Are Games Being Designed for Streaming?

[Dragonwinged]

So the Oblivion Remaster just dropped, and I was going to see how well it ran and handheld pcs like Steam Deck. The answer: not very well. Reports indicate that even by lowering all settings to minimum, players are still getting sub-30fps. I'm getting really tired of these big Triple AAA games coming out and only being playable on the top-of-the-line hardware. Hardware that has already been stated that no one can get, either due to affordability or availability. But do you know who probably does have that hardware? Data centers owned by services like Nvidia Geforce Now and Xbox Game pass.

 

These services likely bypass retailers and buy directly from the manufacturers in bulk. These data centers also likely have access to advanced cooling and can set up large systems without having to worry about space. I believe that these latest AAA releases are being designed specifically for data centers rather than home users. The problem now, is that game streaming right now is only profitable for the owners of the data centers. Developers and publishers don't make nearly as much money from streaming as they do from direct purchases.

 

So what's the benefit for them? Well, if no one actually owns the game on their own hardware, then they can simply pull the old game when the new game comes out, and can tell you all to go buy the new game. Thus, the perpetual money-making the companies want as consumers are forced to constantly buy the newest content. You could always stick to the old stuff, which will probably run well on whatever new hardware you get. However it seems that major game companies don't want people playing the old stuff. Why? Welln according to a recent court case regarding games preservationn the companies admit that if people can play the old games, they're worried that no one will buy the new stuff. (Sorry, I don't have a link to this story. If someone else can find the link, could you post it?) So essentially what they're saying is the old stuff is better than the new stuff. And that's why they refuse to sell the old stuff. And they wonder why piracy is such an issue.

[Slottr]

Games like Oblivion run just fine on low-middle tier hardware, which the steam deck is not. The deck barely equivalent to a 1050ti

[manikyath]

steamdeck is very low tier hardware, and AAA titles tend to go for as much eyecandy they can cram into a game, so gameplay trailers look SICK.

 

there's probably also a launch day lack of optimization aspect to it.

 

2 hours ago, Dragonwinged said:

Data centers owned by services like Nvidia Geforce Now and Xbox Game pass.

and these people have a STRONG financial incentive to not buy thousands of top of the line GPU's every gen. pretty much the harder the game is to run, the worse their margins are.

[porina]

4 hours ago, Dragonwinged said:

So the Oblivion Remaster just dropped, and I was going to see how well it ran and handheld pcs like Steam Deck. The answer: not very well. Reports indicate that even by lowering all settings to minimum, players are still getting sub-30fps. I'm getting really tired of these big Triple AAA games coming out and only being playable on the top-of-the-line hardware.

Your expectations are too high on the Steam Deck, and pretty much all similar handheld PCs. Even when it came out over 3 years ago, it was very low end then. It's value was that it was portable in a way a gaming laptop wasn't. It was more of an achievement that high end games were playable on it at all, often requiring low resolution and low settings. I think it is right that cutting edge games DO NOT try to run well on the Steam Deck, because it would be holding back gaming progress. Games are scalable, but beyond a point, you have to cut it back too far to get it running on old or underpowered hardware. Look at the massive headaches the Xbox Series S existing has given developers, and the Steam Deck isn't even close to that.

 

4 hours ago, Dragonwinged said:

Hardware that has already been stated that no one can get, either due to affordability or availability.

A temporary shortage that has largely blown over in most parts of the world. 5080 has already entered the Steam Hardware Survey. If no one can get them, how did that happen? Reality is while they were selling out, they are getting produced in enough numbers to get counted. In about 2 months the 5080 has already has more Steam gamers than most RDNA3 models individually in the 2 years they were current. For all its hype, I wonder if the 9070 can follow and the next update to Steam Hardware Survey at the end of the week will be interesting.

 

As for pricing, at least where I am, 5070 and below are generally in stock at or around MSRP. 5070 Ti and 5080 are also generally available but they're still holding a little above MSRP currently. There will probably never be enough 5090s.

[Doobeedoo]

Meh, no. Expecting even most AAA games to even run on Steamdeck is expecting a lot really. Many don't look playable, not sure how some expect so much. 

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, porina said:

For all its hype, I wonder if the 9070 can follow and the next update to Steam Hardware Survey at the end of the week will be interesting.

 

As for pricing, at least where I am, 5070 and below are generally in stock at or around MSRP. 5070 Ti and 5080 are also generally available but they're still holding a little above MSRP currently. There will probably never be enough 5090s.

Good point, even when amd has good hardware they usually can't compete with Nvidia in sheer numbers, Nvidia just makes more gpus on the regular...

 

Remember that "1080ti killer"? Sure, good hardware but would surprise me if AMD sold more than a few thousand...

 

(They also complained "uh, making good hardware is expensive!" And just basically stopped making them lol)

 

 

13 hours ago, Dragonwinged said:

So the Oblivion Remaster just dropped, and I was going to see how well it ran and handheld pcs like Steam Deck. The answer: not very well. Reports indicate that even by lowering all settings to minimum, players are still getting sub-30fps. I'm getting really tired of these big Triple AAA games coming out and only being playable on the top-of-the-line hardware. Hardware that has already been stated that no one can get, either due to affordability or availability. But do you know who probably does have that hardware? Data centers owned by services like Nvidia Geforce Now and Xbox Game pass.

 

These services likely bypass retailers and buy directly from the manufacturers in bulk. These data centers also likely have access to advanced cooling and can set up large systems without having to worry about space. I believe that these latest AAA releases are being designed specifically for data centers rather than home users. The problem now, is that game streaming right now is only profitable for the owners of the data centers. Developers and publishers don't make nearly as much money from streaming as they do from direct purchases.

 

So what's the benefit for them? Well, if no one actually owns the game on their own hardware, then they can simply pull the old game when the new game comes out, and can tell you all to go buy the new game. Thus, the perpetual money-making the companies want as consumers are forced to constantly buy the newest content. You could always stick to the old stuff, which will probably run well on whatever new hardware you get. However it seems that major game companies don't want people playing the old stuff. Why? Welln according to a recent court case regarding games preservationn the companies admit that if people can play the old games, they're worried that no one will buy the new stuff. (Sorry, I don't have a link to this story. If someone else can find the link, could you post it?) So essentially what they're saying is the old stuff is better than the new stuff. And that's why they refuse to sell the old stuff. And they wonder why piracy is such an issue.

Nothing what you just said really holds water, but what stands out is thinking game streaming is somehow a big deal... It's not, most people avoid game streaming like the plague,it's everything people want to avoid, hardcore drm, latency hell,no actually good offers...  Did you already forget "Stadia"?

 

It has its use cases, but it's not really a threat to Steam, and console offerings at large.

 

 

Link to the "court case" btw? 

[Mark Kaine]

11 hours ago, manikyath said:

and these people have a STRONG financial incentive to not buy thousands of top of the line GPU's every gen. pretty much the harder the game is to run, the worse their margins are.

Interesting angle, since streaming is basically nowadays "blockbuster" equivalent (ie rentals) I wonder if game studios make their games purposefully hard to run, just to stick it to them!? :tinfoilhat: 

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Interesting angle, since streaming is basically nowadays "blockbuster" equivalent (ie rentals) I wonder if game studios make their games purposefully hard to run, just to stick it to them!? :tinfoilhat: 

nah, it's just that the dev machines all have top of the line hardware, and because crunch culture there's no time left to actually optimize their game.