It's all in the cloud. That's what they tell us these days.
But let's try to put some numbers to the increasingly airy-fairy concept.
As argued in a keynote at Mobile Games Forum a couple of week ago - by Microsoft's CTO for cloud services, Rob Fraser - it seems the impact of the cloud can be over-exaggerated, especially by us journalists.
Slice of life
If we look at this graph of the size of the entire games industry from 1995 to predicted 2017 - as created by market analyst Nick Parker - the green slice due directly from cloud services such as streaming games is not large.
It's not until 2014 that cloud gaming is generating sizeable revenue.
Of course, both boxed games and online/mobile will be impacted by cloud services, in terms of synced game states and downloaded content, but that's not the cutting-edge of the cloud.
Still, as OnLive has demonstrated, going 100 percent cloud is much harder than its fluffy exterior suggests.
Chart of the Week
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Related Articles
as
Chart of the Week
Aug 18th, 2016
How changing one screen led Games2Win to increase Parking Frenzy 2.0's retention by 5%
Chart of the Week
Jul 22nd, 2016
20% of the 106 million US mobile gamers account for 62% of time spent playing
Top Stories
News
1 hour, 46 minutes ago
PocketGamer.biz Week in Mobile Games E14 -Supercell's Squad Busters goes global and why Steam does discoverability better than mobile
News
May 31st, 2024
Week in Views - Squad Busters goes global, broken app stores, and Hill Climb Racing gets the LEGO treatment
News
May 31st, 2024
Mobile Movers: All the latest appointments and job moves from around the industry
Events
Indie Game Fest & Indie Campus 2024 | Europe | May 31st |
Indie Craft K-Game Festival 2024 | Europe | May 31st |
BostonFig Online 2024 | Jun 1st | |
GameSummit Summer 2024 | Jun 1st | |
Gotland Game Conference 2024 | Nordic | Jun 3rd |
Games Mental Health Summit 2024 | Europe | Jun 3rd |
Dev Play Conference 2024 | Europe | Jun 3rd |
Tribeca Games Festival 2024 | North America | Jun 5th |