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We speak to Guy de Beer, CEO of Israeli firm PlayCast Media, which has developed a white-label hosted video games service for pay-TV operators.

In this interview, Guy discusses the imperative of cloud-based media delivery right across the entertainment industry, Placycast Media's own cloud-based gaming service, and the impact of cloud-based services on existing business models.

How do cloud architectures enable a richer experience from a gaming perspective?

The "real" video games utilise high-end graphical processing to create a rich visual experience. The technology to provide these games has developed through dedicated gaming hardware (also known as consoles), and expensive packaged games.

Game streaming from a cloud server enables these very visually rich same games to be played on simple customer premises equipment, such as set-top boxes. The Playcast service is leveraging this technological advancement to bring the world's major video game brands to home users without the need for a hardware or the games software, packaged in a classic pay-TV model.



Where do you think cloud-based media delivery services are heading?

Cloud-based media is not a new technology: hundreds of millions of digital TV subscribers use it every time they watch television on their set-top box. Until recently, cloud was mostly used for storage of media, like in video-on-demand applications.

With the continuous advance of processing power made by the likes of Intel, AMD and Nvidia, it's now possible to create synthetic audio-visual experiences on the fly, which is truly interactive. Over time, the type of niche experiences of interactive narrative in games like Heavy Rain will become the norm.



Will cloud services eventually become an imperative for all entertainment providers if they are to keep up with the competition?

Over-the-top video is by definition a cloud-based service. As the industry shifts to connected televisions, and as networks evolve to provide higher speeds, cloud-based media will become imperative for every segment of the entertainment industry.

This process will take a couple of years to mature, and will be disastrous for ill-prepared providers. This process will force every segment of the entertainment value chain to focus on the user experience and on value for money.



Where does Playcast Media currently stand with its own cloud-based offerings?


The Playcast service is live in two markets (Portugal and Singapore) and in the roll-out process in three additional medium sized markets in Europe and Asia this year, and to the larger markets next year. The Playcast service already features some of the biggest video games brands, packaged for affordable prices to consumers.



How is the move to the cloud affecting existing business models for content owners and distributors?

Every introduction of a dramatic shift in distribution technology creates a fundamental shift in business models. The video games industry had the benefit of watching the music industry learn this valuable lesson, and later saw the models on the Internet and in Hollywood.

For that reason, game publishers - from the industry's multi-billion dollar players to the small indies - are endorsing cloud gaming, and are hailing it as the future of gaming.

This endorsement has led to a phenomenal growth in cloud gaming, which is by now the fastest growing segment of the video games industry, which is itself the fastest-growing segment of media. The immediate effect is a change of focus from packaged goods to digital distribution, the ripple effect, which by now is the main area of growth.

The new models are based on a multi-windowed approach, which was common in the TV world for decades, but is only now coming to video games. It has also created new value chains, where telcos are now actively pursue gaming as a mass-market, ARPU generating differentiator.



How can the cloud help networks to cope with increasing demand for rich content gaming (and particularly in Asia)?

Networks are merely passing data. The client device (CPE) can be either a high-end system (such as a games console) or a dumb terminal. Until the advent of MPEG-based cloud gaming technology, rich content gaming could only be accessed on these advanced hardware systems.

In global terms, these products are a niche, premium system, especially when compared to lower-end gaming such as mobile and Facebook. For markets such as China, Korea, India and Brazil, cloud gaming is not only the only sensible option, it is the only viable mass distribution model for gaming.
 
What do you believe are some of the main network benefits of cloud distribution of content?


There is only one important benefit for cloud gaming – it brings a superior user experience. This can be broken down to convenience of consumption, value for money, personalisation, simplified experimentation option, multi-platform and social integration and so on.

This superior user experience brings value to a mass audiences, which are willing to pay network operators hard cash every month. In a business environment where constant competition threatens to erodes margins, and a customer's loyalty is expensive to maintain – cloud gaming is a game changer for network operators which know how to play it.


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