
Amazon AppStream - simonebrunozzi
http://aws.amazon.com/appstream/
======
alttab
Why would I give up fixed operational expense of distributing my game and
instead pay Amazon computing resources everytime one of my users played? The
more you use, the more you pay. The more users you have, the more revenue you
will need to cover the cost of the computing resources needed to run the game
for your players.

Not to mention if you ever need to get off of Appstream there is no migration
path, because you used their SDK to build your game.

So there is a high level of lock-in, and its introducing a cost structure that
is coupled to the usage of the app. If using Appstream helps your apps be more
successful, then it also helps you give more of your profit margin to Amazon.

~~~
dotBen
on the cost structures: my guess is this is primarily aimed at the type of
game developers who build upon a MRR (monthly reoccurring revenue) model -
from WoW through to XBox-Live type gaming. Being server based particularly
lends itself to multiplayer gaming where network latency should be zero and
MRR is most common.

It's basically OnLive for mobile but you bring your own distribution channels.

This isn't going to compete with casual games you would natively run on
devices for a fixed deployment cost.

~~~
alttab
I don't see that as a problem. My guess is, even if you remove the barrier to
entry by not requiring strong hardware to run the game, you still have to turn
someone that has had no previous motivation to play hardcore games, to now
play those games simply because they can.

Sure, those who would love to play these games without chasing hardware will,
but I can't imagine that's worth the additional, continual cost of rendering
the game in the cloud and piping it over the network.

------
deskamess
Very similar to what was proposed by Firefox/OTOY/AutoDesk [1]. OTOY is using
Amazon so there appears to be some overlap there [2]. Wonder if Amazon
licensed any OTOY technologies.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/11/05/mozilla-otoy-and-
au...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/11/05/mozilla-otoy-and-autodesk-
work-to-deliver-high-performance-games-and-applications-on-the-web/)

[2]
[http://www.otoy.com/AWSPressRelease.htm](http://www.otoy.com/AWSPressRelease.htm)

~~~
barista
Didn't Microsoft demo something similar a couple of months ago. Running halo
on windows phone via cloud?

------
simonebrunozzi
More on Jeff Barr's blog post: [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-
appstream-deliver-...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-appstream-
deliver-streaming-applications-from-the-cloud.html)

------
coldcode
Latency is still a limiting factor is all of these. For some apps it would be
ok like Excel but anything requiring precision is going to be a horrible
experience. This morning my TWC was delivering data from all sites at 3K/sec.

~~~
metachris
Just an anectote about app/game streaming: I've recently played Orcs Must Die
2 on OnLive, a game-streaming service, and was very much surprised by the
responsiveness! I think that probably a lot of apps/games will work just fine.

~~~
fat0wl
Yeah I think this type of stuff will depend a lot on buffering/rendering
technology. You can imagine that it would be a terrible experience if it
literally sent your keypress to the server, registered it in a game & then
sent back the screens display pixels.

But I imagine (as with online gaming systems) that the experience is much more
like... server loads the necessary rendering resources into the devices
RAM/storage and then gameplay occurs the same as if files were loaded from a
CD/other media.

I'm sure you could learn more by digging deeper but I imagine it is something
more along those lines -- advanced API for a rendering engine.

~~~
graylights
The truth is I/O is much slower then networking. Many LCD displays do image
processing which results in it being several frames behind the one the GPU is
currently pushing out. So between your desktop and your monitor could be 70ms
of latency. On top of that there's the delay in input devices.

If streamers could maintain 30ms of network latency then it's just a minor
difference from the system baseline.

If the streamers are smart they could colocate with the game servers. Then
that 30ms of network latency is there regardless, home system or streaming
system. It effectively adds no lag for streaming.

John Carmack made a comment that he could send a packet to europe faster then
he could send a pixel to a screen:
[http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-
fas...](http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-faster-than-
sending-a-pixel-to-the-screen)

~~~
fat0wl
Woah, interesting stuff. thanks

------
wcchandler
Wow. These two announcements from Amazon today have been really interesting. I
work at a community college and we're constantly investigating VDI and vApp
solutions. With the heavy push towards a more cloud-ready infrastructure,
it'll be interesting to see how our upper management approaches this platform.
A lot of ya'll seem to be arguing about gaming -- but I see other highly
demanding software being used -- CAD, Maya, Blender, AfterEffects, etc. All of
which will be on-demand. We won't have to invest so heavily in up front
hardware costs just to handle our typical overwhelming periods.

[anecdote] We've licensed our CAD software to have 100 "seats" available at
any time. We also (try to) reserve that much hardware to be available. We only
ever see maybe a 5-10% utilization throughout the semester with ~200%
utilization in the last 3 weeks of the semester (When util >100%, users are
queued). That's a lot of waste and still isn't acceptable to the majority of
our professors and student body. While it'd be great if we could retask that
hardware to justify its cost when not in use, we simply can't. We need that
hardware to be available for these applications at a minute's notice.

I can see this being a huge win for education or independent studios who are
just starting out.

------
PaulHoule
Is this for people who live in kansas city or outside the us?

------
asr2bd
The gaming applications sound a lot like Gaikai, who Sony acquired for $380m
back in 2012.

Here's a pretty cool video demonstration of its on tablets and TVs use prior
to acquisition:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2i01vGsbOk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2i01vGsbOk)

------
stclaus
The previews for this product are stunning: this is not the first company
providing this king of service, but well.. it's Amazon. Even though the cost
will be initially a little high, its very likely that's worth it. Amazon has
an undeniably powerful infrastructure, and AppStream could give a boost to app
development. I love especially the multi platform support features, which are
a tremendous relief for developers.

------
singhns
Two challenges for $ on ideas on how to use AppStream and building out early
prototypes on it here:
[http://www.topcoder.com/aws/](http://www.topcoder.com/aws/)

~~~
simonebrunozzi
If you come at the AWS booth, the Appstream team will show you a few cool
things, such as the character creator for the MMORPG Eve Online:
[http://t.co/22FpUB1ot6](http://t.co/22FpUB1ot6) (screenshot)

------
raphinou
I am surprised the server side is windows. If you stream your app to a device
the server platform does not matter, and would have thought linux to be the
first choice in that case.

~~~
samspenc
Came here to post exactly this.

I was initially excited, wondering how we could leverage this, but now I'm
perplexed by: "currently supports streaming applications from Microsoft
Windows Server 2008 R2."

I would have thought Linux would have been the optimal server environment too.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
If you are at re:Invent, go to the AWS Booth and talk to the team. They might
share details on what else is going to come in the next few months.

------
almosnow
0.83 / hour sounds really expensive

~~~
arscan
Is the price of the g2.2xlarge instance included? I couldn't find that
anywhere... that would be another .767 / hour.

They REALLY need a killer app here to demonstrate the use case where this is
worth the price. You need an application that has very high computation needs
that is being used on a platform with limited computation ability BUT has a
solid internet connection (preferably low-latency, if you want it for "twitch"
type gaming, but not necessary in all cases). The example in their video is a
FPS. I don't think that's a good example, as it is way too expensive for that
market.

~~~
WalterSear
Also, it's a poor fit due to latency.

------
Eleutheria
Web sockets 'a la charte'?

Is it good for turn-based games like poker or even tic-tac-toe?

I'm sold.

