Fri, Oct 19, 2012 | 04:06 BST

Eidos president: “Big games need big broadband”

Eidos life president Ian Livingstone has highlighted poor broadband as a serious hindrance to the expansion of games as an entertainment medium.

In a presentation for the Broadband World Forum 2012, as reported by PC Gamer, Livingstone said the games industry is the “largest entertainment industry in the world”, curtrently worth $50 billion and likely to reach $90 billion by 2015, so broadband providers should be backing it now.

“Games are now moving from a product to a service,” he said, pointing to any latency over 40 milliseconds as an issue for this kind of gaming.

“We’re still having to fight bandwidth to avoid latency. Big games need big broadband. It’s kind of crazy that we’re fighting broadband the whole time in our industry. You’re kind of holding us back in many respects. We want to do more.”

Livingstone said gamers are among the most demanding of Internet users and developers are already pushing the boundaries of what current infrastructure allows.

“So, you must plan for what you can’t predict as well as what you can. Super-fast games will drive demand for super-fast broadband, so, ISPs, please do not rest on your laurels,” he said.

Watch the full presentation through the link above.

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10 comments

#1

KrazyKraut
19/10/12, 6:49 am

yeah…thats why now the EU is demanding more broadband too: faster broadband = more streaming, less loss.

#2

Cobra951
19/10/12, 6:49 am

“Games are now moving from a product to a service,”

Not for me they’re not. I’m not interested in that at all.

#3

gomersoul
19/10/12, 6:51 am

if only this would make the isps wake up. I have fibre optic that still slows down at peak time. UK massively behind the times. but sadly I think the balance between profits and investment is messed up with broadband

#5

a7md1990
19/10/12, 7:23 am

@4 Reality sucks!. We need Google fiber.

#6

Puggy
19/10/12, 7:52 am

Funny thing about that broad band needing games. If the provider goes offline, so does your game you have paid for.

Does not happen with “normal” games, or rather, “the old way.” Always wondered what might happen if for example Steam would suddenly say, they are closing up doors, thanks for all the fish…. what happens to the games I bought from them? :/

#7

roadkill
19/10/12, 10:22 am

What? But I’m downloading my Steam and Origin games with 5.6MB/s. :D

edit: And I have the cheapest subscription that my ISP is offering. :)

#8

drewbles82
19/10/12, 10:47 am

@6, exactly what I’ve always thought, cloud gaming for me is the worst direction it could go. Things like Steam look great but what if the company packs up, goes bust or for whatever reason just stop working altogether, all your games gone. Where as if I have a disc, i can use it whenever i want.
For me anyway when my net is slow, or goes offline, or i use my laptop at my grandparents is when i tend to play pc games, Steam is no good cuz you need to be online.

#9

MFBB
19/10/12, 11:23 am

I agree with you guys.

There is no reason for me to buy digital games and they are always more expensive then the retail version (kinda funny).

#8 you can play Steam games offline, just start Steam in offline mode.

#10

Digital Bamboo
19/10/12, 12:06 pm

I’ve seen download speeds of 12, even 25MB/s & I pay next to nothing.

Western ISP’s can’t hold a candle to Korea.

Major Canadian ISP’s charge too much, provide unreliable service & hardware, have shitty customer service, cap your downloads & will simply cut your connection should you go over their prescribed limits. I’ve even had a customer service agent threaten that they might “have a technician investigate what it was I was downloading so much” should I go over again. Absolute bullshit.

Digital copies of games should be cheaper, no question. You don’t get a case, a booklet, or map, you can’t lend it to a friend or resell it afterwards, & if anything should happen to your system, you lose the game along with it.

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