Cloud for Gaming

Cloud for Gaming refers to the use of cloud computing technologies to build large-scale gaming infrastructures, with the goal of improving scalability and responsiveness, improve the user's experience and enable new business models.Comment: Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Newton Lee (Editor). Springer International Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-08234-

Service oriented interactive media (SOIM) engines enabled by optimized resource sharing

In the same way as cloud computing, Software as a Service (SaaS) and Content Centric Networking (CCN) triggered a new class of software architectures fundamentally different from traditional desktop software, service oriented networking (SON) suggests a new class of media engine technologies, which we call Service Oriented Interactive Media (SOIM) engines. This includes a new approach for game engines and more generally interactive media engines for entertainment, training, educational and dashboard applications. Porting traditional game engines and interactive media engines to the cloud without fundamentally changing the architecture, as done frequently, can enable already various advantages of cloud computing for such kinds of applications, for example simple and transparent upgrading of content and unified user experience on all end-user devices. This paper discusses a new architecture for game engines and interactive media engines fundamentally designed for cloud and SON. Main advantages of SOIM engines are significantly higher resource efficiency, leading to a fraction of cloud hosting costs. SOIM engines achieve these benefits by multilayered data sharing, efficiently handling many input and output channels for video, audio, and 3D world synchronization, and smart user session and session slot management. Architecture and results of a prototype implementation of a SOIM engine are discussed

AHP-based Adaptive Resource Selection for Cognitive Platform in Cloud Gaming Service

Cloud gaming service enables offloading heavy video-processing tasks up to the cloud server so that simple computers or mobile devices can be eligible to run sophisticated games, but on the expense of high network communications. In this regard, the adequate network utilization must be realized for delivering good gaming experiences to the game players. This necessitates a cognitive platform, which is capable of modifying its multimedia quality requirement in response to the network constraint, and notifying the cloud gaming server for updating the corresponded workload. In this regard, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method has been proposed to deploy at the cognitive platform for cloud gaming service to select an optimal resource allocation strategy that satisfies various multimedia requirements and energy-awareness. Experiment results can confirm that the proposed method is flexible to enhance the capability of cloud gaming service in term of more efficient cloud gaming resource utilization, particularly during heavy-congested periods, while players’ quality of gaming experience can be still maintained under the mandate of intelligent agent on the player devices

Zarządzanie kapitałem ludzkim w branży gier video – przegląd literatury

Companies which create and publish video games (computer, mobile, console, or browser games) are undergoing an evolution from small, unstructured teams to large organisations where structures are essential. Along with this transformation, the importance of human capital management for the organisation’s effectiveness is increasing, which is forcing changes in the way the human resources function is performed. The article presents a literature review which goal is to establish the current state of knowledge about human capital management in companies from the video game industry and identify the most important subjects, that should be covered in the future research. 4K model of human capital was adopted as a theoretical framework for the analysis. The research revealed that all parts of the human capital management process in the video game companies are underdeveloped or don’t exist at all.Przedsiębiorstwa tworzące i wydające gry video (komputerowe, mobilne, konsolowe, przeglądarkowe) przechodzą ewolucję od niewielkich zespołów pozbawionych struktur, do dużych organizacji, gdzie struktury są niezbędne. Wraz z tą transformacją rośnie znaczenie zarządzania kapitałem ludzkim dla skuteczności organizacji, co wymusza zmiany w realizacji funkcji personalnej. W artykule przestawiony jest wynik badań literaturowych, których celem było ustalenie obecnego stanu wiedzy na temat zarządzania kapitałem ludzkim w branży gier video, a także identyfikacja najważniejszych obszarów do dalszych badań. Model kapitału ludzkiego 4K posłużył za ramę teoretyczną do przeprowadzonej analizy. Badanie wykazało, że wszystkie elementy procesu zarządzania kapitałem ludzkim w przedsiębiorstwach z branży gier video są słabo rozwinięte, a niektóre w ogóle nieobecne

Use of Cloud Gaming in Education

The use of digital games in education has been the subject of research for many years and their usefulness has been confirmed by many studies and research projects. Standardized tests, such as PISA test, show that respondents achieved better reading, math and physics results if they used the computer more for gaming-related activities. It has been proven that the application of video games in education increases student motivation, improves several types of key skills—social and intellectual skills, reflexes and concentration. Nevertheless, there are several challenges associated with the application of video games in schools and they can be categorized as technical (network and end device limitations), competency (teachers’ knowledge in the area), qualitative (lack of educational games of high quality), and financial (high cost of purchasing games and equipment). The novel architecture for delivery of gaming content commonly referred to as “cloud gaming” has the potential to solve most of the present challenges of using games in education. A well-designed cloud gaming platform would enable seamless and simple usage for both students and teachers. While solving most of the present problems, cloud gaming introduces a set of new research challenges which will be discussed in this section

The impact of cloud gaming in the videogame industry

Mestrado Bolonha em Gestão de Sistemas de InformaçãoCloud gaming is a concept that is becoming more and more common within the videogame industry. Through the use of cloud technology, players can enjoy their videogames through internet streaming of data from datacenters around the world without the need of owning a piece of very powerful hardware like in previous times. Not only this, but the price of entry is considerable smaller when comparing to the previous paradigm within the world of gaming. Despite these advantages, this concept has struggled to gain traction over the past few years. Plus, it is not very clear what are the impacts of this technology in the industry it resides. This study aims to identify these factors by answering the following research questions: 1. How does cloud gaming impact the videogame industry?; 2. What drives cloud gaming adoption by the videogame industry?; 3. Which are the key critical challenges and opportunities when implementing a cloud gaming solution?. In light of this, the objectives to achieve are the following: 1. Analysis of the main characteristics of cloud gaming and its differences from traditional gaming; 2. Present the main challenges of cloud gaming; 3. Understand the main opportunities of cloud gaming. To achieve this, it was opted to follow an exploratory approach given the lack of research in the area alongside a series of interviews to industry experts to collect data for analysis. Following that, transcripts were built, analyzed and discussed. It was possible to conclude that cloud gaming impacts the industry in three main dimensions: technology, value chain and the industry’s revenue streams. On the first dimension, the low barriers of entry in terms of hardware, the higher set of mobility and the ability to work on multiple devices were appointed as major opportunities for this technology which increase accessibility to this industry. Looking over the value chain, the opportunities reside in the developers through cheaper and faster development and finally, more revenue streams arise due to the advantages of this technology. There are, however, several factors that hinder this adoption of cloud gaming. The lack of quality internet infrastructure and skepticism among consumers prove to be two challenges that are difficult to overcome which may be one of the reasons why this technology has not really taken off.Cloud gaming é um conceito que se está a tornar cada vez mais comum na indústria dos videojogos. Por meio do uso da tecnologia cloud, os jogadores podem desfrutar dos seus videojogos via streaming de dados de datacenters espalhados pelo mundo sem a necessidade de possuir hardware dedicado como antigamente. Adicionalmente, o preço de entrada é substancialmente reduzido, quando comparado ao paradigma anterior. Apesar dessas vantagens, o conceito tem tido dificuldades em ganhar tração nos últimos anos. Além disso, ainda não está definido quais serão os impactos desta tecnologia na indústria dos videojogos. O presente estudo visa identificar esses fatores por meio das seguintes questões de pesquisa: 1. De que forma o cloud gaming impacta a indústria dos videojogos?; 2. O que impulsiona a adoção de cloud gaming pela indústria dos videojogos?; 3. Quais são os principais desafios e oportunidades na implementação de uma solução de cloud gaming?. Diante disso, os objetivos a alcançar são os seguintes: 1. Análise das principais características do cloud gaming e as suas diferenças em relação ao paradigma tradicional; 2. Apresentar os principais desafios na adoção da tecnologia cloud gaming na indústria dos videojogos; 3. Compreender as principais vantagens da adoção do cloud gaming na indústria dos videojogos. Para tal, optou-se por seguir uma abordagem exploratória dada a escassez de pesquisa na área seguido de uma série de entrevistas por forma a realizar a coleta de dados. Posteriormente foram construídas as transcrições das entrevistas, analisadas e discutidas. Foi possível concluir que o cloud gaming impacta a indústria em três dimensões principais: tecnologia, cadeia de valor, e nos canais de receita da indústria. Na primeira dimensão, as baixas barreiras de entrada em termos de hardware, o maior conjunto de mobilidade e a capacidade de trabalhar em múltiplos dispositivos foram apontadas como grandes oportunidades para esta tecnologia. Este conjunto de características permite um maior nível de acessibilidade na indústria potenciando um maior número de oportunidades disponíveis. Olhando para a cadeia de valor, as oportunidades residem maioritariamente nos developers sob a forma de desenvolvimento mais rápido e barato. A nível de fluxos de receita, foi possível identificar um maior nível de inovação devido às vantagens inerentes da digitalização da indústria. Existem, no entanto, vários fatores que impedem a adoção desta tecnologia. A falta de infraestrutura de internet de qualidade e o ceticismo entre os consumidores são desafios difíceis de superar.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Foveated Video Streaming for Cloud Gaming

Video gaming is generally a computationally intensive application and to provide a pleasant user experience specialized hardware like Graphic Processing Units may be required. Computational resources and power consumption are constraints which limit visually complex gaming on, for example, laptops, tablets and smart phones. Cloud gaming may be a possible approach towards providing a pleasant gaming experience on thin clients which have limited computational and energy resources. In a cloud gaming architecture, the game-play video is rendered and encoded in the cloud and streamed to a client where it is displayed. User inputs are captured at the client and streamed back to the server, where they are relayed to the game. High quality of experience requires the streamed video to be of high visual quality which translates to substantial downstream bandwidth requirements. The visual perception of the human eye is non-uniform, being maximum along the optical axis of the eye and dropping off rapidly away from it. This phenomenon, called foveation, makes the practice of encoding all areas of a video frame with the same resolution wasteful. In this thesis, foveated video streaming from a cloud gaming server to a cloud gaming client is investigated. A prototype cloud gaming system with foveated video streaming is implemented. The cloud gaming server of the prototype is configured to encode gameplay video in a foveated fashion based on gaze location data provided by the cloud gaming client. The effect of foveated encoding on the output bitrate of the streamed video is investigated. Measurements are performed using games from various genres and with different player points of view to explore changes in video bitrate with different parameters of foveation. Latencies involved in foveated video streaming for cloud gaming, including latency of the eye tracker used in the thesis, are also briefly discussed