Playki in Russian. Playkey cloud gaming service

After the appearance of a cloud service for gamers, everyone is interested in Playkey. How to play without a subscription? There are several optimal ways do it. There are no easy ways, because the very existence of this development is new, but skillful people have found loopholes in protecting developers.

Description of the resource's work

So, let's figure out what Playkey is and how to play without a subscription. First of all, it is worth understanding how the service works and finding out why it is needed. This program allows you to enjoy the latest projects 2016 even on a weak computer.

This is the slogan that authors use to promote their own creation. The whole mechanism is that the human device only acts as a transmitter and receiver of data. The game selected on the service uses the resources of a powerful server and is powered by cloud technologies for comfortable launch and completion, regardless of the details of the computer. Why are users interested in Playkey? Many people are trying to find out how to play without a subscription, since such innovations have never existed before. Developers demand a lot of money for their services, and this does not suit most users. Fortunately, skillful users have found loopholes in the system to keep player costs to a minimum.

First way

When creating their own cloud resource, the developers did not take into account the fact that users can share personal data. For example, a person bought a subscription and has his own account. The second one simply goes to the official playkey.pro website and starts figuring out how to play on Playkey.

After familiarizing yourself with the functionality, the user proceeds to create an account (if you have one, then log in). A section called “Demos” should appear in the top bar. Only a few projects are available here. After selecting one of them, the download occurs. In this case, the service will again request your account information. This time you need to enter those that the person with the subscription will provide. The game will automatically become full version, and any user can go through it. This is the easiest way in Playkey to play without a subscription.

Second way

One computer genius examined all the files of the resource utility, which is offered for download on the official website. And what did he find in Playkey? How can you play without a subscription using some file operations. First you need to log into your service account and look at the subscription window. The minimum package price is 590 rubles for one month, but there is a simpler option. Leave the window open, and in the meantime go to the application folder. In it, create another one called playkey_free.

There you need to move the first five system files from the first root folder. The rest of the documents should remain there. After that, with subscriptions, and the first column with the name “fan” will appear there. It provides the user with free access for a month. This is the second common way in Playkey to play without a subscription or investment Money. As cloud technology advances, new loopholes will begin to appear. The developers are keeping an eye on this, so it’s worth taking advantage of the opportunities before they are completely closed.

PleyKey_patch v 1.0.07 This patch makes it possible to play for free on the PLAYKEY service. Cloud technology Playkey will allow you to play without downloading and installing modern games even on weak computers. MORE THAN 150 GAMES OF DIFFERENT GENRES The Playkey catalog contains big choice MMOs, racing, fighting and shooters, quests and arcades. AND SO LET'S GET STARTED: REGISTRATION: 1. We go through the simple registration for the office. playkey 2. BE SURE to activate your mail! 3. Download and install the Playkey client. PATCH: 1. Download and unpack the archive with the patch. 2. Open the folder with the installed Playkey client and replace the files from the folder with the patch. 3. Run PleyKey_patch v 1.0.07.exe as Administrator and patch the Playkey.exe file 4. Then edit api-ms-win.xml instead of #@gmai.com and substitute the email that you specified during registration. Save. STARTING: 1. Now KILL the browser process in the task manager. (IMPORTANT: do not refresh the tab, do not restart the browser, namely “END THE PROCESS” in the task manager) 2. Relaunch the browser and click “restore tabs” PLAY: 1. Now shout HURRAY, Bow to your reflection in the mirror and sit down to play . DISADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD 1. The patch gives you a day of subscription and 300 minutes of play. 2. After the allotted time has passed, you will have to register new account and mail and repeat the process point 2.4 - 3 3. Do not apply the patch to a paid account. 4. MOST IMPORTANT: BETTER PURCHASE A SUBSCRIPTION FOR 16 RUB. ONE HOUR OF PLAYING IS NOT THAT BIG MONEY! WATCH A DETAILED VIDEO ON INSTALLING THE PATCH HERE:

Download: PleyKey patch v 1.0.07 (2017) This patch makes it possible to play for free on the PLAYKEY service

templates for dle 11.2

22-09-2017, 16:07 6 788

And:

    Download WHMCS Hosting Script v5.2.7 Nulled RUS To install WHMCS on your server, follow these steps: Extract the contents of the zip file to a separate folder on your computer. Rename the file configuration.php.new to configuration.php Upload the whmcs folder to the web directory of your site

    Price: 499 rubles

    Admin panel: Managing users Setting up tariffs Managing directory databases Reports Running sites and many other little things User: Registration in the service Registering a site Choosing a tariff and payment Running a site Full report

Many people are looking for an answer to the question: How to play GTA 5 for free on Playkey? Now you will find out the answer to this question.

What is Playkey?

Playkey is cloud internet service. With its help you can run games that technical specifications your computer can't handle it. This service works on a simple principle: your computer transmits user commands to the server via the Internet, the server processes these commands and returns them in the form of a video stream. That is, you don’t need to install games on your computer, you play remotely.

Is it possible to play GTA 5 via Playkey for free?

Playkey- This paid service. To play it you need to subscribe, select and pay for a tariff. On this moment there are 6 tariffs with different conditions and different time limits. Let's say you paid for the subscription, BUT... That's not all.

By paying for a subscription, you will have access to the service, and you will be able to play only those games that are in the “Games by Subscription” section. As we all know, GTA 5 is a paid game by decision of the copyright holder. That is, in order to play this game through this service, you will have to buy it. You can play without purchasing if you have already purchased GTA V from another store (Ubisoft/Uplay, Rockstar/Social Club, Steam, Battlenet), using your personal key to play through this online service.

Some computer geniuses and simply savvy people find loopholes to bypass the payment system and play for free. But do not forget that a lot of money is spent on the operation of the Playkey service. Therefore, the Playkey administration will not allow various “clever people” to play at their expense and will close those loopholes that will make free play impossible.

How much will it cost to play GTA 5 via Playkey?

If we play by their rules, then let’s calculate how much it will all cost. The most optimal tariff for the Play Key service, in my opinion, is “Fan” - 590 rubles/month. With this tariff you will be provided with 4200 min/month. That's 70 hours for 30 days. If you don’t have GTA 5, then this is another + 1999 rubles to the total amount. In total, all this will cost 2,598 rubles, in the case when you do not have a key - and this is not small money.

You can choose a different tariff, but this does not change the essence - the service is not free.

But there is one great site where you can buy GTA 5 for 269 rubles! If you are interested and want to try playing GTA 5 through Playkey at a lower cost or just play GTA 5 Online, then you can

If you have a purchased game or you have won a licensed version of the game somewhere, then everything is much simpler and much cheaper. Download the Play Key client, select and buy a subscription. We look for our game, click “Play”, then select “Already have a key to the game”. Then you can play GTA 5 on PlayKey almost for free (not counting the cost of purchasing a subscription).

I hope this article was useful to you. Like it!

With all this, OnLive technologies were advanced. The developers created a system that worked stably, without problems on the user side, provided there was a good connection.

After bankruptcy, all OnLive patents and assets were sold to the investment company Lauder Partners, and then the OnLive service was relaunched, but with a new team.

The latest effort to gain a foothold in the market was the CloudLift service, which offered modern games from Steam and instant continuation of an interrupted gaming session on another device. Just before it closed, OnLive even began offering a CloudLift Enterprise option: streaming business applications to low-power devices for large corporations and enterprises.


Screenshot from the OnLive website with information about the termination of the service

However, all this did not help and in 2015 the company announced the sale of all patents to Sony and the cessation of operations.

Gaikai's success

Gaikai was also announced at Game Developers Conference 2009. The company was going to do this later, but the announcement of OnLive at GDC 2009 forced the company to take a retaliatory step.


Screenshot from Gaikai website

On July 1, 2009, Gaikai founder David Perry published data on Gaikai, as well as a demonstration video, on his personal blog. The video showed some games, including Mario Kart 64 and World of Warcraft, running in a browser window. Perry stated: "We developed this [referring to Gaikai] for real internet. We don't claim to have 5,000 pages of patents, it didn't take us seven years, and we don't claim to have developed a custom hardware chip for single-millisecond latency encoding. As you can see, we don’t need all this, and therefore our costs will be much less.”

On the same day, GameSpot published an interview with David Perry, in which the latter talked about the Gaikai service, its differences from OnLive, relationships with publishers and the business model. Unlike OnLive, the company did not try to sell cloud services to the end user. Instead, it provided a platform for computer game makers where players could try demos of the latest titles for free.

As Perry said in an interview with OnLive: “They plan to fight Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at the same time, which will be a difficult task. Additionally, they will have to use an expensive marketing strategy to attract players. And even if they can do this, they will only be able to take some market share away from Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft."

As history has shown, this approach worked, and in 2012 it was announced that the service would be sold to Sony for $380 million. At the same time, as of 2012, OnLive and Gaikai had similar technologies. For example, you can see a detailed comparison of the work of these 2 services using the example of several games.

Cloud gaming services today

The Wikipedia page lists a couple of dozen services, active and defunct. Let's try to understand this apparent abundance. I discarded projects that were no longer active, as well as projects that related to file streaming. As a result, the list of projects to be considered has been significantly reduced. The rest were divided into 3 parts: existing commercial projects for PCs, projects for consoles and TV, and small projects.

Commercial projects for PC

▍LiquidSky

The founder of the service is young 23-year-old Ian McLoughlin. The service itself is at the beta testing stage, which does not prevent it from currently having more than 500,000 users around the world. In September 2016, the service received investments of $4,000,000 from a group of investors. You can read more about this. The LiquidSky service is built on Nvidia GRID technology.


Screenshot of the LiquidSky virtual desktop

This service is interesting primarily because the Liquidsky service itself does not care at all what you do in this cloud. Typical situation, when players, using this service and having an account on Steam, quickly download any previously purchased game to a remote server, launch it and play for fun, saving it in Steam itself. At the same time, by paying a monthly subscription for $14.99, users receive an additional 500 GB of data storage on the server. If you look at Dropbox, which charges $8.25 for 1 TB of data, it doesn't seem that expensive. Subscription limit is 80 hours per month.


Screenshot from LiquidSky website

This service appeared quite recently and at the time of its appearance it had a huge number of bugs. Since the service is quite active on social networks and the Internet, you can see what shortcomings the service has at the moment. A few months ago, for example, when I logged into my account, I noticed that the cursor was moving erratically across the screen, and I had difficulty controlling its movement. When I finally went into my game library on Steam, I noticed that there were other people's games there. It turns out that I ended up in someone else's account and the owner of this account and I were fighting over control of the cursor, which explained its strange behavior.

▍Playkey

The service itself is a Russian project, also built on the Nvidia Grid. The implementation of the idea to create the project began in 2012, and throughout 2014 the service was in open beta testing mode. At the turn of 2014-2015. the project has reached the release stage, having gone into commerce.

Their website has a list of games that a user can play. When paying for a monthly subscription for 590 rubles. the user gets access to 150 free games on the service and gets the opportunity to buy some paid games and play them on Playkey. Subscription limit is 70 hours per month.

The project is local, which automatically protects it from other competitors. However, initially the service did not work. You can read more about this in the article.


Screenshot from Playkey website

According to Playkey CEO Egor Guryev, in May 2015 the number of paying users was only 282 people. However, the company managed to correct the situation by changing its business model. As of March 2016, the service had 200 thousand registered, 10 thousand subscribed and 4 thousand regularly paying users. To change the situation, the following changes have been made to the company’s activities:

  • They changed the business model - “At the first stage, we had a subscription, by purchasing which, the user received access to 120+ games, but in this way we could not get new products from the developers and offered old content, .... Users saw minimal value in such a selection. Games that are available at low prices on sales have been completed by many more than once and at the same time worked well on computers that were upgraded 1-2 years ago. The developers did not provide new content for subscription, and it is clear why - they were afraid of losing income from selling games at retail, receiving absolutely unpredictable income in subscription. We launched individual purchases of content and the ability to play games that were previously purchased. This gave us access to new products, which account for 85% of demand. At the same time, we transformed the subscription to the game catalog (which was abandoned) into payment for the use of our server capacity. Based on current metrics, we see that the average user plays 20 hours per month on Playkey.”
  • Rebuilt marketing - “We were faced with very low conversion, due to the fact that our communications did not answer the question - who we are, what we are, what problems we solve. Now we are focused on one thing - “Play modern games on a weak computer.” The video “GTA 5 on a calculator,” which we sponsored, has 820 thousand views on YouTube.”
  • Changed the content - “We talked about this in paragraph 1, but I’ll add that we focused our offer on those games that are demanding on the user’s computer and are in high demand (that is, new items). We abandoned everything else. That's why we don't have JA2, 3 Heroes, etc. These games work well on low-end laptops and can be played without using our technology, saving money.”


Screenshot of Saints Row 4 running on Playkey

If we compare the problems of Playkey in 2015 with the reasons for the bankruptcy of OnLive in 2012, we can see the similarity of the sources of problems for both companies: they both did not have a well-thought-out business model, did not offer clients content that would be in demand, and both of them lacked a well-thought-out marketing strategy.

▍PlayStation Now

PlayStation Now is a game streaming service that allows you to play PlayStation 3 games on PC, mobile devices, TVs, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4. The service itself is the result of using technologies and developments from Gaikai, which Sony acquired in 2012 for $380 million. It was officially launched as a subscription service in the United States on January 13, 2015.


Screenshot from the PlayStation Now website

In August 2016, the first PlayStation Now for PC was launched in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Currently, the service provides access to more than 400 games released on PS3. There is a seven-day free trial for new users.

All you need to use is download the special PlayStation Now application and connect your DualShock 4 or other joystick. The service is not yet available in Russia, but some craftsmen have found methods to bypass this limitation. you can see how they managed it.

According to the latest data, the company has sold more than 40 million PS4 consoles worldwide - a huge market for the company. However, the service has a problem, which is that this service can only play PS3 games. The reason for this lies in the technology used by Sony.

Due to these same features, it is impossible to play PS3 games on PS4 consoles without a cloud service, because... These consoles are completely incompatible.


PlayStation Vue Discounts

In addition, Sony's service is quite expensive - PlayStation Now is the most expensive of the listed services and costs $20 for a 1-month subscription. And the prices of their PlayStation Vue video streaming service, to put it mildly, “surprised” me. By comparison, Netflix offers similar services in the US for $9.99 per month.

Services for set-top boxes and TV

I have never used such services, perhaps that is why I am a little biased towards them. However, the GeForce NOW and GameFly projects are large developing projects that I could not miss. They had to create a separate category. I took the picture below from the Nvidia website. It can hardly be called objective, but from it you can get a general idea of ​​the services GeForce NOW, PlayStation Now and GameFly.


Comparison of services from the Nividia website

▍GameFly

Previously, the company's business was expressed in the figure below. As you can see from it, the company used to provide games for rent. But time passed, and such a model ceased to be competitive in the modern world.


GameFly's old business model

Therefore, in June 2015, it acquired the Israeli company Playcast Media Systems and immediately launched a new service. The company is changing priorities and starting to look up to date.


Screenshot from GameFly website

At the moment, the main markets for the service are North America and Europe. According to the company, the number of service subscribers is about 334,000 people. To use it, you need to be the owner of one of the smart TVs made by LG, Samsung or Philips.

▍GeForce NOW

The GeForce NOW service allows you to play on Shield Portable, Shield Tablet, Shield Android TV devices with a subscription. The service offers 3 months free to Shield series buyers, and then requires a $7.99 per month subscription. Most of the games are included in the subscription, but the rest you need to pay for.


Devices to use GeForce NOW

I couldn’t find the number of subscribers to this service, but, according to the company, more than 100,000 people in 190 countries took part in testing the service alone.

Small projects

▍Ubitus GameNow

The service is more dead than alive. The latest articles and tweets on this service from the Taiwanese company Ubitus date back to 2013. The service has a working website with games, but I was only able to launch a couple of them after several attempts. I can’t say that my Internet is excellent, but the rest of my services started without any problems.


Screenshot from Ubitus GameNow showing King's Bounty: The Legend

▍PlayGiga

Despite the start of the project in 2013, it was never presented final product for users. The company maintains a website where information is updated, but the project has not yet taken off. It’s not even clear yet what platforms they are going to work on.

▍Gface

From the series everyone ran, and I ran. It seems that Crytek, the creator of the service, did not fully understand what gaming in the cloud was, and created a forum for communication between players of their game.

▍Kalydo

The Wikipedia page states that the service is active, but it appears that it quietly died in early 2016, or perhaps earlier. It was a file streaming service where you could start playing almost instantly after purchasing the game, and the rest of the data would be downloaded as you played.

▍LoudPlay

A Russian project that has not yet taken off. There is practically no information on the project website itself. There are several reviews on testing the service. The essence of the service is that the user rents a game server on which any game can be installed. According to some information on the Internet, the service is dead and its developers have disappeared.

▍Playincloud

Also a Russian project, very unique. According to the developer, the service is not commercial, but the website lists the rates for its use. Players use the service in turns: one comes in, the other leaves. The server comes pre-installed with games that users can play.

▍Leap Computing

It didn’t take off and maybe it won’t take off. The developers demonstrated the operation of the system under controlled conditions and the project stalled. The developers promised to provide a working version a year ago, but the problem is still there.


Screenshot from Leap Computing website

▍Turbo.net

The service does not apply to games. As the developers of the service indicate, it is intended for developers and IT managers and allows you to create a virtual space for developed applications.

▍G-cluster

Initially, I believed the information on the Wikipedia page that the service had stopped working, but this turned out to be not entirely true. Yes, the company G-cluster Global Corporation itself went bankrupt and was liquidated, but all its assets, patents, etc. transferred to its parent company Broadmedia Corporation, which continued to provide services. But the error on the page is understandable, because... I couldn't find a single rating in English, how really good this service works.

The service is a pioneer in game streaming and was created back in 2000, but never became profitable, which led to the liquidation of the company. During all this time, he never became popular in the world. It doesn't seem to be particularly popular in Japan, the service's main market, based on ratings in Google Play. You can see the history and business model of this service for 2010.

▍The rest

There are other players in the cloud gaming market that are not covered in this article. For example, Ubisoft Entertainment, Amazon, CiiNOW, GamingCloud, Google, Happy Cloud, IBM, Microsoft, Nintendo, Samsung Electronics, TransGaming, Valve were noted on it (I took this list from the analytical report of Technavio). As you can see in this list you can find almost all the major companies in the field of electronics. Probably, other companies offering network solutions such as IaaS, PaaS or SaaS could offer some kind of product to end users, but so far there have been no such attempts.

Comparison of using Playkey and LiquidSky services

For Russians, only these 2 specified projects are currently available from large gaming services in the cloud. There are also, for example, the Russian Playincloud or Ubitus GameNow, which you can also try to use, but they are either small or only partially functioning.

To visually compare these services, I used the game Europa Universalis 4, computer game in the genre global strategy, which was developed by Paradox Interactive. This is not the best game to compare the two systems, but its example is sufficient to illustrate the difference in operation between the two services:


As can be seen from the comparison of the services provided, both have their advantages and disadvantages. For me personally, the LiquidSky service is more interesting, but the remoteness of the available servers negates all the advantages and does not allow using this service.

Pros and cons of gaming in the cloud for end users

The advantages and disadvantages of cloud gaming have not changed since OnLive and Gaikai. However, with the development of technology, the quality of communication and acquaintance, everything more users with this technology the priorities of these features change, i.e. how important they are to the user.

Advantages


Flaws

  • Picture quality – the higher the picture quality, the more resources will be spent in the cloud and the higher will be the requirements for the bandwidth of the communication channel and its stability. There is often a situation where cloud service providers compress the image sent to end users.
  • Internet traffic - cloud services require a large amount of traffic. At the same time, the Internet speed must be stable, at least 5 Mbit. When playing games in the cloud, a user can consume more than 3 GB of Internet per hour. As picture quality improves, traffic consumption increases proportionally. If game streaming becomes more common, network congestion will increase dramatically.


Picture quality in the cloud and on PC
  • The delay is something that cannot be avoided. The game will respond to the player's actions faster when it is running on the local computer.
  • Copyright protection - publishers can prohibit or limit the use of games in certain territories, set their own prices or terms of use.
  • The emergence of a monopolist - a situation may arise when a monopolist arises in the market and will be able to set rules in the local market.
  • Bankruptcy of the service or changes to the terms of use - the situation with OnLive could be repeated, when all purchased games and subscriptions simply disappeared in 2015, when Sony bought all the company’s assets, but did not compensate for any obligations to users.
As you can see from the comparison, if you need quality and reliability, then a traditional PC will suit you better. If you are an avid gamer and plan to play every day, then cloud gaming is not suitable for you. If we draw analogies with by car, then games in the cloud are a taxi, and a home PC and console are your own car. Continuing the analogy with cars, the use of cloud services if available latest version prefixes are similar to using a taxi if you have your own car.

Technologies

In 2009, when OnLive and Gaikai emerged, they showed that game streaming was possible. Before this, there was an opinion that this was impossible due to the high latency between the server and the local computer: information must travel through networks to the server, be processed there, compressed and sent back to the client’s device.

Companies have taken different approaches to solve this problem. The OnLive service focused on hardware and developed its own video encoder. Their idea, according to this article, was to divide the stream into 16 rectangular sections and process each of these sections with a separate encoder. Gaikai approached the problem using existing hardware solutions, but using its software developments.


Own video encoder OnLive

Today, there are 3 companies that have and use their own game streaming technologies: Nvidia, Sony and GameFly. Most other game streaming services use Nvidia technology.

Nvidia

Nvidia developed the Nvidia Grid technology, which was announced in 2012. The company immediately announced that Nvidia Grid is not a gaming service, but a product that will be offered to cloud gaming service operators. At that time, this solution was used by almost all startups in this area, including Gaikai, Playcast, Ubitus, CiiNow and G-Cluster services. This technology is currently used by LiquidSky and Playkey. On this video shows how Nvideo Grid works for the end user.


Description of how Nvidia GRID works from the Nvidia website

The core element of Nvidia GRID is the Nvidia GPU. On the Nvidia website you can see the specifications and how it all works.

The company currently offers its gaming service GeForce Now. To use it, you must have an Nvidia device: one of the devices in the Shield Portable, Shield Android TV, or Shield Tablet product lines.

Sony

In 2012, Sony acquired Gaikai. This allowed the company to create the PlayStation Now platform based on Gaikai technologies in 2014. In 2015, Sony 2015 acquired OnLive's patents.

Sony's new division was tasked with developing technology that would allow PS3 games to be played in the cloud on PS4, TVs, tablets and smartphones. They first experimented with installing regular PS3s in data centers, but the experiment was not successful for obvious reasons. After this, Sony developed motherboard, which features scaled-down components from eight PS3 consoles that can operate independently. By placing such boards in data centers, Sony created the PlayStation NOW service. The GPU used in this board was jointly developed by Sony and Nvidia 11 years ago, based on Nvidia's GeForce 7 GPU.


Motherboard for PlayStation NOW service

It is clear that due to this technology, the Playstation Now service can only work with games on the PlayStation 3.

GameFly

GameFly acquired Israeli company Playcast Media Systems in June 2015, which it claims offers its own “market ready and scalable” technology. This service is available on Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV devices. Compared to Nvidia and Sony, the company is much smaller, and Playcast previously used Nvidia Grid in its operations. I probably wouldn't add this company to this list if Nvidia didn't view GameFly as one of the main competitors for its own service. This can be seen from the comparison of their services from the Nvidia website in the article earlier.


Incumbents in the game streaming market with proprietary technologies

Market development and problems

When the OnLive service appeared, it caused a sensation. “The most powerful gaming system in the world” and “Gaming revolution” could be found in the headlines of magazines and newspapers. In 2012, shortly before its bankruptcy, analysts estimated its value at $1.8 billion. Four years have passed since then, but it remains difficult to predict the future of the game streaming market.

World situation

In its 2016-2020 Cloud Gaming Services Market Outlook report, Technavio predicts that the global market will grow at 29% per year. It seems excellent prospects for market participants, even outpacing 18% growth in the video streaming market, according to Markets and Markets.

However, looking back, it is difficult to believe the accuracy of this forecast. In a previous report, Technavio named G-Cluster, Nvidia and OnLive as the main providers of gaming cloud services, 2 of which had already ceased operations by this point.


Picture from Technavio company presentation (collage)

There is no doubt that the cloud gaming market will continue to develop as... The speed and quality of the Internet in the world is constantly growing, and large companies have begun to invest in cloud gaming services market projects, but at the same time, the market remains risky.

There are several factors hindering the development of the cloud gaming market. Firstly, there is a delay in signal transmission, which cannot be completely eliminated. Unlike streaming video, where it is possible to use a memory buffer, this is not possible for cloud gaming.

The second problem is that large tech companies with established businesses simply don't need cloud gaming. With the development of games in the cloud, the market for games on physical media will be cannibalized and sales of computer equipment will decline. Perhaps this is why neither Nvidia nor Sony are seeking to implement these technologies en masse for the end user and only offer them as some kind of fashionable feature for their devices and only, basically, outdated games.

In the future, companies operating in this area may face problems encountered by the world leader in video streaming, Netflix. According to the latest information, during 2012-2016, the catalog of films offered by the service decreased by 2 times. The reason is the complexity and high cost of rights to purchase content and increased competition in the market. The same thing could happen in the gaming equipment market, because when using the cloud, it becomes unimportant what device the player is using.


Netflix's main competitors

Problems for market participants may arise not only with game manufacturers, but also with their distributors, for example, Steam, GOG.com or Origin services. So, according to the terms of the Subscriber Agreement Steam services, all buyers are subscribers, i.e. do not own the rights to the purchased games and if Steam is liquidated, they may lose all games. Such an event could have Negative influence on the prospects for market development.

Situation in Russia

The research company Akamai Technologies has published the results of testing the speed of Internet access in different countries. In Russia average speed Internet access increased by 29% compared to last year and amounted to 12.2 Mbit/s in the first quarter of 2016.


Picture from the Russia Insider website

According to representatives of the services, the minimum channel capacity must be 5-15 Mbit/s to use them. However, this is only the minimum required speed, which I would raise to at least 25 Mbit/s for comfortable use. For example, my provider provides me with a 60 Mbit/s channel. Despite this, it often turns out that Playkey detects that my connection quality is poor. Based on these estimates, if the same rate of Internet speed growth continues in the near future, then the required level of 25 Mbit/s in Russia will be achieved within approximately 3 years.


Picture from Yandex research

It seems that from the diagram above it follows that so far only in the KFO and FEFD the speed of the offered Internet is significantly lower than the required 25 Mbit/s, but everything is not so good. Just look at the reviews of one of the Internet providers offering speeds from 50 Mbit/s, such as these: “Rot in hell”, “NO WAY”, “It can’t be worse, deception”, etc. – and it becomes clear that these people are unlikely to become happy users of cloud games in the near future.

Conclusion

Over the past 7 years since the emergence of OnLive and Gaikai services, the industry has come a long way. At the moment, the market is growing rapidly and so far companies do not have to push their elbows to attract players. But this may soon change, the market will become saturated and large companies will begin a battle for end users.

While many gamers have become disillusioned with cloud gaming due to high costs, poor connectivity, or outdated games, talk of game streaming technologies is no longer surprising. Required technologies already exist, Internet connection speed is constantly growing, and companies are offering players more and more advanced services.


Cloud Mario

After OnLive and Gaikai services leave the market, you shouldn’t give up on gaming in the cloud. Pioneers in business usually have a difficult fate. You don't have to look far for examples. Leaders modern market in most areas they were not their discoverers at all. Amazon wasn't the first to sell books online—Books.com was the first. Internet search is not the idea of ​​Google, but of companies like AltaVista. Social media don't owe their existence to Facebook - MySpace came before.

  • nvidia
  • sony
  • services overview
  • Add tags

    Views