Cloud Gaming: How Cloud is Disrupting Mobile Gaming?

Cloud gaming is a method of playing video games using remote servers in data centers. There’s no need to download and install games on a PC or console. Instead, streaming services require a reliable internet connection to send gaming information to an app or browser installed on the recipient device. The game is rendered and played on the remote server, but you see and interact with everything locally on your device. It’s just like Netflix or any other streaming platform. The only difference is that the server where the video stream is coming from can also pick up and react to your inputs. That means you don’t need a beefy RTX 30-series graphics card or a new Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5. With cloud gaming, all you need is a reliable internet connection.

  Killing the Console

Online streaming, as a concept, has been gaining rapid momentum in the gaming space. As a result, there is a lot of buzz around ‘Cloud gaming’, which is touted to ´kill the console´ by eliminating the need to have a local hardware to play games. Much like content streaming services like Netflix or Amazon, the backend storage and processing of the games happen in Cloud data centres, while users can stream graphics on to their devices. Advances in Cloud computing allow real-time inputs and ultra-low latency, which are characteristics of gaming. 

MPL is a great case in point for how Cloud-enabled systems are making new innovations and user experiences possible on mobile games. With 40 million subscribers (which reportedly contribute 14% of the total mobile gaming market in India), the e-sports platform uses a number of Cloud services from AWS, helping the firm deliver sub-millisecond latency to players, while increasing its app uptime to 99.9%. Not just that, Cloud-based infrastructure helped MPL to handle scale and volume as it went from zero to 10 million users in the first three months of launching the platform.

    Leveraging AWS

Activision Blizzard, the publishers of the popular Call of Duty video game, runs real-time analytics and machine learning pipelines on AWS platform to deliver personalized experiences to millions of players. In fact, 90% of the world’s biggest public game companies are leveraging hyperscalers like AWS to develop faster, reliable, smarter, and innovative gameplay for players.

Now the question is will mobile gaming remain a temporary digital distraction? What makes mobile or online gaming a preferred medium for entertainment? Clearly, its accessibility and ability to provide unique experience to gamers. With multiplayer games becoming the norm, there is a greater emphasis on user experience. Gaming companies are leveraging technologies like Cloud and AI to deliver that experience to users. Non-interactive single user games are almost a passé as developers are expected to build a whole ecosystem or a virtual world around their games. 

Cloud gaming infrastructure has become a great boon for gaming startups and developers who are at the frontend of innovation. Cloud ensures that games are not only engaging, but efficient and immersive with no speed lag.