The future of gaming: up the beanstalk and into the cloud

From the article: http://arstechnica.com/business/future-of-cloud/2010/04/cloud-gaming.ars

The article explains how cloud computing is changing the way casual gamers and even non-gamers are playing games. Such sites as Steam and Impulse along with the newcomer OnLive, are examples of the cloud computing making significant changes to the gaming industry. These changes are expected to grow enormously in the next couple of years. This will have implications not only the gaming experience, but from the distribution and sales to quality assurance to anti-piracy controls.

This started in late 2008 when Steam released a brand new service called the Steam Cloud. The Steam Cloud enables users to store their saved games, multiplayer settings, and keyboard configurations on Valve (company who developed Steam) Servers instead locally on their computers. This allowed gamers to play their games on multiple computers instead of exclusive on one PC. This capability also made it easier for people to upgrade their computers without the fear of losing games. After this concept started taking off, Impulse jumped on the bandwagon and it expected many others will join this crave. Impulse CEO said that it will cut support cost for the developers along with improving the experience for the customer most importantly.

To read more, go to the link provided on the top of the page.