I don't mind music and movie streaming. I don't really desire to own the movies I see and any music I really, really, really like I have backed up on a hard-drive, but streaming it is more convenient for me.

But game streaming? Fuck that noise. I can think of a multitude of reasons why that would be an awful experience. Hell no.

We are very fortunate to have GOG in its current form.

One thing I don't understand when this discussion comes up is why people think a choice will be offered in the streaming future. "Oh, I don't personally want to stream, but it should be available as an option then those who want it can have it and those who don't just won't use it". No, no, get out of la la land please! Once streaming games does become widespread, it will completely take over the industry due to the nonthinking masses who couldn't care less about owning their stuff. In fact I would argue it already has, as practically (not technically) speaking, Scheme is already a monopoly as a rental service.

Also just a couple quick responses to earlier posts:

Good for you, and good for all those who do not care about owning the media they consume. However, some of the rest of us DO care and we get left out in the cold when this glamorous streaming future rolls along. To borrow the Netflix example, there are movies and entire shows exclusive to Netflix. What if I want to buy them? Too bad, more important for them to have DAT CONTROL to entice more people to rent instead.

Imo, you are incorrect. The primary reason is control, which can result in more profit but does not necessarily. The specific companies you mention have already made huge headway in making games "temporary", by shoving online-dependent features in everything they possibly can. Consider that in MS' case, going online has essentially been the point of their consoles themselves, particularly last generation and current generation. Their infamous e3 presentaiton with the One was just a couple years short; I bet nowadays people would accept it all without thinking twice. The really sad part is seeing gamers decry Microsoft's DRM then logging into their Scheme clients that are constantly phoning home, ha. The industry has been trying to move in this "games as service" direction for a very, very long time now, beginning with a gradually heavier focus on online...I would say at least from the PS2's online connectivity, if not a little earlier.

We went through this before, with digital distribution. Now buying a hard copy without ties to Steam, Origin or Uplay is very close to impossible..

No way. I like to own my games, not rent them. Heck I recently was visiting my parents and they told me they've found some old CD's that I had (russian bootlegs from pre 2005), and I've found it hard to throw them away, even though I re-bought most of those games legally.

No resale isn't a biggie for me because I'm a hoarder anyway.

Interesting discussion. Some of my own somewhat random thoughts, maybe not entirely thought-through:

- A successful start to streaming could cause the services to be built into 'smart' TVs, Roku-esque devices, and the like. That, in turn, could lead to ISPs to start offering Gaming packages or a la carte choices such as is done with HBO and others.

- From the game developers' standpoint, I don't think it would create any major hurdles. The same game code could be played both locally and streamed, and the streamer service would handle getting the data to the remote customer. In this regard, streaming might not be the death knell for game ownership since there wouldn't need to be two versions. And if there DID need to be two versions, this isn't entirely different from the gOg / Steam version difficulties.

- However, this *might* also spur better optimization of games and game engines. Depends on the pressure that the streaming services could apply to the developers. This would help those who choose local play.

- We've already been doing something similar for decades. Not exact, but similar: MMOs. While your local machine might be running the game engine, playing those games requires a constant data stream. The big changes will be A) you won't need the entire game, but instead just a specific client, and B) the amount of data traipsing back and forth.

- Personally, I'm not overly bothered by some games going streaming-only. For my own experience, this isn't particularly different from my own decision to forgo games with DRM: a limitation I've placed on myself, that keeps me from playing a whole mess of cool games. It's not like I MUST have the option to play every single game in the marketplace, especially since I've barely scratched the surface of my gOg library - let alone the entire gOg catalog.

But yeah, I suspect local play and ownership would see more downs than ups from streaming.

So are you saying that whatever change ever comes, it will always end up being the new norm? Why did OnLive fail then?

It all depends whether (almost) all gamers are fine with the idea of playing all their games only through streaming, which most probably will be more expensive to them too compared to the "old way". I don't think retail vs. digital is a valid comparison because that meant much lower prices overall to end-users, as well as better availability of games (ie. shelf space doesn't govern whether you will find the game you want on the store).

With streaming gaming that availability issue will raise its head again, as we saw with OnLive, ie. they kept removing older games from their store as they made space for newer games.

Also, considering we are on gog.com, apparently there is interest to buying games without Steam/Origin/UPlay/Windows Store connection, enough to run a profitable business (=gog.com) and many publishers also willing to publish their games in such a service.

I personally think most probably we will have both at the same time, streaming gaming and buying games digitally (which you will run locally). Sure we will probably see many games which will be available only in certain form or certain service, e.g. Microsoft's or EA's streaming service, but that is life.

Maybe not today, but in the future.. Perhaps gaming licence will be mandatory, whether you play or not? Before you say it's impossible, do you research about TV licence in some countries..
Luckily OnLive didn't succed, but we won the battle, not the war. The company was bought by Sony and seems like Playstation Now is keeping quite well.
Sure, some of us are here for some reason. Note some, not all of us. For many does not make much difference. Personally I'm buying games exclusively on GOG now, in a naive hope I'm not alone and together we can slow down inevitable changes in gaming industry.
Our generation is slowly passing I'm afraid. Today, many can't even play a game without achivements, or even install it if there is no big install button. No one is surprised anymore with in-game stores and tons of cosmetic dlc's.

The idea of game streaming isn't a bad one. Be able to play the latest games on your 10+ year old PC or $300 laptop, as long as you've got a good internet connection (and can live with a bit of input lag).

I think you're too pessimistic, look what happened to music: many people nowadays stream their music instead of owning the music carriers (though I don't understand how they can live with their music collection disappearing when their subscription or the music service ends). Yet music carriers exist besides streaming. Music on cassettes has died, but music can be bought on vinyl, on CD and on DRM-free mp3. Vinyl is even on the rise again!

And I think you're too naive :) Many music releases are given no physical copy. Streaming has not completely taken over yet, but look where the industry is going. Popular releases now are (mostly) massively long albums, admittedly designed by the artists with the streaming audience as the forefront. There are new(er) pop/hip-hop albums getting massive radioplay but without physical copies...Cardi B as an example off the top of my head. You or anyone else may point out that these artists are rather lame compared to the deep underground stuff; however, they are shaping the direction of the industry. No different than the "big" publishers and AAA games who either release on their own DRM service, or only release on the monopoly DRM service (Scheme).

To continue your analogy and conclude with more pleasant food for thought, though...personally I am into metal music. I have found that I am part of a niche, extremely devoted, audience who continues to prove time and time again they will buy the physical copies and that ownership is important. We are the guys you see in your record store who practically need a basket to carry up all the CDs that we are buying in one go. It is my hope that GOG, as the pinnacle of DRM-free gaming, will be like all these amazing underground metal bands. They may not sell out the world's arenas, but will remain sustained and even quite successful through catering to a devoted niche market (in this case, those of us who have the reasonable expectation of owning what we buy).

Depends what kind of music it is they "consume" from the streaming service. I can easily see the point of streaming services for people who constantly consume contemporary music (e.g. listening to top ten and not often getting back to years old tunes), and especially if they want to easily have up-to-date list for "party music" in parties, get-togethers etc. For such purposes streaming music services are clearly great.

Same for TV series and movies. If you are the kind of person who just wants to see lots of (mostly new) TV series and movies, and usually not wanting to get back to them later, then streaming services like Netflix, HBO etc. are great.

I personally feel games are mostly a bit different from those, which in itself makes them less suitable for streaming services. It takes max 2 hours to watch a movie or one ½-1 hours for a TV series episode (and then be done for it for good), but usually that is not the case for games. Depending on the game, you might be playing the same game for even weeks or more, even if you kept playing some other games in the meantime as well.

So I'd say in general gamers stick to certain games for much longer periods of time than for e.g. movies or TV episodes, even if they don't tend to replay games several times.

So the gamer equivalent of a Netflix heavy user, who'd "consume" (finish or abandon) several games per week is a rarity. Then that raises the question whether it makes sense to subscribe to such a game streaming service where the whole point was to have access to buttloads of games, if you'll be playing only few of them at a time per month. Would you subscribe to Netflix if you tend to watch only a couple of movies or TV series episodes per month? Or subscribe to Spotify if you tend to listen to new pieces of music only a couple of times per month?

There are of course the other problems for streaming gaming that don't affect music and movies, like input lag, the higher prices (because streaming gaming needs much more CPU/GPU power than video or audio feed, and someone, that is YOU, has to pay for that processing power) etc.

Also, with music and movies/TV series you generally expect to easily find them in competing services, in case you want to get back to them later, like in order to see your favorite movie or listen to Michael Jackson's "Beat it" yet again. With games that is not necessarily true especially with streaming services, you can't count on finding your keeper gems from a competing service, or even from the same service one year later.

as with films, if I want to have the film for 10 years and re-watch, then I buy the DVD, if I know I only want to see it once and never again then I rent it on Amazon Prime. Why would you clutter your home with games you know you would never play again? Why pay £35 for a game you only will play once, when you can rent it for £3?

*shrugh* for a rental I do not care and for a rental it should not be my control anyway. For the rest, see above.

and if it is something I want to buy and cant buy - though- I save my monies and buy something else instead. There is plenty of choice. I already have more games than I can play in the rest of my lifetime....

Seems like Apogee/3D Realms founder's predictions are about right.