Greener cloud gaming technologies first sprung up back in the 1950s, a new infographic shows, beginning with a theory by scientist Herb Grosch.
Grosch, the man behind Grosch’s Law, theorised the world would someday “operate on dumb terminals powered by just 15 large data centres”, the infographic states.
The infographic by Big Fish on how cloud gaming technologies were created takes readers all the way through to 2012 and beyond. By 2017, the streaming games market will grow nine-fold, reaching US$8bn, experts predict.
Things really got rolling in the late Sixties, though, when defence scientist JCR Licklider helped move along the development of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) with his idea of an “intergalactic computer network.”
Today, that intergalatic computer network – the internet – allows the direct and on-demand streaming of games onto a computer which has come to be known as cloud gaming, or gaming on demand. Think video-on-demand and you’ve got the idea.