spread wide enough for gaming to solely rely on cloud computing.  In the future, speeds and internet adoption will grow sufficiently to solve these problems, but it’s not like PCs and consoles will suddenly disappear next year or even in the next 5 years.

With OnLive as the first of its kind, suddenly every gamer can play on their PC easily without the burden of upgrading hardware.  Moreover, the high-end PC gaming experience that we know today can even play on a Mac or TV-attached console.  I will undoubtedly miss the customization that we PC gamers enjoy, but I must say the prospect of constant exposure to exponentially increasing hardware and graphics towards the inspiration and supplementation of new gameplay experiences feels truly exciting.