Gaming News: "The Cloud"
Posted: Wednesday August 8th, 2012
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Apparently, Steve Wozniak, the mad genius co-founder of Apple, is not altogether on board with the current "cloud" movement. [more info] The Woz is expecting a "lot of problems" with cloud computing in the next five years and boldly predicts that it's going to be "horrendous". And, I'm no where near saying his fears are unfounded.
For the longest time my preference was to have everything on disk. But with all the moves I've made in my life thus far it has become more an more important to reduce every piece of clutter I can. First that meant getting rid of CD/DVD/Game cases, boxes, and manuals. Then it meant getting rid of the disks themselves. So many of the games are permanently available through accounts I hold on the interwebs, I just don't see a point in maintaining a pile of essentially useless plastic.
One thing troubles me about this practice though and probably always will. It's the "what if" factor. What if rules change making those services paid monthly subscriptions? What if the service changes to limit the number of downloads/installs? I mean, I'm currently looking at that with Plants vs. Zombies. I've owned the game for so long and have rebuilt my computer enough times that I may not have any more installs of the game left. I think they only give you 5. And this is exactly what Steve Wozniak is talking about. We own things on the cloud but don't really "own" them any more. We accept limiting terms of service for the convenience of the cloud.
For now I will deal with my concerns and continue on as is. We'll see how I feel after the first of the what ifs comes to pass.
[ discuss ]
For the longest time my preference was to have everything on disk. But with all the moves I've made in my life thus far it has become more an more important to reduce every piece of clutter I can. First that meant getting rid of CD/DVD/Game cases, boxes, and manuals. Then it meant getting rid of the disks themselves. So many of the games are permanently available through accounts I hold on the interwebs, I just don't see a point in maintaining a pile of essentially useless plastic.
One thing troubles me about this practice though and probably always will. It's the "what if" factor. What if rules change making those services paid monthly subscriptions? What if the service changes to limit the number of downloads/installs? I mean, I'm currently looking at that with Plants vs. Zombies. I've owned the game for so long and have rebuilt my computer enough times that I may not have any more installs of the game left. I think they only give you 5. And this is exactly what Steve Wozniak is talking about. We own things on the cloud but don't really "own" them any more. We accept limiting terms of service for the convenience of the cloud.
For now I will deal with my concerns and continue on as is. We'll see how I feel after the first of the what ifs comes to pass.
[ discuss ]
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