It is almost impossible to overestimate the impact of streaming on the gaming industry, not just in the types of games that are played but also in the ways in which gaming is consumed.
Back in the day
In the early days of video gaming, players had to go to an arcade, cafe, or youth club to hunt out specialist machines that featured one single game like Pong, Asteroids, and Space Invaders. They were quite expensive to play, and available ‘lives’ were short-lived, making them an expensive pastime. However, it did mean they were pretty sociable because people gathered around the machines to watch the good players reach levels that most people were unable to reach. Most of the machines were bulky, stand-alone units. Compared to today’s games, the graphic quality was poor, but it was still far superior to what was initially available for the early adopters of playing at home.
The earliest game consoles provided weak imitations of the arcade games. They were so restricted by technology that they often did not fully function or had built-in glitches and anomalies. An early 8-bit version of a soccer game on its basic MasterDrive console meant the player had virtually no control of the player with the ball in two-player mode. However, playing with a friend at home on your TV screen was a huge step forward and more akin to what we now experience. Playing at home took massive steps forward when Sega introduced the MegaDrive, and Nintendo launched the Super NES. Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Mario established themselves as characters representing the respective gaming companies, and gaming took a massive step forward.
Better tech but the same delivery
Gaming consoles became more powerful, and other manufacturers entered the market; third-party game studios like EA and Rockstar started to bring even more exciting titles to the market. However, the basic principle remained the same. Players played via a CD loaded into a console or gaming PC. If you wanted to play along with friends, they needed to come to your house, and if you wanted to watch anyone play, you needed to go to where the action was.
The advent of streaming
Things started to change in 2008 when YouTube Live hosted a live-streaming event, meaning that anyone with an internet connection and a computer could watch live events from anywhere in the world. However, while it was technically possible to do this, slow internet download speeds for most people still meant that this was only available to a tiny minority. Then, in 2011, Twitch started live-streaming video games, allowing people to watch other players beat the bosses or rack up wins. It was almost like a virtual version of huddling around the Space Invaders machine in the Junior Common Room of a bygone era.
However, until the introduction of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), cloud computing, mass penetration of fibre optic internet connections and superfast mobile networks, streaming remained largely passive. Latency was also a real issue, leading to annoying delays or lag between the live video and what was seen on the screen. However, once all these issues were overcome, people could enjoy real-time, two-way interactions across the internet.
Online gambling has been revolutionised
One of the gaming world subsets that has benefited massively from these advances is online gambling and igaming. The added advances in mobile and tablet technology mean that anyone who wants it can now play casino games and place a bet from home or on the go. They can have a casino in their pocket and have a quick spin on the online slots for fun at social casinos or for real money at an enormous range of online providers.
However, it is live dealer games that have really taken full advantage of this technology and could not exist without the advances that have been made. One of the most popular games is Crazy Time, which features an iconic spinning wheel that offers eight possible results from its fifty-four revolving segments. The live dealer spins the wheel, and real money bets are placed in real-time. As with roulette, this is a game about probability, and therefore, keeping a record of previous patterns can influence when players choose to make a bet. Crazy Time has a tracker that helps players quickly decide which bet to place next. The tracker reveals which results are most likely to be hot and, therefore, worth a bet. Whether it is deemed hot or cold is determined by how frequently a result comes up versus when it was last hit. Without streaming, the tracker and the betting could not function. The player is hoping to win 20,000 times their stake, so this is a game of high risk and high reward.
Mass participation games are increasingly popular
In addition to online casino games, none of the MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) would be the same without streaming. Probably the most famous of these games is World of Warcraft. The game has earned over USD 9.23 billion since its launch. It has an estimated daily player count of nearly 2.4 million people and a total player base of upwards of 124 million. Over half of its players are European based and a huge chunk are from the USA. However, popular Blizzard Entertainment titles like World of Warcraft, Overwatch and StarCraft II, are increasingly played in India after the company entered into a distribution agreement covering the country. As internet penetration in the country increases, so too will participation in gaming and other streaming services.
