EA Has More Than 1,000 Employees And "Dozens Of Studios" Working On A Cloud-Based Future

Well, it sounds nice on paper and all, but... You won't find me buying anything from EA, regardless of how "great" it could all be. That, and it'll be years until we see proper cloud-based gaming without all the caveats it currently has. Even Project Stream isn't optimal yet, though it is pretty decent for games that don't require twitch movements and perfect reaction times.

Anything that is good for EA is bad for us

I know I'm in the minority but I'm looking forward to this and more of the cloud based gaming options. However at the same time I do how that they don't become the only way to play as many still can't take advantage of them. As long as they remain an option for those that can I'm all for them.

I read that as "working on a cloud-based failure".
And let's be honest, that's what it's gonna be

While I’m not fond of this as it’s barking for a digital only future, it’s not strange that the gaming industry is following the music and movie/TV industry as well.

Great for EA believing in it. Bigger issue is i dont believe in EA games anymore due to their microtransaction based future. Been years since i last bought from them

ISPs are going to flip...or start gatekeeping with a toll. I feel like this is blind ambition.

EA only care about money! They dont care if ur internet goes down and cant play their half baked games as long as ur monthly subs keep lining their pockets

Noooooooo, cloud gaming sounds like the worst thing that could ever happen...

Basically big publishers like EA will have their own "app" that you pay a subscription fee for. Perhaps they in-turn will pay console makers like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft a licensing fee to house the app on their system... But then will consoles in their current form even be necessary? All you'll need is a good internet connection, a nice screen, a moderately powered console/computer/tablet and a favourite controller (since the power to run the game will be stored elsewhere). Everything may change in 10 years.

A streaming future is where I see Nintendo actually really shining. Their first party games are second to none. And I'm sure they'll come up with a good reason to ensure you buy their console to play as well.

@Quarth I agree with you, but on Netflix or Amazon Prime I pay a low price for streaming, like renting the movie/serie. What the game companies are doing, at least Ubisoft with RE an AC, is that we have to "buy" the game full price to play on the cloud and that I will never support.

Hopefully this will lead EA to accidentally jump over a cliff so we don't have to see them in the upcoming future.

Hope it burns for them and fail hard.

I’m surprised EA are investing in anything right now considering the huge loss they’re going to garner from the dog turd that is Battlefield V.

EA Rule #1: If it sounds good to them then it can only be bad for us.

Oh, EA....
If The Sims 5 will be Cloud base gaming for console version, i can happily Moving On to Dragon Quest Builders 2 / Animal Crossing Switch, abandon The Sims 5 & beyond.

EA's future is basically what Don Mattrick tried to make Xbox's future with the Xbox One back in 2013.

Not interested as I don't trust ea

“Oh no my internet is down. Oh well I’ll just play some of my EA games… oh wait”

@Archius9 How did “just” autocorrected to “Haïti”? Lol

I wish EA could go back to the Megadrive days. 'It's in the game' is so much better than 'it's in the estore.'

It’s a dreadful idea overall, as it means in future that generation of games won’t be available as retro games, unless people work on offline solutions (ie somehow pirate them).

Nope...
1: Cloud gaming is trash even with fast broadband, nothing you can do will compensate for the input lag
2: You are at the mercy of EA servers
3: You don't own anything you play
4: EA

Once cloud based software takes any hold at all, it will start sucking resources away from traditional markets.

The PC hardware market will likely recede drastically as the need to upgrade lessens.

Someone like Nintendo could actually thrive by resisting the cloud, by providing the traditional alternative that's not dependent on the cloud. Though how long that could last if everything else goes cloud...

Just remember though, the more you embrace the cloud, the more you become dependent on remote hardware and services for your entertainment. If there's a technical problem, they'll be no solving it yourself, you'll just have to wait until the service provider gets round to it. And if it's a problem affecting one game, it could potentially affect many /all games.

I wonder if they've included the money in that project they'll need to lobby/bribe Comcast and the other ISPs to build out affordable fiber internet, otherwise the number of people who can realistically use the service will be quite limited...

Ja. So I live in South Africa. Internet is iffy at best. This is a first world future. It also means subscription, in stead of owning.

Not a fan, but not suprised. At least for something like Fifa this would make a lot of sense, because apart from roster updates, most year on year games are the mostly the same.

Also - unless you live physically next to a server, I see lag issues all day.

Assuming the infrastructure is in place, I think cloud gaming could be useful. I can’t see it being the only option even ten years down the line. I mean movies are still available on disc for those who want to own them.

Although, it would be pretty annoying if a game you were playing for a while on the cloud gets taken off all of a sudden.

Ea stop selling crap, its not going to work

Infrastructure is all well and good,but ultimately, the companies have ultimate control to flick a switch, turn everything off and steer the market to whatever direction they want. Not a massive fan of this digital vision. And certainly no point discussing it against a backdrop of 'yay games'.

Of course they are working on this because its what they want. They don’t want to be tied to a platform or offer a tangible product you pay for once. They want a system that will repeatedly and constantly provide revenue. Now I got nothing against that if its a set monthly fee for access to the complete service like Netflix and such but this is EA we are talking about. They would find ways to charge you to gain access, charge you to use the service and “opportunities” as a matter of “player choice” (please say that last phrase in the most dismissive and insulting way possible to have maximum effect). They don’t want to be a video game publisher, they want to be an Entertainment Service that claws for your money.

Kinda like a Hostess Club or a Brothel!

Or a Casino; if they hadn’t gotten called out last year.

@Ryu_Niiyama
EA doesn't care anyway, people for them are cash piñatas.
The service will be AAA microtransactions driven, free to play like games that are not free, just like battlefront 2 ( or at least until they provoke another scandal and have to backpedal ).

Off topic: what's your avatar from? I'm not up to date of what Perfume is doing and nothing looks like that (at a glance) in their YouTube channel.

I don't want EA becoming the host of a main gaming platform.

I hope it either fails or another company does the same. We've been spoiled by companies like Valve and CD Projekt hosting Steam and GOG. They're actually vaguely decent companies.

The problem is this will never replace traditional revenue streams. It has to be additive - so as long as it's new and interesting games, it could be interesting.

I'm yet to see cloud deliver on new gaming experiences - this might be a MMO version of the frostbite engine - maybe combined with something like second Life.

They are making the Oasis.

Lol....

@RandomLeo00 Perfume x Mercedes Benz commercial. Using Next Stage With You as the song. I guess Benz cheap-ed out and didn't want to pay for one time use costumes and they didn't want to have them in their own stuff like the Panasonic Display commercial.

Garbage. They're going to try to turn gaming into something that can only live with their anti-consumer, internet controlled connection. Sounds like they're busy creating games that won't work after whatever profitability expiration date they end up setting on their product.

If this is the future of gaming I am going to stop keeping up with the hobby, I will just retire on my collection and be thankful of what I got. I have zero interest in streaming games unless they make it something where you pay one low fee for unlimited access to whatever games I like. This who idea of paying for a game just to be restricted to streaming it stinks.

Also, I am not a fan of having to rely too much on an active high speed internet connection, especially since speed seems to rapidly fall off if my device is not right next to the modem/router. That and ISP's seem to be trying to do everything they can to impose fees and data caps lately.

@JayJ
There is another way to "enjoy" Streaming games.
Well...... by watching from Youtube or Download the Gameplay video of those Streaming games.
Once the games disappeared from internet, you still able to watch the gameplay of those games.

@Anti-Matter Yeah but I feel like that defeats the purpose of gaming. I enjoy watching streamers on youtube, but only for a couple of streamers who I enjoy more so for their personality and to check out what a game is like that I am interested in. For the more story driven games it can be a good way to enjoy it without having to buy it, as was the case with that Detroit game for the PS4, but that seems to be a rare case for me.

ea +cloud based gaming =
£15.99 for thin client
£20 per month fee to play game
£10-£80 for some type of resource to speed up said game
£40 for dlc year pass + a further £40 for the privilege of being able to access the dlc in the first place.
total price to play one game £450. cheers EA. ruined before even launching. you are the weakest link. goodbye

EA = one of the worst companies in the world ever !

@60frames-please Yeah I mean I have always been a supporter of digital gaming when you can just download your games and have access to them whenever you like even if you don't have any internet access, but this just stinks. It reeks of corporate manipulation, having a big entity holding all the keys while you pay them only to remain at their mercy. When it comes to a company like EA I have good reason to assume them to be merciless.

Then there is ISP's and the way they seem to be going out of their way to nickel and dime you for everything they can.

@Yasume iPhone…

Can we call EA = Everything Abbysmal ?

EA is building a castle in the cloud.

But serious, once cloud-gaming took off, there's no need for consoles anymore. All you need is a screen: like a TV with wifi to receive the stream.

@Anti-Matter I AGREE!

This is what EA was touting at E3 as their way of letting you play "Anywhere at anytime" which sounds familiar...

Not keen on paying a sub to play games, I'll not do it. I like a box with art work to sit on my shelf. I want to own the game and hold a thing of value in my hands, a thing that I can sell on if need be. Bollocks to cloud gaming and subscription content, and mostly bollocks to EA and their microtransactions bullsh$t. Rant over

And it's not gonna be on Switch

@Ryu_Niiyama
Ok I'll look it up. Thanks.
And a shame, that Display commercial is great.

The future is a moving target...

Boooo👎 Streaming

@setezerocinco Yeah, if that’s the case it really sucks.

As soon as everything goes to digital, it's time for me to say goodbye to any new consoles. You never own them, and just like music downloads, if the artist deletes them, you lose out too...there's a key number in all music, and there were some artists on I-Tunes that deleted their songs, and even if they were downloaded onto your computer, you couldn't play or even copy them...not the way I'll go. Unless I have them physical, it's not for me. I don't download music or movies, so I won't be into paying high costs for game downloads that could eventually get pulled and not able to play...plus, just like others wrote on here, if you're internet goes out, you can't play, or if you're like me, internet is slow to where you live, and it would run horribly. There's too many things that could go wrong with these ideas, and it won't last. If phonograph records made a comeback, we all know that CD's or Cassette's will too...about 10-20 years down the line. 80's clothing styles are back and 80's retro items are coming back...as soon as a console that's download-only comes out, flops, then the ideas go away. Plus, the Wii U tried to keep momentum with just indie downloads (thus, not many games on store shelves) and people skipped it, many parents, because of the fact that there was NOT MANY GAMES ON STORE SHELVES. The retail scene is not dead (if the Switch games and PS4 games show, they're still selling more that way, than downloads). I'd rather own the game, that way, if the system dies years from now, I can get another system and still have the game, instead of waiting to see if my downloads can be moved over (eventually, you won't be able to call nintendo and get your downloads back if the system is over 30 years old). Not the idea that I want to hear from EA, but granted, the Sims are the only thing I really play from them (besides a few sports titles).

EA - $20 for service
$20 a month to play the game
$30 to speed up your game through internet
$20 for no ads to pop up during the game
$60 for DLC (which will just be skins and pretty much it)
$10 to add a player 2, $5 for any other player joining.... Haha
Yea I am not falling for any EA scams. Most likely everything will be behind some kind of pay wall.
I feel bad cause there mag be developers who truly want to bring joy, then EA hire-ups shows up demanding some type of micro transaction.
The only benefit I can see cloud based with EA is having the sports games there and instead of buying the same game every year, just a yearly update of the games with improved graphics and Stat changes and the whole chin dig.

@JayJ yes, exactly

But it was ea... So nobody cared. Cloud based soccer , what an appealing future. I guess for cruddy annual sports titles sure no worries.

Ever since EA started there online system Origin they went all downhill to the Worst Company to date. Also naming there horrible online system Origin is an huge insult to a once great game developer whom EA wrongfully closed.

Hopefully EA will double and triple down on streaming games and then when it fails it finally takes them down. Their game talent will do better elsewhere and their executives can follow their passion and go run casinos marketed to
kids.

I wonder how those that grant EA licenses feel about this — especially if they receive negative PR or less interest if this does not work well.

Woah, the amount of luddites on this site is ridiculous. Cloud gaming is the future whether you like it or not - and all of us, the gamers, can and will benefit from it.

I agree currently the technology is lacking with massive input lag even with high speed broadband, but currently is not in 2 years, and A LOT can happen in 2 years when it comes to advancements of technology. Thus, I'm super happy companies are investing in this technology and looking into how to make it more efficient.

Just imagine playing high-end triple AAA game with great graphics on a portable device? Having VR content streamed directly to your device without the need to have super expensive stuff packed in your computer? Not needing to upgrade your PC/console every couple of years?

Honestly, with cloud gaming possibilities are endless, it's literally crazy sad most of you guys are stuck in the past and can't see it...

EDIT: Not to mention the environmental effects! Printing all your boxes and artworks, producing cartridges and CDs or even manufacturing consoles - all of that is using the resources that could be avoided being wasted with cloud gaming.

@mateq Software as a service (or X as a service) is a end-game runaround the doctrine of first sale. it is little more than moving to take something you could once own and turn it into something that you rent/lease (or as I prefer to call it fleece). Every company that moves to this business model essentially becomes a giant tick on your wallet, sucking dollars out (at an ever increasing amount) for less content as other companies decide they want a piece of the pie.

No thank you. Just because corporations/share holders think it is a good idea (and pay for good marketing campaigns to indoctrinate you), doesn't make it a good idea.

I think instead I will invest in my local retro store and the remaining companies that still believe in making and selling a product for what it is worth.

When it will be cracked i will maybe give it a go. They won't get money from me for such a thing like this

well that is a good thing, ambitious? hopefully they bankrupt themselves from their "future idea" they are trying to prove everyone wrong that cloud gaming is the "future" they seem very focused on that.

and how is AI going to help gaming anyway?

@Darknyht exactly, i really want EA's greed to consume them, they are too "ambitious" for their own good.

no one wants to rent games for several years at a time, this is why they want to do away with consoles, the money invested in this idea of renting games over a period of time is their ideal because they will make more money that way instead of they money they are making now (which is obviously not enough, they want more)

@Grumblevolcano but this time people will accept it with open arms, no question about it.

If all gaming ever goes to a fully digital streaming subscription model, I'll be focusing exclusively on retro games, thanks.

I'm as sceptic as any gamer (latency, possibly only reliable via ethernet cable) but if someone were to solve this problem - and utilizing AI could definitely be helpful - I could see it become the new standard.
It would work well on a platform that's basically 'Netflix for games'.

@mateq
We are gamers and some of us are Collector.
Some of us still want Physical games than Digital games.
Cloud gaming is NOT a Future.
Cloud games are Digital format.
Once the server disappeared after 20 years and beyond, so does with the games, and only regrets we will get at the end.

Headline should read: EA imagines the future of gaming, and it's a nightmare dystopia.

Wow, so many buzzwords in one article. Hardly speaks to me as a gamer...