In this paper, we propose a remote gaming system in which
a user does not have to download and install any games to PCs,
tablets, phones or other devices. Instead, the user can just start
playing a game from a server over the Internet, and essentially
just streams the video content to the thin-client device. The
controls to the game, of course, remain at the user, who can
use a touch screen or an external gamepad to play the game.
The remote gaming concept has been analyzed earlier especially
from the viewpoint of latency which is very important
from the viewpoint of quality of experience. However, the
energy aspects have not been thoroughly investigated in the
literature. We argue that remote gaming can save energy of the
device of the user, which is important especially with mobile
devices with limited battery lifetime. As a key contribution of
this publication we show that this is especially true for games
requiring 3D rendering and multi-player games that keep the
power hungry wireless network interface active all the time.
At the flip side of the coin, the approach can have many
benefits for game companies. For them, one motivation for
“Mobile Cloud Gaming” or “Gaming as a Service” [1] type of
remote gaming solutions is that to protect their games against
software piracy. Storing all the game state at the server side
can be beneficial from a game cheating prevention perspective.
The approach provides a more centralized and rapid way of
upgrading the games. As the user does not have to download
the game software at all, it is also easier to provide free shortterm
trials to attract users to try out new games. The game
companies can potentially use more homogeneous platforms
for developing games. Storing and publishing of game sessions
becomes easier since the game video is already rendered at the
server, and little effort would be required to push the recorded
session to some gaming video service.