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Online Gaming Could Be Stalled by Net Neutrality Repeal, ESA Tells Court (arstechnica.com) 152

Posted by msmash from the fighting-back dept.
A video game industry lobby group is joining the lawsuit that seeks to reinstate net neutrality rules in the US, saying that the net neutrality repeal could harm multiplayer online games that require robust Internet connections. From a report: The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) yesterday filed a motion for leave to intervene so that it can support the case against the Federal Communications Commission. The lawsuit, filed by a mix of Democratic state attorneys general, tech companies such as Mozilla, and consumer advocacy groups, seeks to reverse the FCC's December 2017 vote to eliminate net neutrality rules. The ESA said its members will be harmed by the repeal "because the FCC's Order permits ISPs to take actions that could jeopardize the fast, reliable, and low-latency connections that are critical to the video game industry."
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Online Gaming Could Be Stalled by Net Neutrality Repeal, ESA Tells Court More

Online Gaming Could Be Stalled by Net Neutrality Repeal, ESA Tells Court

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  • Everyone gets their cut. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:30PM (#56388663)
    ISP fast lane fee, console online subscription , App store fee, gaming tax, GPU cryptocurrency tax. Gaming is going to get more expensive, and a lot of fees for less game play.

    • And?.. (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      Gaming is going to get more expensive

      If you wanted to present some horrible nightmare scenario, you failed...

    • Re: Everyone gets their cut. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A gaming tax would be illegal for the same reason the Supreme Court found the newspaper tax illegal. Taxes that apply to expresive media only are illegal, and the only way that expressive media can be taxed is a general sales tax.

  • This seems entirely backwards..... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gregory Eschbacher ( 2878609 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:36PM (#56388697)

    I would prefer my ISP to prioritize gaming traffic ahead of other traffic: Youtube / Netflix / Facebook / bittorrent don't have the same latency requirements as online games. In fact, it makes sense to me that gamers should prefer a net neutrality repeal because it would now allow prioritization of that.

    With complete net neutrality, traffic isn't supposed to be discriminated against when in fact it is a situation like this where it makes sense.

    The counter-argument is "OH well, this will force ISPs to invest in improving network connections for all content", etc, etc. But that confuses ping latency with bandwidth.

    • Re:This seems entirely backwards..... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:49PM (#56388773) Journal
      That sucks for the indy game developer though, because their traffic would get relegated to the slow lane until they got big enough to be able to afford to pay for it. With high latency, their games might not ever become popular enough for them to get big because the latency would interfere with play enjoyment.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 )

        Actually, I already have a solution for that. I suggested that we should allow prioritization wherein no party pays (not consumer, not provider), wherein the prioritization is standard (not a "package" added to a service or an enhanced service level or whatnot), and wherein the prioritization does not impact any other service or user (when there's congestion--more demand than resource--prioritization starts falling back to baseline, becoming the first services to be degraded).

        I hadn't considered latency,

        • > I suggested that ... no party pays (not consumer, not provider)..

          Why would any ISP go that route? Since it has only negative impact on the bottom line (time developing algorithm, more complex link monitoring, no added income).

          • Comcast provides "Boost": your Cable Modem does 2Gbps but you pay for 200Mbit/s, and they de-throttle the pipe so you get a gigabit for that one TCP stream if you're downloading a large file.

            T-Mobile allows any streaming music service provider to send them an e-mail and have their streaming media data exempted from all data metering, no charge. The only requirement is that you actually have a streaming media data service. They identify that type of data flowing from you and exempt it. Hundreds of sma

      • Are there a lot of high volume network indy games? It's been a while since I've been in the gaming scene. It's interesting that indy developers are going that route.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )
          I don't think so, but should that matter? The fact that there aren't many doesn't mean that they have an insignificant impact. Minecraft started as an indy game, for example.

          • Minecraft started as an indy game, and it was single player for quite awhile, then the networking was small-servers. It still has not at all migrated into being a MMO and never will. It isn't even a large download.

      • Oh no no, Steam would just step in and handle that, for a nominal fee mind you.

        Regulation always favors the incumbents. Incumbents always use their size and status for lock-in. (if not their pocket-books to shut out competition)

        The eventual result being monopolies, who then hem and haw about how bad regulation is.

        Good times.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )

          That forces people to distribute their game through Steam who might otherwise have their own distribution channels.

          It's like requiring book creators who want to self-publish to use just one particular print-on-demand service.

          • Entirely my point good sir.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mark-t ( 151149 )
              Great for that particular service... not so great for other distribution channels.

              I'm not sure why you don't see that as a problem.

              Unless you figure that everything that ever needs to exist to support what might get created in the future already is here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        'Gaming" does not mean only "first person shooters". Most MMOPRGs play fine with a ping up near 100ms. MOBAs are little bit more sensitive, but not much. And the really popular games - free mobile games - don't care about latency at all, just the bandwidth for the ad traffic or altcoin mining.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You miss the point entirely. By removing Net Neutrality, ISPs could now charge their subscribers a premium for gaming traffic or be subject to having that traffic throttled. "Don't want insane lag and getting p0wned all day while playing Call of Duty? Well, then you had better pony up another $20/month"

      • OR, they could compete by saying "Hey, elite gamers! Join our ISP because have special gaming-oriented optimizations in place!" The point is, they could do either thing but there is room for competition, feedback etc.

        What rational argument is there for someone watching cat videos on Youtube to have the same network prioritization as an elite gamer playing Fortnite or Counterstrike?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          They paid for the bandwidth. They're owed the bandwidth. Just like the gamer. Demand what you paid for. Don't ask to pay more so you may get more of what you're owed anyway.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          OR, they could compete by saying "Hey, elite gamers! Join our ISP because have special gaming-oriented optimizations in place!" The point is, they could do either thing but there is room for competition, feedback etc.

          Most Americans have only one or two "choices" of broadband ISP, and none cater to gamers. And why would they want cater to a small niche market that uses lots of data and requires very low latency?

          What rational argument is there for someone watching cat videos on Youtube to have the same network prioritization as an elite gamer playing Fortnite or Counterstrike?

          There isn't one... ISPs just don't care about gaming.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          That would be a valid argument IF you could have competition for internet service, but the pole access and last mile problems have stopped even giants like google.

          Because there is no competition ISP's must be forced to play neutral because you cannot go to a competitor for a differently prioritized service.

        • OR, they could compete

          I mentioned this in another reply, but what is this "compete" you speak of?

          https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/

          Many parts of the US it's a freakin' monopoly. THAT is one of the reasons Net Neutrality was so important. Now that the leash is off, everyone better get the lube and bend over.

        • As long as Comcast/Cox/Verizon own the pipes, that won't happen.

          Unless you're talking about a dial-up ISP, in which case -- I'm jealous, I wish I could too could live in 1999

          (Sincerely. i miss Everquest; even with the occasional massive lag spike, and hearing my sister yell at me that she needs the phone.)

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:57PM (#56388833)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Has it yet or are we still in the chicken little phase?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          https://www.freepress.net/our-... [freepress.net]
          Everyone talks about fast lanes, but it is actual blocking that scares me, especially for political purposes. First it'll be for piracy and of course the blocks will be broad. But there is no reason that $POLITICAL_PARTY sites couldn't be blocked or slowed down to dial up speeds. With voter registration mostly over the internet, certain bad voting neighborhoods can be blocked from the registration site as well.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pots ( 5047349 )

        NN is not about banning the prioritizing one protocol over another.

        That is certainly one of the things that NN is about. Comcast was formally found in violation of net neutrality rules in 2008 [cnet.com] for throttling a particular protocol (bit torrent).

        Also, I disagree with your and the parent's conclusion that prioritization would be good for gamers. When you start talking about giving one protocol a formal blessing over another, you're choking off future innovation. This is most of the point of net neutrality, after all: yes it allows for start-ups to compete with large compan

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      The problem is that none of the traffic shaping that ISPs have engaged in has ever been about latency. In every case the ISPs have been throttling traffic they didn't like, or as a way to blackmail companies like Netflix into paying their vigorish.
    • That's fine and dandy if you're only thinking 1 or 2 moves ahead, but what happens when Game Company 'A' pays Comcast/Xfinity a bunch of money to prioritize traffic from the game servers for their newly released MMORPG, but you're playing Game Company 'B's MMORPG and are finding it nearly unplayable due to latency and dropped packets? Excuse the blatant play on words, but that's not a level playing field at all now is it? Clearly gaming the system. That's why we need NN, and that's why these companies are t

    • The way the TCP rate control algorithm works, bandwidth is determined by latency.

    • > I would prefer my ISP to prioritize gaming traffic ahead of other traffic: Youtube / Netflix / Facebook / bittorrent don't have the same latency requirements as online games. In fact, it makes sense to me that gamers should prefer a net neutrality repeal because it would now allow prioritization of that.

      You'd think, but then what happens when another use comes along that is arguably more time sensitive and the fast lane for games gets the boot in favor of the other thing?

      Or - FAR more likely - the ISPs

    • I would prefer my ISP to prioritize gaming traffic ahead of other traffic: Youtube / Netflix / Facebook / bittorrent don't have the same latency requirements as online games.

      Wait... If there is enough traffic on the high priority gaming lane couldn't that lead to dropped packets on the low priority lane? Why is that better than slightly degrading the performance of all services until you can support all traffic? Won't you just end up encouraging game developers to stop caring as much about network concerns?

  • What argument is there in support of "net neutrality", which would not apply to "road neutrality" and "parking neutrality": abolishing all laws and road-signs treating trucks, as well as business-owned vehicles, apart from cars and personal pleasure-vehicles?

    • What argument is there in support of "net neutrality", which would not apply to "road neutrality" and "parking neutrality"

      There are some _really_ good arguments for height and weight restrictions on roads involving passing over or under a bridge. If you want to compare the network to vehicles the analogy with lorries vs. cars is in regard to the size of the vehicle and the equivalent for the network would be the network packet size. This is something which is strictly limited and controlled and networks will not treat all network packet sizes the same e.g. ethernet is usually limited to 1500bytes unless you have "jumbo frame"

    • We *have* road neutrality.
    • Because people don't die when Ethernet Packet 1 collides with Ethernet Packet 2, that's why. Traffic laws, road signs, etc, are for safety. You don't stop at a Stop Sign because The Man wants to slow you down, you stop so you don't go barreling through the intersection the same moment someone else is, and crash into them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        You don't stop at a Stop Sign because

        Stop-signs are neutral. I was talking about laws, that ban certain cars from certain traffic lanes and parking spots.

        Try again...

      • You don't live in my area.

        Here, you don't stop at a stop sign (full stop). You just slow down some. Your wheels NEVER stop turning. I have adopted the practice of coming to a full stop, and it really pisses people off.

    • What argument is there in support of "net neutrality", which would not apply to "road neutrality" and "parking neutrality": abolishing all laws and road-signs treating trucks, as well as business-owned vehicles, apart from cars and personal pleasure-vehicles?

      Do you have any real examples of public roads not being "neutral", e.g. FedEx vehicles are allowed, but UPS vehicles aren't?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        This is the best comparison. Roads do not discriminate based on who owns a vehicle with the exception of emergency services and I doubt anyone would argue that 911 calls should have priority.
        Though perhaps that'll be the next thing, Amazon partnering with the toll roads to only allow Amazon delivery services on toll roads and if you want to buy from anyone else, well the package will arrive eventually and only cost twice as much for delivery.

  • Geez Guys, it's kinda' a shame you couldn't pull your heads out'a your backside and TAKE A STAND about this issue when it could have counted.
    Instead, you whine and moan because your cash cow got slam-dunked, and you suddenly realize that this issue - net neutrality - had a serious impact on YOU, and YOUR CA$H FLOW, and NOW you want to take a stand!
    Sorry, but even if I get flame-bait / troll on this post, I just can't tolerate this type of 'Geez, this is BAD' after-the-fact type of response from an agent that gets it's lifeblood support from a full and open internet speed environment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      Perhaps you have failed to notice that the FCC are not game developers.

      It's not the people ever who wanted neutrality repealed that are complaining here..

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • It's almost the same thing as what happened to BBSing. I was a sysop in the late 80's to early 90's. We had local communities, everybody knew each other. Hell, for awhile there was a group of social BBSes (including mine) that held Softball Games on Sundays almost every week in the summer.

        LAN parties sounds so fun in retrospect. With wifi, it would be much easier, too.

    • What, specifically, has been impacted by the repeal of NN? ... excluding lawyer and journalist revenue?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        In Canada, the ISP's are pushing to be allowed to block bad sites, starting with the evil pirates. Generally when a site is blocked, so is everything else on the same server as it is simple and once blocking sites becomes common, then blocking sites for other reasons will become common.
        We already have examples of how blocking works with various porn filters that filter out much more then porn. Want to learn about breast cancer or how they check for prostate cancer, well breasts and anuses are sexual so we c

  • What about the Serious stuff. (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @03:54PM (#56388821)

    In the debate very little people worry about the serious stuff that happens over the net that eding Net Neutrality could effect.
    Business to Business communications over Web Services.
    Business VPN's linking offices.
    VoiP phone services.
    Transferring Health Care information from your Primary care to the hospital securely.

    There is a lot of stuff, from small organizations who will probably get throttled or cut, without the resources to get all the ISPs to allow then to get a pass.

    The internet isn't just about your games and Netflix. But also a lot of communication with organizations of various sizes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The paper insulated wireline is replaced as federal NN rules get removed and the USA gets some new networks.
      Common city broadband moves in to replace the telco monopolies.
      Within a wider selection of ISP a group of ISP will have a product for business, VPN use, health care in a competitive ISP market.
      The USA cant afford to stay on NN paper insulated wireline monopoly networks for decades.

      • The paper insulated wireline

        Paper? That's just weird. I have quite an old house, it actually existed before electric house wiring. Even the oldest tube-and-post wire in this place is silk-wound with rubber or fabric insulation. Paper just doesn't sound practical at all.

  • GeForce Now (Score:3)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday April 05, 2018 @04:43PM (#56389181) Journal

    I don't know how many of you have tried it, but nvdia's GeForce Now service is exactly the kind of thing that could be severely hampered by a lack of Net Neutrality.

    [Before I continue, let's get one thing straight: Net Neutrality doesn't mean companies like Netflix don't pay for bandwidth. Of course they do. They just don't have to pay MORE for bandwidth than some other service that might have ties to the ISP. Ok, everybody clear on that?]

    Anyway, back to GeForce Now. I've been beta testing it and it's just fantastic. It's basically a way to stream your video games to machines that aren't powerful enough to play them. So, if you have some i3 laptop with weak graphics, you can still play GTA V on ultra quality. No lag, no bullshit. You just play the game and it's like you're sitting at some sick $5000 gaming PC. And it works. Works perfectly. I mean, you can tell they're still dialing it in over at nvidia, because some days there might be some audio stuttering, but then it gets fixed. This is a beta product after all.

    OK, so the only thing is, this GeForce Now service uses a shit-ton of bandwidth. You've got to have a pretty fast internet connection and a lot of data gets used, as you can imagine. I've been using it for a couple months and I still haven't gone over my Spectrum data limit (though to be fair, I don't know what my data limit is).

    Now let's say that a piece of shit ISP, say, Spectrum, decides that they're going to start their own game streaming service, but they're going to charge nvidia five times as much for getting their data to your house. Or worse, they charge YOU more for getting nvidia's data to your house. Remember, nvidia is already paying for bandwidth at their end, and naturally, you're already paying exorbitant amounts for bandwidth at your end. THE BANDWIDTH IS ALREADY BEING PAID FOR. Nobody's getting anything for free.

    In summary: 1) GeForce Now is going to be a really interesting service to watch and 2) the repeal of Net Neutrality could absolutely mess up gamers, and 3) Ajit Pai is a piece of shit. Here is a photo of Ajit Pai so you know who I'm talking about:

    https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]:

  • Online gaming to me is UT2004 with bots. Easy bots. m-m-m-monster kill!

  • the net neutrality repeal could harm multiplayer online games that require robust Internet connections

    What possible worry is that to the bunch of corporate lackeys, fools and the hyper entitled?

    They really only care if something that will affect their corporate owners profits. If people have bandwidth, they will use it. It might be playing games on a robust connection. If that doesn't work, they will be assuming that the masses do something else. Perhaps they will set up internet based The Price is Ri

  • Are ISPs likely to want to do that?

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