The gaming industry has always been the vanguard of technological innovation. The game development companies have to keep themselves updated constantly and find out the unfelt needs of the consumers in order to make more engaging games. This helps in making the gaming paradigm exciting and superfun. If you are a kid from the 70s, 80s or even 90s, you’ve seen an unprecedented evolution in the gaming industry. We’ve moved from pixelated to 2D to 3D games in the span of a few decades. One of the most prominent and transformative developments in the past few years has been in the cloud gaming domain. Right now we are in the cloud gaming era and so game development service providers are spending billions of dollars behind this to up the ante. In this blog, we’ll discuss the history and the increasing popularity of the cloud gaming sector.

What is Cloud Gaming?

Cloud gaming is a technology through which you can play games online without any requirement for dedicated hardware. Players have to stream and play the games they want to. The game is operating on a distant server, which handles all of the processing burden rather than your PC. So, it’s also called game streaming/ gaming-as-a-service. The concept of cloud gaming has been around for a few years now, but it has only just emerged as a genuine contender. With the ongoing difficulty users have with graphic cards, CPUs, and consoles, cloud computing is becoming increasingly appealing as an alternative.

Importance of Cloud Game Development

Cloud gaming provides several advantages for both gamers, developers as well as publishers. The upfront expenses of obtaining and maintaining a powerful game console or gaming PC are eliminated with cloud gaming. Rather, for a nominal monthly membership cost/ subscription, you may stream, manage, and access a powerful virtual gaming PC.

There are a number of advantages of cloud gaming. The gamers can play from anywhere in the world at their own convenience. They also can play on any device. The users get high-quality gaming experience in real-time as the software runs from servers present in different data centres. One of the most important benefits of cloud gaming is that the gamers don’t have to purchase the game. The issues of storage spaces, piracy issues and specific hardware gets mitigated when you opt for cloud gaming.

The Origins of Cloud Gaming

Cloud gaming began in around 2003 where the game developers (Game Clusters) offered games that could run on online servers. The developers leveraged service and software suppliers to get their service to network operators, and then provided the games to clients through portals.

With advancements in data, video compression, and mobile phone abilities, the possibility for cloud gaming increased in 2010. This increased the demand for game development service providers like Solis Technology. All the big players in the tech industry got their hands dirty in the cloud gaming sector. Around 2010, services such as OnLive and Gaikai were announced. 

OnLive received some backing from prominent publishers such as Ubisoft, 2K Games, and THQ, but it was difficult to bring additional publishers on board since they were sceptical of the subscription pricing plan. Gaikai was purchased by Sony Computer Entertainment for $340 million in July 2012, and by October 2012, it was providing PlayStation games via the cloud. Finally, the technology underpinning Gaikai served as the foundation for PlayStation Now, which debuted in 2014.

With the acquisition of GameFly by Electronic Arts (EA) in 2018, a new chapter in the history of cloud gaming began. They unveiled "Project Atlas" to remotely process and transmit massive multiplayer high-definition games with the minimum level of latency. Google and Microsoft both revealed their cloud gaming endeavours. Google launched "Project Stream" and Microsoft unveiled Project xCloud.

Google formally revealed its cloud gaming service Stadia during the Game Developers Conference in 2019. In 2020, Amazon launched its own cloud service, Luna. The service's games will be available through a channel-style subscription service, with Amazon's own titles and those from Ubisoft available at launch.

Why is Cloud Game Development Services Becoming Extremely Popular?

For hundreds of millions of individuals throughout the world, online gaming has become their major source of engagement and entertainment. The way cloud gaming impacts people's lives should be put focus on. 

With the introduction of multiplayer games in recent years, the number of players has increased substantially. The increased members in the gaming community need stable and strong servers that can handle several gamers at once. This necessitates that the game servers be available at all times and be highly scalable, which is not achievable with on-premise servers. As a result, the games are hosted on the cloud to ensure optimal availability.

Support for cloud gaming services can be included into smart TVs by television manufacturers. The TV would not require any powerful, expensive gaming hardware – any TV with the appropriate software and a controller could be used for gaming without the need for any additional gear. Some smart TVs already incorporate this capability through their OnLive integration. 

Cloud services would make it incredibly simple to watch games, such as professional gaming competitions. Spectators would not need to install the game at all.

The Bottom Line

Cloud gaming domain is flourishing, and it's evolving each day. Cloud gaming allows you to play the most recent games on practically any device that has a good internet connection. 

Nevertheless, there are still many obstacles to overcome once cloud-based games are fully accessible. The deployment of 5G technology has enormous promise for transforming the world of cloud gaming. 5G will optimise the potential of cloud game development and provide an unrivalled gaming experience with its lightning-fast bandwidth and ultra-low latency.