【Mobile China】Some time ago, the "dream" linkage between Meituan and Genshin was rushed on the hot search by netizens. The reason is that some netizens found that on the Meituan App, there is an entrance to the "Genshin" cloud game.
Once this situation was fermented, it quickly caused discussion and complaints among netizens. Some netizens replaced the game meme of "Genshin, Start" with "Meituan, Start"; Some netizens said that it is very outrageous, why do you have to build cloud gaming into the takeaway software; Some netizens even said that only game apps are the purest now.
In fact, on the track of cloud gaming, whether at home or abroad, there have always been companies joining in. Internationally, Sony has said that cloud gaming will become a major part of Sony's SIE business in the future, and it is expected that between 2025 and 2035, cloud technology will become an important part of player access to games. Google is also developing a cloud gaming service for YouTube Playables.
Domestically, Tencent START cloud game, which has been laid out for many years, has also officially launched a web version recently, in an attempt to further strengthen the seizure of market share. The current phenomenal and popular "Genshin" has already officially opened the public beta of "Cloud Genshin" on October 13, 2021. In addition, the mobile game "Against the Water and Cold", which has just opened the public beta, has also launched "Cloud Against the Water and Cold" at the same time.
Yun Genshin
In fact, cloud technology is not an emerging product, cloud gaming has also existed for a long time, in the author's opinion, this Meituan, which has little to do with games, and the "dream linkage" between the App and "Cloud Genshin" may mark that cloud gaming is about to usher in its own "spring", thus embarking on the road of rapid development.
Wave forward, spiral up
Cloud gaming is to use cloud computing as the main means to let all games run on the server side, and then transmit the game screen to the user through the network, and the user is to control the game remotely through the network. In this way, the user's device no longer needs any high-end processor and graphics card, and can play all kinds of large-scale games.
Cloud gaming is not in recent years, as early as more than a decade ago, a game manufacturer called OnLive proposed a cloud gaming project, but due to the limitations of the era environment, interactive delay, multimedia quality and other technical problems can not be overcome, so that cloud gaming in the early stage failed to make any breakthroughs. Despite this, there are still many enterprises that are constantly exploring various cloud gaming technologies and exploring profitable business models, and the "cloudification" goal of cloud gaming at that time was mainly aimed at console games and PC online games.
Later, with the rise of mobile games and the popularity of 4G and 5G networks, mobile games replaced console games and PC games, and began to become popular, and because mobile games are increasingly sophisticated, occupying more and more memory, so the requirements for mobile phone configuration are getting higher and higher. In this context, cloud gaming has also shifted its attention to mobile phones.
Taking the mobile game TOP1 "Genshin" as an example, the current Genshin installation package in the App Store is 2.8GB, and friends who have played know that Genshin needs to download nearly 20GB of game files after the first installation into the game before the game can run normally. In addition, this game is very mobile configuration, can turn the picture quality to the maximum, and play for an hour without dropping frames on the phone, no more than one hand.
The opposite is true, with an installation package size of only 76.8MB and a negligible increase in file size after playing. It can save players a lot of mobile phone memory and game download and update time, and users with low-end models can also enjoy the game experience brought by high image quality and high frame rate.
In terms of market performance, according to the statistical analysis of the "2022-2027 China Cloud Gaming Industry Market In-depth Survey and Investment Strategy Forecast Report" published by the Puhua Industrial Research Institute of China Research Institute, the number of monthly active cloud gaming in China has reached 84.1 million in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 35.21%. It is expected to increase to about 180 million by 2025. Technology upgrades have further enhanced the cloud gaming experience, promoted the growth of user stickiness and willingness to pay, and become the main driving force for the rapid development of China's cloud gaming market.
The needle has no double-ended advantage, and the cane has no two-ended sweetness
Everything has two sides, and cloud gaming currently has drawbacks that cannot be ignored. Compared with traditional games, the user experience of cloud gaming is too dependent on the network environment, resulting in many picture scenes and game experience are discounted, just like choosing an intelligent resolution when watching online videos, so the clarity of the picture will change with the network speed, sometimes clear, sometimes blurred.
In addition to speed, the stability of the network is also a hard indicator. Unlike online video, online games do not have a buffer mechanism, especially in the battle scenario of real-time battle games, once the bag is lost, it is no different from the "actor" who "gives away the head", and the game experience has fallen to the freezing point.
Clouds against the cold
The second drawback of cloud gaming is the competitive barriers created between game manufacturers. At present, most cloud gaming platforms are built by each game manufacturer, so players cannot play games from another manufacturer on this manufacturer's cloud gaming platform.
For example, LOL players cannot play this game from the cloud gaming platform produced by NetEase, and the average player cannot only play the game produced by a single manufacturer, so there may be a phenomenon that requires players to pay on multiple platforms at the same time, which is somewhat similar to the current membership of major video websites, each platform has its own exclusive IP hot drama or variety show.
NetEase Cloud Gaming - Partial list of games
The last drawback of cloud gaming is actually more distant from the player, and is about the copyright of the game. At present, in addition to the cloud gaming platforms produced by major game manufacturers, more are platforms produced by other small companies. So, are the single-player or online games they put on the shelves in their products authorized by the copyright holders?
Using cloud gaming as the keyword, the author searched on a website that could search for IP judgments, and found 3 court announcements and 31 cases. It can be seen that not all cloud gaming platforms are operating and open in a reasonable and compliant manner, especially for some foreign 3A, even if they are infringed in China, they may not know it.
Write at the end
At present, cloud gaming is still in the early stage of development in China, and opportunities and risks exist. The built-in "Cloud Genshin" of Meituan is a positive signal, just like the significance of 2014~2015 for the new forces of car manufacturing, more and more manufacturers will enter the cloud game in the future. Although cloud gaming still faces many problems, the cost of gaming is rising, the network infrastructure is not perfect, and the instability and latency problems of cloud gaming still exist, cloud gaming is still a field with broad business prospects.
The first is that with the popularization of mobile Internet and the maturity of 5G technology, the conditions for the promotion and popularization of cloud gaming will become more and more mature, and there are many potential business opportunities for cloud gaming. In addition, the relevant policies of the government have also provided rich fertile ground for the development of cloud gaming, which will also be deeply integrated, driven and empowered by emerging industries such as metaverse, digital human, and digital cultural tourism, and jointly build a new ecosystem of information infrastructure.
In general, although the cloud gaming field is facing multiple challenges, it can be seen from the recent news that more and more companies from different industries have begun to participate in this field, and the coexistence of opportunities and challenges is typical of the initial development of things, but it will also promote the rapid development and progress of the entire industry. In the future, we look forward to seeing cloud gaming inject more vitality into the entire gaming industry, bringing more development and innovation.