Casual Talks on Games

A few days ago, I saw news that John Carmack had joined the Oculus Rift team as CTO, so I searched for this relatively unknown company. After searching, I found that the company has been dedicated to applying virtual reality technology to games. Last night, I listened to John Carmack’s keynote speech at QuakeCon 2013 and had some thoughts, which led to this article.

Steam and Cloud

The concept of “cloud” has been hyped to the point of being no longer fresh, but the concept and implementation still have a long way to go. Fortunately, after recent experiences, I found that “cloud gaming” is getting closer to us. When it comes to “cloud”, I must specially mention the Steam platform. In 2003, Steam was just a platform that helped games update patches in real-time. At that time, I didn’t think much of the platform - in 2003, pirated games were everywhere, and almost no one would install Steam just to play CS. If we wanted to play online games, we would choose the Hao Fang e-sports platform, which supported many games, including pirated games, and Steam had no advantages at that time.

Ten years have passed, and the Steam platform has become a comprehensive game platform that integrates game purchasing management, independent game publishing, game installation and updates, game achievements, save management, and player communication. The number of games on the platform has long exceeded one thousand, and various new and classic games can be purchased on Steam. I have always believed that the best way to prevent piracy is not through DRM, but through a platform that provides perfect after-sales service for genuine games. On Steam, after purchasing a game, it is bound to the account, and with one click, it can be automatically downloaded, installed, and updated to the latest version. Many games support cloud storage, and saves are stored in the cloud, allowing players to continue playing on different computers. These technologies ensure that players can play their purchased games anytime and anywhere. After reinstalling the system or buying a new computer, players only need to install Steam and click a few buttons to wait for a while, and all their purchased games will be restored. In addition, the achievement system and player-made MODs on Steam have greatly increased the playability and explorability of games. The Steam platform has grasped the psychology of players, giving them an opportunity to showcase themselves, and all of this is free and cannot be enjoyed by pirated games.

For game developers, the vast number of active players on the platform, the convenient and concise purchasing process, guarantees the sales of their games. For independent developers, the Greenlight platform on Steam helps them publish games through voting, opening a path to wealth.

As network speeds get faster, disk media will eventually be replaced by network downloads. Players’ games and game data will be permanently saved in the “cloud”. Cloud gaming will be the future trend of game development.

However, the “cloud gaming” mentioned above is a narrow definition. When it comes to cloud gaming, it is inevitable to mention Onlive, a company that launched cloud gaming services in 2009 and has already gone bankrupt. Their company’s cloud gaming concept is still advanced, but unfortunately, the concept is not practical, and companies that are not practical will eventually die. In my opinion, their cloud gaming concept - putting games that require high-end hardware on the cloud and sending the calculated image data back to users - is completely wrong at this stage.

Here, I’d like to talk about what is correct, a “down-to-earth” concept. First, a brand-new technology is not necessarily a good business idea. A good business idea in the IT industry must be supported by powerful technology, but it is not dominated by technology. Onlive’s technology is very powerful, and cloud-based game execution looks cool, but players don’t buy it. The Steam platform, as mentioned above, seems to have no powerful technology, but in fact, the entire client is designed and developed by Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, and Valve is constantly improving the platform’s download technology to make game downloads and updates faster. The main responsibility of the Steam game platform is to “let players who have purchased genuine games play as soon as possible”. Whether it’s one-click installation or cloud storage, it’s all about ensuring that players can play games as soon as possible. Those surrounding achievement systems are built on the premise that players can play games smoothly. In my opinion, Onlive’s advanced compression transmission algorithm is suitable for publishing papers, but not for starting a company.

Onlive died due to network speeds. Actually, we can change our thinking a bit and set the game cloud server as the player’s computer host, and the client is the user’s tablet device. Let players purchase games on Steam and install them on their computers, and then run the client software to continue playing on tablets or other computers. Similar software has appeared, such as CrazyRemote, which can already play games like Civilization 5 on an iPad. At this stage, the “cloud” should be a normal extension of games, providing users with new gaming possibilities.

In summary, cloud gaming is the future of games, but when network speeds are not fast enough, it’s correct to take a step-by-step approach to entering the cloud.

Virtual Reality and Wearable Devices

John Carmack criticized Kinect in his QuakeCon speech and then joined Oculus Rift, a company that develops VR technology. Is VR the future direction of game development? Absolutely! First, the concept of VR game helmets has been around since 2000, when The Sims 1 included a VR game helmet as a top-level gaming device. Now, with the development of hardware technology, we finally have the opportunity to make VR game helmets a reality. As John Carmack said, the game industry has not had any substantial innovations in many years. Indeed, since the transition from 2D to 3D, the entire game industry has been stuck in the stage of providing more realistic 3D graphics. 3D engines are getting better and better, but games are not getting more fun. I think it’s the screen that limits the further development of games. No matter how realistic the graphics are, players can easily return to reality with a slight turn of the head - because the screen is only so big. Imagine if VR headsets could let players truly “enter” the game world, and when facing a terrifying monster, no matter how they turn their heads, they would still be in that world. This experience would be really cool (of course, entering the game world is every player’s dream, and this is not a new idea). Kinect tried to bring the player’s avatar into the game world, but the player themselves were still in the real world, so Kinect is like a controller, and players use it to control their avatars in the virtual world, which is essentially no different from using a mouse and keyboard.

Of course, if we could design a fully immersive entertainment machine like the one in the sixth Conan movie, that would be amazing, but unfortunately, I won’t see it in my lifetime (unless human lifespan is extended by 100 years).

However, it’s still unknown how far Oculus Rift can go. The most similar product on the market is Sony’s HMZ personal 3D display, which is said to provide a cinematic experience similar to watching a 19-meter screen from 20 meters away. But in my opinion, a big screen is not innovative; only a 360-degree screen would mark the beginning of a new era in games.

Finally, I wish them good luck.

Single-Player Games, Online Games, and Mobile Games

Finally, let’s talk about games themselves. Games, as a commodity, are primarily meant to make money for developers. The notion that single-player games are dead has finally become less popular in recent years. Currently, online games are no longer glorious, while mobile games have become the new gold mine. The recent popularity of Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons is the best example. The advantage of mobile games is that they can be played anytime and anywhere, making them perfect for killing time, similar to web games. However, in my opinion, these successful games will eventually be short-lived (although, with the large number of mobile users in China, this period will be longer, and it can be said that the flower has not yet bloomed). After the novelty wears off, players will eventually abandon these games, just like the once-popular “stealing vegetables” and “grabbing parking spots” games. So, those who are not rich second-generation kids should be cautious when investing in these games (such as Million Arthur).

I have always been a strong supporter of single-player games. While online games like WOW and EVE are indeed high-end and classy, they consume too much time and are easy to get addicted to. As for mobile games, although they are popular, history tells us that they are not destined to become the mainstream. Recently, the single-player game market has shown some signs of warming up, with games like Civilization 5: Brave New World, 仙剑奇侠传5：前传, and 美国末日 (with a bit of a jump…) all being high-quality masterpieces (of course, compared to other domestic games). The independent game market is also booming, with numerous nostalgic pixel-style games emerging.

When it comes to games, it’s impossible not to mention Dota 2 and LOL. These competitive games are currently in their golden age, especially Dota 2, which has made a significant contribution to the popularization of the Steam platform. However, the characteristic of competitive games is that they are too exhausting, taking up too much time, and playing several rounds can take up an entire day. In comparison, I prefer traditional strategy, RPG, and simulation games, which can be saved at any time, paused at any time, and even modified to “bully” the computer :)

Overall, the game industry has become increasingly standardized, much like the film industry, as the post-80s generation who grew up playing games gradually matures, and the 60s and 70s generations slowly retire. The era of demonizing the game industry is finally gone.

Finally, I wish everyone happy gaming ~ and diligent learning (working), playing hard :)