Comparative User Experience Analysis of PC Gaming and Cloud Gaming

Cloud gaming is gaining in popularity, but it is still unknown whether the user-experience it provides is good enough to enable cloud gaming to replace the traditional PC gaming and what are the key expectations of gamers. The main goal of our research presented in this paper is to gather objective, experimental data on this topic. We have executed a user study that exposed users to one simple and one complex game using cloud gaming and PC gaming approaches. After a timed gaming session on both platforms users were asked to fill a questionnaire that aims to reveal their preferences. The results of our study show that for an average casual gamer there is no much difference between cloud gaming and PC gaming. More experienced gamers tend to favor PC gaming, especially on high-end PCs. Both user groups selected cloud gaming as a better solution for low-end hardware. The results of our experiments lead to a conclusion that cloud gaming, in its current form, is not able to replace the PC gaming, but it fills a niche that PC gaming has no possibility of reaching - allowing people to play their favorite titles without having to invest in high-end gaming hardware.