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Image Credit: Save the Internet
Some suggest that the “today, and tomorrow of video games is online”. DLC’s, updates, movies, and patches require quality service from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). At this very moment, a gargantuan war is being waged between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), your Internet Service Provider (ISP), politicians, and content creators, and the ones who are stuck right smack in the middle of it like the cream in a OREO cookie are the consumers. According to Game Informer Senior Editor Matthew Kato’s article “Changing the Rule of the Game” in issue 257, it’ll likely be our gaming and console experience that will be impacted by this war as it affects the quality and cost of our Internet.
What’s basically at stake here is “Net Neutrality”. This is the simple concept that ISPs should not discriminate the content they provide, giving all websites on the Internet the same speed whether it is owned by big time companies like YouTube, Netflix or a small websites. In essence, net neutrality guarantees that all websites small or big, are on a level playing field. Net neutrality is being threatened by possible changes to the FCC rules that govern the Internet. Content companies like Netflix feel that the principal should protect them from having to pay extra for a quality connection to consumers via ISPs & because they will be responsible for their own infrastructure cost & so it doesn’t get passed on to the consumer, which ultimately means consumers will have to pay to keep things running smoothly. I am not going to give you all the juicy details so that you may take a look at the article and get some more of the important nuggets, but that’s not all either.
For gamers this means we could pay more if ISPs start to separate the Internet into different lanes of varying speeds and costs, apart from extra cost to your monthly bill, any content provider unable to pay for a better connection from an ISP risks being stuck in a slower lane. “Consumers and Internet companies should be protected against the tyranny of restrictions, including blocking and paid-prioritization, to keep the market focused on the end-user experience.”
One last thing to consider is how data caps could change things if it were to coincide with the changes to net neutrality, not directly but it is relevant in the sense that we could start to see ISPs charging high-data users more. It’s a huge revenue stream for ISPs and means gamers get hit twice once by content providers, and again by the ISPs. Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said he expects the ISP to have a “usage based billing model” in five years. In 2012, Comcast had a flat 250GB cap a month.
If you want more details, check out the story, but more importantly let us not be stagnant. Let us not rest on our laurels and get trampled over by the tyranny of bureaucratic thinking of squeezing the last drop out of us like lemons to make them filthy rich off of our lemonade. “Third-party publishers and developers really only have things to lose in the fight, there’s no upside for them, just like for consumers.”
This is a fork in the road for the Internet as we know it, and for out gaming experiences. To get involved, go to fcc.gov/comments or join the efforts of groups such as the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), savetheinternet.com, or Public Knowledge.
Thank you, I hope to see you all out there in the trenches of this war.