Cloud Gaming:
The New Digital Gold Rush?

After fundamentally transforming the film industry and nurturing the growth of streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, Cloud technology is working towards the next target: video gaming.

A growing number of companies and consumers are interested in the development of Cloud Gaming. Find out all you need to know about this new and in-demand technology, the future of video games, and the enormous gaming market.

What is Cloud Gaming?

Due to the shortage of electronic parts and scarce supply of graphic cards, gamers and game developers are turning to Cloud Gaming. With a cloud gaming connection established, gamers can enjoy all their favourite titles without having to buy additional hardware. Their games – and the computing power to run them – are stored and protected in data centres.

In other words, a Smart TV, an outdated PC, or even just a smartphone can be remodelled into a powerful gaming console. Gamers will no longer need to pay for an additional gadget with maximum configurations and wait for it to be delivered. The only necessary requirements will be a screen and a low latency connection.

This is why Cloud Gaming is so successful that its market worth has been estimated to multiply by three in just one year – from less than one billion USD in 2020 to 3.7 billion in 2021, according to Omdia. The research also predicts that the Cloud Gaming market will be worth as much as 5.2 billion in 2022, while P&S intelligence foresees that the number will reach 111.3 billion in 2030.

Businesses joining the race and the challenges they face

As the industry is still in its infancy, companies from different disciplines are vying fiercely to get a slice of the cake:

• Telecommunication companies: whether it’s Orange with its “Orange Games” launched in 2012, or Proximus Belgium with its recently agreed partnership with Shadow, the telecommunication industry is increasingly active in the sector
• Startups specialising in Cloud Gaming, e.g. Shadow
• GAFAM: Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass
• Console manufacturers: Microsoft, Sony and its Playstation Now

Also, the market is moving so rapidly that even small startups can prosper and benefit from the competition with tech giants. Google Stadia’s crushing defeat at the hands of the French rising star Start-up Shadow in 2022 is the perfect example.

And the only reason why SMEs can win against the Goliaths would be the comprehensive IT infrastructure offerings. Without this foundation, it is impossible for SMEs to maintain a network infrastructure that qualifies for the two essential criteria sought by players:

• Low or no response time
• High availability of content
• A secure, reliable network protected from cybercriminals

Among all the offerings in the market that are able to fulfill such criteria, two of the most in-demand ones are:

• China Telecom Europe’s CDN infrastructure
• China Telecom Europe’s Ultra Low Latency infrastructure

Succeeding in Cloud Gaming with China Telecom’s Turnkey Infrastructure

For organisations wishing to deliver massive amounts of real-time interactive content via Cloud technology, nothing can beat the following offerings:

China Telecom’s CDN Infrastructure

To satisfy internet users all around the world, it’s crucial for companies operating with cloud technology to utilise the data stored the closest to where their users are located.

The problem with Cloud Gaming is that gamers are geographically dispersed, and replicating data across multiple sites, will inevitably drive up the IT maintenance costs.

Fortunately, we have the China Telecom CDN Infrastructure.

With the CDN, companies can have their data replicated and stored at any of CTE’s worldwide data centres, depending on consumers’ demand. Best of all, clients will no longer have to deal with problems such as synchronous distributed updates and routing path optimisation, as everything will be handled carefully by the team at China Telecom.

Ultra Low Latency (ULL) Infrastructure

To prevent gaming sessions breaking up, a stable network is necessary. In addition to stability, the transmission of data along the network should be well protected from hackers.

This is where China Telecom Europe’s Ultra Low Latency Infrastructure comes in, with all of the above qualities and the lowest possible latency. With scalable bandwidth and data centres located all across Europe, America and Asia, we are capable of providing infrastructure services to serve the modern gamer’s needs.