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From One Edge to the Other: Exploring Gaming’S Rising Presence on the Network

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From One Edge to the Other: Exploring Gaming’S Rising Presence on the Network From One Edge to the Other: Exploring Gaming’s Rising Presence on the Network Matthew Marsden Mike Hazas Matthew Broadbent [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] School of Computing and School of Computing and School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster Communications, Lancaster Communications, Lancaster University University University Lancaster, UK Lancaster, UK Lancaster, UK ABSTRACT on the Network. In 7th International Conference on ICT for Sus- Audio and video streaming and on-demand services have tainability (ICT4S2020), June 21–26, 2020, Bristol, United Kingdom. dramatically changed how, and how much, media is con- ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3401335. 3401366 sumed. Streaming generally allows a much larger selection of content, and arguably greater convenience. Gaming is the 1 INTRODUCTION latest medium to place delivery of content into the cloud, via services such as Google Stadia and NVIDIA GeForce NOW. Computer gaming has grown from a $1 billion business Just as with video streaming, this new ease comes with a hid- based on arcades (1971), into a $152.1 billion dollar global den cost from the infrastructure used to deliver it, including industry[32]. Games have changed from simple 8-bit clas- the hardware cost, engineering cost and the energy to power sics into fully-fledged immersive 3D worlds. Large, bespoke the data centres and communications networks. Although arcade machines slowly gave way to gaming on home PCs, gaming is currently only 7% of global network demand, with consoles, and dedicated handheld devices. With smartphones more than 95% of that being made up of downloading content, and tablets, the barrier to entry for gaming has been reduced the possibility of streamed games could rapidly change this further, and games have become very common ways to pass network footprint. In turn, this affects the yearly growth of the time in and outside the home. energy impact from IT services. We explore possible futures Gaming has also become a competitive multiplayer expe- where growth of these services continues, and we illustrate rience and with the maturity and expansion of networks, it the implications a decade from now with three possible fu- is no longer a matter of who is the best in a local area, but ture scenarios for shifts of gaming practices. Our analyses who is the best in the world. This means game developers show that game streaming will cause significant increases are taking advantage of the growth of the Internet and al- in the energy and carbon footprint of games. lowing connections to central server locations. Developers can take games global by buying space in a data centre such CCS CONCEPTS as those offered by 1i3D . The packets of game data which • Networks ! Network measurement; • Social and pro- is used during actual gameplay can be categorised as being fessional topics ! Sustainability. high frequency but small in size for the client[23, 43], since packets are sent often and latency is important, but game KEYWORDS information can be passed to other clients with small packet gaming, streaming, networking, energy demand sizes. Game servers can contain significant bandwidth us- age due to the multiple connections and concurrent data ACM Reference Format: streams—each being around the sum of the client packet Matthew Marsden, Mike Hazas, and Matthew Broadbent. 2020. usage multiplied by the number of clients. From One Edge to the Other: Exploring Gaming’s Rising Presence As gaming continues to develop quickly, it is important to Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for consider its associated energy demand and carbon emissions, personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are to recognise how the ecological footprint could change. We not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies propose a method for characterising the demands of stream- bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third- party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact ing and downloading, strictly with the view of the network the owner/author(s). as a consideration. We then view how the network impact of ICT4S2020, June 21–26, 2020, Bristol, United Kingdom games might change given the recent release and promotion © 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). of game streaming platforms that allow a new presentation ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-7595-5/20/06. https://doi.org/10.1145/3401335.3401366 1https://www.i3d.net/game-hosting/ ICT4S2020, June 21–26, 2020, Bristol, United Kingdom Marsden et al. of Gaming as a Service, challenging the view of the network most likely device for a user to play on [31], but gaming in as a limitless and inconsequential resource. Finally, we look general uses less than 0.21% of data outside of downloads [8]. ahead to 2030 and widen the scope to include device manu- However, the data from video streaming services containing facturing, to consider what gaming’s impacts could be under gaming content, such as YouTube and Twitch, is a significant three different future scenarios. part of traffic that is not separated to be classed asgaming. In 2020 it is projected that the energy demand for digital 2 BACKGROUND things will be around 10% of total energy demand, with that Given that game streaming technology has only had recent doubling to about 20% in 2030 [1]. Modellers already assume uptake via the general release of Stadia and GeForce NOW, that there will be continued growth of video services. The and the upcoming Xbox cloud platform, literature is scarce additional traffic that could be generated from games being concerning game streaming. However, we can draw insight played via video streaming could increase energy demand from current understanding of game traffic, gaming trends at both the network and the data centre level, thus increas- and video streaming services. ing the energy costs of IT beyond the projected levels. It is This paper is focused on the possible growth of gaming’s therefore important that growth of these services is man- impact on the network—in our scenarios demand may remain aged carefully, rather than be allowed to grow “organically”, static but shift to alternative services such as Stadia. Other driven by technical innovation and the market. Newzoo iden- studies have been undertaken which reflect factors such tifies the so-called “cloud gamer” as a new, growing category as latency [42] and whether all games are viable, from an of players that want to enjoy high-quality games without experience point of view, on cloud [24]. Our focus is instead spending on hardware [32]. on the data traffic demands generated by streaming games, compared to traffic which is generated by download and 3 GAMING’S RISING PRESENCE ON THE updating games, as well as playing multiplayer online games. NETWORK There is already evidence that there is market for users When exploring ’gaming’ on the network, we endeavour to to have multiple streaming services and that it only takes a look at all impacts on traffic that can come from a game. This small amount of people to move from SD to 4K to create huge includes installation, online features which directly relate to traffic increases [7]. Our view is that this same phenomena game data, and game updates. We do however ignore parts may be seen in game streaming, raising gaming’s relatively associated with gaming but caused by other factors. Other limited traffic (perhaps 9% of Internet traffic volume) tothe work for example suggested advertisements associated with possibility of streaming 4K while playing (already on offer by free mobile games account for an average of 65% of the total Stadia). Existing video streaming services already account for traffic for a given game [22]. the majority of Internet traffic because of their high bitrates Consoles historically did not support or require network [39], and the amount of time people spend streaming. These connectivity, but since the seventh generation of consoles services are increasingly an integral part of everyday life (which include the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii) there and streamed content is becoming a central part of adults’ have been games that provide additional downloadable con- viewing in the UK [36, 48]. tent or periodic patches (which can include bug fixes, new An already reviewed cloud gaming solution has shown features and new content). PC gaming has had access to on- that it can reduce energy usage compared to conventional line features and network play for decades, but similar to equipment [4], and the use of ICT has been identified as hav- consoles, they did not typically require frequent updates or ing the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 15% through provide downloadable content until more recently (the past changing services [27]. But, how we design and steer ser- two decades). As online game stores for digital distribution vices to make them sustainable has to be considered when have become more popular, the impact on the network to creating new ones [26] (such as game streaming) as well as play a game even once has increased. ’Day one patches’ [28] how we engage with users to raise awareness and encourage which bring content and fixes via an initial download (even sustainable practices, such as by providing more information on the same day as the game’s physical release) are also and being transparent about the impacts of services on offer. increasingly popular. Often, access to online features are re- To play Stadia at 4K, it is recommended by Google that stricted until a game is patched to the current version.
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