What cloud gaming is, and why it’s not the future of esports

There is little doubt that cloud will amplify access to AAA gameplay and boost the total number of gamers around the globe significantly. In many ways, we can think about cloud game streaming as the democratisation of video games. No longer do you need an expensive PC, or even a console such as the Sony PlayStation, to play the grandest of games. Instead, a powerful PC somewhere else runs the game, and you stream the vision to your own device - it’s kind of like having your CPU in another location.

Obvious benefit to casual gaming segments aside, a common thread of commentary amongst industry observers is that cloud gaming, the likes of Google Stadia, is also the future of esports. Contrary to that commentary, the truth is that cloud gaming has no direct application to the landscape of competitive play.

Before I get into the explanation of why that’s the case, here’s an analogy to set the scene: a Formula 1 team decides to introduce a new steering wheel. This steering wheel turns the car left and right just like everyone else’s, but it does so with a slight delay. Instead of moving the wheel and the car responding immediately, it happens after the point that drivers want it to. It's not a predictable point, either - it varies. When they’re travelling at hundreds of kilometres per hour, against people with razor sharp reflexes, this becomes an extreme handicap.

When you are playing Counter-Strike (or Fortnite), and you tap a button, that tap is processed in less than 1ms (if we assume a 1000Hz USB polling rate), and with all other hardware input lag variables considered, it appears on your screen within about 15-30 milliseconds. We can call this the 'button-to-pixel' delay. The same can be said about turning a Logitech racing wheel in your favourite racing sim, such as iRacing (or Gran Turismo).

If you are playing these games via a cloud service, your physical input is no longer just a local process. Instead, your input is first sent to a remote server. Before you see your input reflected on your screen, it needs to be processed remotely and returned via video stream. If this method of computing applied to desktop use, imagine moving your mouse now yet seeing the cursor position on your screen move a moment later, instead of immediately.

That additional latency is added atop the existing 15-30 millisecond button-to-pixel delay experienced on a local machine. The entire round-trip for this process, from local input, to remote rendering, and then seeing your input back on your screen, results in a delay of 60-120 milliseconds.

That puts you at a ~4x disadvantage in excellent-case scenarios, when the cloud server you are connecting to is close, yet often a far greater disadvantage than that. Furthermore, that degree of latency is visually obvious. While processing inputs on a local machine looks and feels instant, there is now the discernible sensation of delay when using a cloud service.

That delay is the difference between winning and losing. The difference between hitting the perfect apex of a corner, or careering into a wall. It is the difference between shooting first, or dying first. Restrained by the laws of physics, perhaps with the exception of mastering quantum entanglement, there isn't a scenario that exists where sending data to be processed remotely and then receiving the results locally can be as fast as simply processing locally.

While these minor delays between pressing a button and seeing a result is not a deal breaker for single player experiences on a screen, it is a deal breaker for single player experience in virtual reality where such delays are nausea inducing. In esports, these delays are unavoidably a competitive disadvantage.

When considering the detrimental implications of cloud gaming for esports, it’s critical prerequisite to appreciate that it is an individual's ability to react faster is a large part of what separates the elite from everyone else. Competitive gamers spend an untold number of hours and large sums of money on latency optimisation and response time improvements - everywhere from their network configuration to their choice of monitor. In a game of inches, everything about what you use to play the game matters. Just like in F1, it doesn’t matter how good a driver you are if you’re in the worst car.