Video games’ future is in the cloud, IP data reveals
The future of video gaming lies in cloud computing technology, according to patent data published by IP services provider Clarivate Analytics.
A new Clarivate report, published yesterday, October 20, examines patent and trademark data in the video gaming sector.
The report, “ Cowboys, combat and candy: cloud gaming through the lens of IP”, reveals that most innovation in the sector is focused on high-speed streaming technology.
Streaming technology, latency reduction, and user experience is now the subject of more patent filings than any other area in the industry, the report reveals.
As recently as 2012, multiplayer enablement was the main focus of video game innovation, with almost 900 patents covering such features filed that year. But this has now dropped to below 300 in 2018.
Clarivate attributes the shift to the rise of new models of mobile gaming, as well as the “huge increase in mobile gaming revenues that has occurred since”.
One notable example in this area was Pokémon Go, a multiplayer, augmented reality-based mobile game that was downloaded more than 500 million times in 2016.
Mobile gaming now makes up more than 50% of total global video game revenue, the report found.
The industry’s focus is now turning to new cloud-based gaming systems. Sony, Microsoft, Google, Tencent, and Nvidia have all confirmed plans for or launched cloud platforms.
“Each of the five cloud platforms have followed very similar IP protection profiles, with average development time from first patent filing to golive of around seven and a half years,” the report said.
Google’s Stadia enjoyed the shortest development time, launching just six and a half years after the first relevant patent filing. This was possible, Clarivate concluded, due to Google’s “significant experience and technology integrated from its YouTube video streaming service”.
The report also examined brand protection strategies for cloud platforms. Google, for example, filed its first ‘Stadia’ trademark registration in Tonga ,two months before it announced Stadia in October 2018.
“On first glance, this appears odd, but is actually a known ‘under the radar’ brand registration route. Major brands use a first filing in out of the way places—Tonga a favorite—more often than you would expect, so that competitors watching for new product plans may miss the early signals,” the report said.
“In a world that now sees video gaming as its favorite, or at least most lucrative, pastime, cloud gaming represents a huge leap forward,” said Jeff Roy, president of IP at Clarivate. “Looking at the trends around intellectual property on the business side, we can see that cloud gaming is poised for huge growth over the next 12 months,” Roy added.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox
Today’s top stories
EC denies UK designers UCD protections
