Gaming in the Cloud

Time for a piece on technology. I'm not talking about driving around airborne cars, or our sneakers lacing themselves, but we're working on it. What I am talking about it something that those that are gamer's would understand. Especially those who are heavily vested in their cellphones. Game developers you are on notice as of now.

A little history first.

So once upon a time ago, you weren't saving anything. The arcade era was in full swing, and you played to beat the game in a single sitting. Even the original tough guys Atari and Intellivision were no different. But then came the next evolution when Sega and Nintendo came through the door. You could continue from save points in some games. Others just needed a password. And boom, you no longer had to start at the beginning. Which in some cases was a REALLY good thing, because many of us lost countless hours to the likes of the various Mario Bros, Zelda, Metroid, and then some. And in case you're wondering, yes, I still know the Konami code.Things stayed this way for a while, as the games themselves would evolve in graphics instead of storage.

Then came the dark times. New systems that had incredible graphics and new ways to save came out But they were so over priced, you were cutting grass for more than a summer to save up. Systems like the 3DO, CD-i, and Sega Saturn took advantage of having real actors, on real sets pushing the story of the game. Mad Dog McCree, Wing Commander 3, The Daedelus Encounter, and Night Trap to name a few. The systems were way ahead of their time. You could save your place in the systems memory itself, and play music CD's. Man, I killed a lot of Kilrathi back in those days. My first taste of the awesomeness that is playing video games in full surround sound.

But like all hardships, things turned around. Sega launched it's final system, Playstation and Xbox were born, and we were now saving our games to memory cards. And memory cards brings me to where I wanted to be today.

Today, we have a hand full of quality portable gaming options. And with them advanced gaming. For many of us, the bulk of those games are on our cellphones and tablets. And this is where developers have taken a step back. Sure, many games will save progress at certain points. Most have you set up a login to track your stats and keep your friends. But what happens when you upgrade your phone? What happens when you go from your phone to your tablet? What happens if, (gasp) something happened to you phone like damage, or even losing it? Well, quit simply you're out of luck. Only parts of games are backed up on to memory cards, but you usually end up having to wipe and start from scratch again. And save points in games just aren't there on the cards. Being that we are in a world of cloud computing (oh no, he's going to make sense again) why don't developers not only bring back the ability to save to a memory card, but into the could itself?

It's not just annoying sometimes, but down right aggravating when you've finally gotten to a great point and then are looking at losing your game. Because lets face it, nobody really wants to go back and forth between a current phone and an old one. And let's look at that cloud save, customers would be able to switch out devices without worry! Just upgraded your phone? No problem. Just activated a replacement phone? No problem. Gave your old Xperia Play to your kid who loves that old Spiderman game? No problem.

Not long ago +Alexander Maxham made a great point about mobile device storage in general. Some people want to stay with cheap devices with an SD card, but others would prefer to have a solid device with cloud storage. (Alex, thanks for that by the way.) Mobile gaming would be able to expand that further, bridge the gap, and lead the industry in a new direction by opening that cloud storage. I know for sure Microsoft has at least looked at this with the Xbox 360 some, so I'm sure the likes of Sony and Nintendo have at least eyeballed it as well. So not only would our mobile gaming be better, but our consoles would be looking at going in the same direction as well. Better gaming all around! Those people who stay away from mobile gaming, for fear of not having an agreeable way to save their session would probably be a lot more likely to reconsider and ..... wait for it.... spend some money on a game for their phone. But no, the game industry couldn't possibly want that. What's a few million bucks from happy customers, new and old alike?

But to quote Dennis Miller, "That's just my opinion, I could be wrong."

An observation about people

Something I've noticed over the past few years in the Operating System ecosystem that is, is that people are funny about what's on their computer Vs what's on their phone. Think about it. You have your hardcore Windows, Mac, Linux users for the most part. And they bash the hell out of each other. But then you look at what smartphone they use. Windows users love iPhones, Mac users love Android, Linux on Windows Phones, or any combination of the bunch. The love doesn't seem to survive the jump into the world of phones.

Linux users I can see being torn. Afterall many of us look to the various flavors of Linux to escape the proprietary garbage of Microsoft and Mac to a point. But with Google's Darth Vader like chokehold on Android, it's not really any different in a lot of respects. Still it's easier to swallow a Linux user on Android because of the relationship between Google and Ubuntu, and the accessibility that is there for that OS.

Microsoft has done pretty good with Windows Phone in recent incarnations, but with a bit of stumbling. Their future is still uncertain. Then you look at Mac. Steve Jobs was a great salesman, I'll give him that. But as predicted Mac is struggling since he died. Combined I recently read an article which points to the iPhone as being the main culprit in the virus and malware problem that smartphones are seeing now.

Maybe this is part of the reason Blackberry has survived when the likes of Palm and Symbian have been written off. Now we're looking at Samsung, Ubuntu, and others wanting to get their own flavors out there as well. Competition can bring better things, and having a bigger selection to chose from isn't neccessarily a bad thing.

Some sheep don't need smartphones.

So it's time for more of the crap in my mind to come forth. I recently saw an post on Google Plus that says that you can expect 24-32 hours of use on a Motorola Razr Maxx HD from a single full charge. And I couldn't help myself, I had to respond to it a call shenanigans. Especially since this is the very phone I'm using at the moment. Within minutes the sheep came out of the woodwork to back up that advert, and it just reminded me how much I hated working for Verizon Wireless Tech Support a few years ago. Bottom line, people should need to take a test before they're allowed to get a phone, and the results should dictate the type of phone they're allowed.

So I ask how people actually see these time frames while actually using their phones to their fullest. The responses I got are as follows: I set the smart controls to that WiFi turns on/off automatically at certain places, I turn off GPS location services, I turn off the Bluetooth feature when I'm not actually using it. I'm thinking, okay, all reasonable actions so far.

Then the headache starts. I dim the screen as much as possible, I set battery controls which stops data if I'm actually in an app an using it, I set my various email not to update unless I do so manually. I don't know about you, but I like a bright screen I can see. The purpose of a smartphone is to actually have access to things as they come to you such as email. But as much as I disagree with these actions, I can understand them coming down to personal preference that won't make a big deal in actual battery use. But in seeing this I know they're holding back, and battery life isn't impacted much by these changes.

The headache comes full on now. I use my phone for text, read my email though I don't respond to it from my phone, and I make calls all day. But I don't surf the web, play games, stream music or video, or use many apps. AH HA! Some truth has come out finally. My question to you now, why do you have a smartphone if you don't use it as such. The resounding answer, so I can read my email. My retort, GET A REGULAR PHONE YOU DOLT!

Reasons to get a smartphone: to get and respond to email. Access, modify and send documents while away from a computer, access the internet for various things, keep current on news and things important to you, stream music and/or video (video being great for video conferencing), being able to access and use banking apps like PayPal for various needs, AND I HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN STARTED YET!

Here's my thing, if a phone is reported to have average use of these long hours that are advertised now, it should be based on the average use of people who actually use the smartphone to it's fullest. Obviously some features will drain the battery faster than others.

People are raping themselves by getting smartphones, and then dumbing them down to regular phones as much as possible. You can get a regular phone with or without a qwerty keypad, and/or a touch screen, that gives you access to calls, text, email, calendar with scheduling, navigation, and still offer you apps for much less than a smartphone, and in some cases (provider dependent) a lower data plan than you're using with a smartphone. People are falling in line with the various companies push to get everyone onto a smartphone and a data plan these days. You don't need all this crap! It's like buying a car and not driving it.

So the next time you see one of the many sheep out there talking up how great their phone is, but how they're getting shafted on their bill, just keep in mind they're probably raping themselves.

FYI, I wrote this from my smartphone. While I may only see 10-12 hours of life in it, I actually use it, so I don't feel as bad as the sheep when it comes time to pay my bill.

If you're dumbing down your phone, just to see the reported long battery life... you're an idiot and need to turn your phone off. Use that damn thing as it was intended, and start making the manufacturers deliver a product based on the use of people that use it and not as the average non-user that own it.