Hi, Habr! Today we want to talk a little about the future of gaming. It just so happened that few of today's young people want to bother with assembling powerful gaming computers. Yes, and not really cost-effective - to buy expensive PC, which you use for its intended purpose only a few times a week. However, they want to play. And there are a lot of such guys all over the world! It was them who were chosen as the target audience by the creators of the DROVA service, which allows users to play the most demanding games even on weak laptops. Looking ahead, we immediately say: no, this is not cloud streaming! All the details under the cut, welcome.
DROVA is a young startup that was founded by several talented programmers just over a year ago. The basic idea here is the same as in the so-called "cloud gaming": run the game on a computer located somewhere and broadcast it to the user's computer. However, the mechanics of providing a service are very different.
In the case of cloud gaming, it turns out something like a classic fleet: the service has its own cars that need to be serviced, ensure their availability around the clock and regularly buy new ones. And in fact, everything is even somewhat more cunning, because every “car” here is a virtual machine on a large, powerful and expensive server. But DROVA is such a “Uber” for gamers. Firstly, there are no servers, but there are only real PCs with good “stuffing”. Secondly, these computers do not belong to the creators of the service, but to the very same users who, through DROVA, rent them out for a temporary lease. That is, we are not talking about centralized cloud gaming, but about Peer 2 Peer gaming, in which a user with a weak computer uses the computing resources of a user with a powerful computer to play, and DROVA acts as a marketplace in this business.
It is not difficult to guess that such a story is much easier to scale from a financial point of view. If the cloud gaming platforms are forced to constantly buy new servers (plus maintain them) with the growing number of users, then the main task DROVA faces is creating their own community and constantly attracting new users through social networks, game publics, holding tournaments and so on. Further.
What is the benefit of those who will lease their computers? In income. The estimated cost of P2P gaming per hour for a tenant user (in DROVA they are called “players”) is about 50 rubles. Of these, the landlord (“merchant”) takes 80% for itself, and 20% remain for the service for providing the platform. At the same time, the platform provides quite flexible additional features. For example, a merchant can preset a time interval in which his PC will be free. And if suddenly the car is suddenly very necessary, then the player can be warned in advance about this: he will calmly reach the desired point in the game, save and reconnect to another merchant using the service. In this case, the rating system will operate as in the taxi services already mentioned above. The more merchant stars, the more players will connect to it.
What are the benefits for the players? There are even more interesting moments. Take at least savings: if a person plays 15-20 hours a month through DROVA, then he will spend about 1000 rubles and completely get rid of the need to spend a lot of money on his own gaming machine. By today's standards, it is unlikely to cost less than 60-80 thousand rubles without taking into account the price of the monitor and the periphery. As a result, the game can dive as quickly as possible.
At the same time, the features of P2P connections are such that one real machine falls on one user, and not a “piece” of server computing resources, the load on which dynamically changes in real time. The result is the absence of delays (the network protocol determines the best connection between the player and the available mutants) and the absence of restrictions on the frame rate per second (60 fps in cloud gaming). In the case of DROVA, the fps indicator is limited only by the capabilities of the merchant and player's PCs, as well as the bandwidth of the network connection. In practice, the value reached 144 frames per second in absolutely real, and not specially created conditions.
From the point of view of the copyright law, everything is also in order. Players use their own, officially purchased game licenses, and a mutant simply installs them in advance. In addition, the creators of DROVA communicate with several major game publishers about future collaborations. If everything works out, then DROVA will be able to play specific games without buying, but temporarily renting them for a small fee. And then the price of the hour will be divided into three components: the profit of the mutant, the commission of the service and the royalties of the publisher.
Of course, all this is already far from the idea stage, but at the moment it has reached the level of a closed beta test. And even more: on the DROVA platform several tournaments were held, in which professional cybersportsmen participated. And this is how the first reviews of the players who won prizes in the large online Quake Champions tournament look like.
“I was running very fast, got used after a while, although it is difficult, probably, to tune out all the nuances of users, after all, I’m a little spoiled in this sense - I’ve got a pretty smart iron, 2K monitor is 144 Hz, but for many I’m sure this is the way out. <...> To drive on vacation, so as not to lose shape, is the very thing. "“I think that such a platform is quite convenient, especially for those who have weak PCs. <...> The machines there are quite strong, and the problems are mainly due to the user's weak internet. ”“DROVA is a very cool topic and the ground will be popular. But you need to create magic so that competitive games can be played through your software. Still, the site is not for this, but for playing in the single on the ultra. ”The guys have already managed to get a grant of 4 million rubles, taking first place in the “Battle of startups” on InnoWeek 2018. A little earlier, they performed well at StartupVillage and
Techcrunch Startup Battelfield Europe , and DROVA not only entered the final short list of 15 startups, selected from more than 900 applications, but turned out to be the only project from Eastern Europe at this event. By the way, Russia is only a place where everything begins. If the project “shoots”, then it has a huge potential audience: according to experts, more than 100 million people.
Since the post is placed in our corporate blog, then you probably wonder: what about Dell here? We will not torment. We also believe in the guys, wish them success and try to help in every possible way, acting as a technical sponsor of the DROVA service. It is on the gaming computers of our subsidiary Alienware that they run their technologies. At the moment, there are ten powerful gaming computers, including
Alienware Aurora R5 and R6, as well as
Alienware 15 R3 laptops,
Alienware 17 R3 and R4 laptops. All of them are equipped with 6th and 7th generation top-end Intel Core processors and GeForce GTX 980, GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 video cards. In the case of the Aurora R5 and R7, there are two of them in the desktops at once.
In the near future, the creators of the service are to switch from a closed beta test to a half-open format, in order to test the technology even better with the participation of a larger number of users. Plus, of course, get feedback not only from professional cybersportsmen, but also from those for whom
DROVA , in fact, was created. Partly for this reason this text on Habré appeared: the impressions of people from such a large and expert community will almost certainly be incredibly valuable and useful. So if you are interested, feel free to write a letter with the heading “I want to beta test!” To the address
join@drova.io or fill out a short form on
drova.io/join , and the guys will explain how to proceed.
In addition, we, together with representatives of DROVA, will try to answer all your questions in the comments. And, of course, thank you very much for your attention!