Samsung’s Game Launcher App has today lauched an open beta for its new mobile game streaming service.

The app comes preinstalled on Samsung phones and has since gone through numerous iterations, but the new beta version of Samsung Game Launcher allows users to play mobile games without downloads, similar to other game streaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now, or Xbox GamePass.

"Not everyone has $400 to buy a console or a $1,000 gaming PC,” Vice president and head of gaming services at Samsung, Jong Hyuk Woo told Venturebeat. “This is a way to bring that content to the masses who don’t have that access. But on mobile, it’s a little different. Everyone has a gaming device in their pockets.

“It means that 90% of the people who have expressed interest in a game publisher’s content, via an ad, don’t actually ever get into the game. We believe that cloud streaming can do something for mobile game publishers by completely collapsing that user acquisition funnel, getting rid of the download and installing and the visit to the App Store. It can dramatically reduce that, that funnel and the inefficiencies within that model. And so game publishers are going to see a significant increase in the number of users who are coming into their games.”

It's therefore easy to envisage a scenario where, via in-game adverting, a user could tap and immediately be streaming the game within seconds, rather than undertaking data-heavy and time-consuming downloads and installations.

Can streaming work on mobile?

The obvious question to be asked is not whether gamers will take to instantly being able to play games or for developers to enjoy greater product visibility and - potentially - more players, but whether or not game streaming for mobile games is ready for the mainstream.

The end result is certainly highly desirable but only if the technical side is robust and the interconnected parts work. Woo however, is confident that with the technology of 4G and 5G already in place, mobile game streaming is set to solve the ongoing problems of advertising and UA within the mobile ecosystem that have plagued mobile gaming since its inception.

By offering easy access to games being advertised and reducing the need for a comparatively lengthy onboarding process, the vision is for user acquisition and retention to become drastically easier and player enjoyment and ease-of-use to increase.