An application of the "cloud" to free computer gaming

Enter cloud gaming.

But it can be free.

Recall the researchers at University of Michigan who built a free cloud gaming implementation that was "applauded internationally by (several thousand) cloud gaming enthusiasts from Latin America to Singapore." You can teach people to do something for themselves over the internet. The cloud gaming industry might be primed for a grassroots implementation of a more private gaming deployment.

What would that look like?

Amazon offers a cloud computing subscription where the user can set up a dedicated server to host games on. Parsec, who offers a similar remote desktop product as Citrix, offers a service that allows "a game developer . . . (to) run multiple versions of their game on one virtual machine and stream that to thin clients." The proposal offered here is to do exactly that except hosting on a private machine, not a rented server that is being monitored. The infrastructure needed to accomplish this is not prohibitively expensive, nor is the architecture complex.

Gaming servers are not unattainably expensive to set up. The scale is in the hundreds to few thousand. And as stated earlier the relevant virtual network computing implementations are anything but new. Developers have already proposed solutions. But most importantly what this paper proposes is not confined to niche or knockoff gaming titles.

There are several lists of top games that may be launched on a private, secure server. These include Minecraft, Rust, Factorio, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and others. Other open source games could be self-hosted on a private server, too.

Cloud server companies call this solution impractical and "associated with additional acquisition and electricity costs" with respect to the servers themselves. They will sooner rent you one of their virtual machines. Others might say, "(u)nless you're a Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, et al, with dedicated product teams . . . required to stand up your own testing platform," it is not worth it. Of course, gaming companies are not only in the business of game development. They operate servers of their own to host games on, too, to support their data collection ambitions.

But this thinking misses the mark entirely. It is not even that important that everybody who likes to enjoy computer games with other users in multiplayer do so this way. That Instagram has over two billion users, does not mean that an open source, federated social media like Mastodon should roll over. It now has ten million users. Two people gaming together this way would be two freer people.

High in the sky: cloud gaming

Enter cloud gaming.

Why are ugly URLs typed into the text when they should be links anchored to the relevant phrases, as is usual and intended in writing for the web? You're just making the reader's job harder....

Is this another tidal wave?

One way to make this much better is to straighten out a simple technical confusion. "Cloud gaming" is absolutely nothing new: the "think client" idea has been around for more than thirty years, and the relevant "virtual network computing" protocols needed to run programs on one computer but interact with them through a keyboard, pointer, and display attached to a "thin" computer somewhere else were formalized back then. Citrix made a business out of virtualizing Windows desktops a generation ago. Three free software VNC servers and clients are a constant part of how my personal network is constructed. Though none of it is used for playing games on fast hardware using slow hardware (or for playing games at all), there's nothing whatever innovative about any piece of this. So "tidal wave" it is not.

In the end, then, this is an essay that says "when you run your programs on other peoples' computers, those computers collect data about your use of the program." Yeah, and so what? There are answers to those questions, in any context including this one, but by making clear what part is general and what part specific, we can get better analysis than the "house is burning down, tidal wave is coming" that we're sort of stuck with now. That's how the next draft gets much better, in my view.

High in the sky: cloud gaming

Computer gaming - to be deliberately cavalier, this includes gaming on a PC or a console, or even your smart phone - is something of a binary. All forms may be played on a third-party server or local machine. Consider first the second means. To enjoy the thing to be enjoyed, another set of third parties typically provide access to group-playing, so called "going online," "online" or, simply "on" by connecting local machines together over the internet. Microsoft is one of these other third parties. Bill Gates is happy to sell you the local machine, and for an allegedly paltry ten dollars a month, provide the connectivity to other local machines. See https://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/gold. But this type of gaming is comprised of at least personal hardware running the game locally, should the "gamer" forego multiplayer. The twenty-first century heralded a competitor to this local machine plus internet collaboration model.

Enter cloud gaming.

Imagine an end user, the player, a pipe relaying the user's inputs to a remote machine, could be a server farm or another individual's personal computer, where the game is run, and a pipe that transfer outputs back to the user, over an internet connection strong enough to handle whatever absurdly sharp rendering the game requires for enjoyment. At its core, "[c]loud gaming . . . renders an interactive gaming application remotely in the cloud and streams the scenes as a video sequence back to the player over the Internet." https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6574660.

I suppose the obvious question is whether Microsoft and others will move away from the personal hardware component. Netflix did. This paper does not concern that strategic decision. Netflix knows every button you press: They "mobilized the [cursor] and sent it into battle." https://www.churchillbookcollector.com/pages/books/006737/winston-s-churchill/mr-churchills-speech-in-the-house-of-commons-2nd-of-august-1944. Suppose we continue to consent, through apathy or willful blindness or sheer ignorance, to the counter-privacy model of internet consumerism. How then should we feel about cloud gaming?

Is this another tidal wave?

The appeal of cloud gaming is instant: It offers users high-powered computing without the computing limits of personal hardware. But it also has another appeal: Accessibility. By "fall 2020, cloud gaming services [were still] largely unavailable to those outside North America and Central Europe." https://project-paladin.org/.. Cloud gaming is not without implementation issues. Both "interaction latency" with respect to inputs and "streaming quality" of outputs. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6574660. If these challenges are overcome, users could experience a quality gaming experience without the upfront cost of a personal machine. This could doom the less privileged to a subscription model, conscripting them into a system where even their own accolades are not their own.

Assume away the subjugation of these acolytes for a moment. This may be a more reasonable assumption than it appears. Researchers at the University of Michigan in 2020 developed a method of cloud gaming, leveraging Moonlight and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), that delivered to users computer gaming at "approximately 60¢/hour when in use," after "approximately 500 hours" of free cloud gaming for the first three months of use. https://johnragone.medium.com/500-hours-of-free-4k-60-fps-cloud-gaming-with-gcp-and-moonlight-c796fa10f0a3.

There is still a problem. Cloud gaming allows "less powerful computational devices that are otherwise incapable of running high-quality games," e.g., a simple computer or even a smart phone, run such "high-quality games." https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6574660. Just like Netflix, GCP, NVIDIA "GeForce Now," or whoever is providing the more powerful "computational device" knows what it is the user is doing. NVIDIA, too, has sent the cursor to battle. It "fights [not] for the users." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/quotes/?item=qt0406294.

Were you to investigate academic treatments of privacy concerns vis a vis clouding gaming, or even computing generally, password security and data breaches would occupy your field. Netflix musters their "password strength," power to ensure your data is safely in their hands for their use. Cloud gamers may expect the same passionate concerns from their providers, too. In many respects, Netflix may stand in for cloud gaming companies. "Cloud gaming companies collect and store a large amount of personal data from users, including their gaming preferences, purchase history, and personal information." https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=07715def-72bb-4181-88ba-2a9c6fa0646b. Consider again, the Netflix analog. When users had to order DVDs, Netflix's development of user preferences required at least some physical interaction; now, they even know what movies you mull over but ultimately pass on. This is a disaster.

A few television streaming services held out with respect to advertising until quite recently. Missing this revenue proved too much for even the most dutiful companies. Cloud gaming services are unsurprisingly doing the same. https://www.thurrott.com/games/298440/nvidia-geforce-now-free-tier-is-getting-pre-roll-ads. When state legislatures as early as 2008 were passing laws regulating the content of video games because of their alleged harmful effects on the users, governments and private citizens should be just as alarmed with the sort of "personalized," predatory and targeted, advertising. See https://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0233.htm#:~:text=Several%20states%2C%20including%20California%2C%20Georgia,sale%20of%20such%20video%20games. If there is even an ounce of truth in the "social media is killing free will" mantra, then we should all be alarmed. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9597644/.

To attempt a clamp down on these breaches or return to the early years, when cloud gaming was small, bifurcated into a hobbyist faction and a nascent commercial industry, think NVIDIA "GeForce Now." Both were cottage industries. This is assuredly an either-or fallacy. Recall the researchers at University of Michigan who built a do-it-yourself free cloud gaming implementation, that was "applauded internationally by [several thousand] cloud gaming enthusiasts from Latin America to Singapore." https://project-paladin.org/. It appears then that the cloud gaming industry might be primed for a grassroots implementation of a more private cloud gaming deployment. The success of such an effort relies on widespread adoption, typically by word of mouth or other nonmainstream channels. Leveraging the amateur cloud gaming subculture, the cursor's power to observe and control could be minimized. Interested researchers would be wise to devote effort to this area.

-- RobertLarese - 21 Feb 2024