Empowering Mixed-Reality Gaming with Aethir: VR and XR Gaming Unleashed
The gaming industry is constantly evolving and introducing groundbreaking features that are changing how players enjoy gaming titles, with innovative gameplay mechanics and breathtaking visual enhancements. Mixed reality gaming isn’t a brand-new concept because it has already been around for a couple of years. However, the growing scope and magnitude of VR and XR gaming is just entering a massive expansion phase. The first mixed-reality gaming experiences in the late 2010s were often a bit awkward and didn’t have a smooth user experience due to the limitations of this experimental technology. Now, just a few years later, virtual reality and extended reality games are finally taking the shape of highly immersive experiences that transcend the limitations of PC, laptop, and smart TV screens. Many gaming companies are beginning to take advantage of mixed-reality technologies and are creating titles that merge the virtual and physical worlds in a never-before-seen manner.
The VR gaming market is expected to reach $22.64 billion in 2024, with estimates of a massive $190 billion market cap in 2032. Considering the 2024 gaming market size estimate is $244 billion, the VR gaming market’s total gaming industry share in 2024 is nearly 10%. According to available data, these numbers will only keep exponentially increasing during the following years, which isn’t surprising since mixed-reality gaming brings tremendous innovation to gameplay mechanics and experiences. On the other hand, VR and XR gaming are also very hardware-demanding. For players in regions with dominantly low-end hardware devices, mixed reality gaming is still quite unaffordable, mainly because of the high entry costs. To enjoy mixed reality experiences, players need to have access to expensive hardware devices that can support high GPU workloads.
Cloud streaming can be an ideal solution for taking the load off users’ devices, requiring them only to purchase a VR headset. With cloud streaming, data processing and rendering are done off-site in the cloud, but gaming companies need access to decentralized cloud infrastructure to make mixed reality gaming cost-effective. Aethir’s GPU cloud is primed to support large-scale mixed-reality gaming experiences with our distributed cloud computing infrastructure.
The Potential of VR and XR Technology in Gaming
Immersive gaming experiences that leverage VR and XR technology are among the hottest gaming trends in 2024, as demonstrated at this year’s Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany. Gamers are hungry for immersive gameplay features paired with open-world experiences, AI-enhanced gaming universes, and mind-blowing visuals. VR and XR technology enable gaming studios to create worlds that are far more engaging than traditional gaming because players finally have the chance to be at the center of the game while playing it. This type of content was featured in sci-fi movies and TV series just a decade ago, but now gaming companies are launching thrilling AAA titles like Half-Life: Alyx, Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, Beat Saber, and Superhot VR. Also, legendary games like Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are getting their VR adaptations by popular demand. Mixed reality gaming opens a new dimension of interactive gameplay for users, fostering an up close and personal experience where players become one with the on-screen action.
VR and XR technology can also contribute to gamifying Web3 experiences through mixed-reality metaverse environments. The most popular metaverse projects like Decentraland, Roblox, The Sandbox, Otherside, and Voxels support VR experiences. These projects allow users to interact with hundreds of players in gamified virtual environments where they can socialize, play games, hang out, participate in events, engage in financial transactions, and more.
While mixed reality experiences are highly engaging and unlock an untapped entertainment potential, they are also extremely demanding regarding hardware. VR games using cutting-edge rendering frameworks like the Unreal 5 Engine are among the most hardware-demanding gaming titles. Cloud streaming is an excellent alternative to on-site mixed-reality game processing because it relieves users of the need to purchase expensive hardware devices with powerful GPUs. With cloud streaming, VR gaming can truly expand by lowering the entry barrier for users with low-end hardware devices. It is far more affordable to purchase a low-end VR headset and controller and subscribe to a reasonably priced cloud gaming platform than to buy an expensive high-end PC.
Aethir’s DePIN Stack: A Powerful Partner for Mixed Reality Platforms
To efficiently scale mixed reality gaming projects, publishers need access to an affordable and easily accessible cloud gaming service that can seamlessly reach millions of gamers. Such cloud gaming services require a vast supply of reliable and secure GPU power at competitive prices. Centralized cloud infrastructure is often too expensive to be a good choice for VR gaming in lower-income regions. That’s because traditional clouds need to charge cloud gaming platforms hefty service fees to pay out their electricity and maintenance costs and to remain profitable. Decentralized cloud infrastructure, on the other hand, can circumvent the limitations faced by centralized cloud services when it comes to providing computing power for mass VR and XR gaming.
With the growth of the VR and XR gaming sector, traditional clouds will be even more strained by the increasing mixed reality player base and the growing number of AAA VR/XR gaming titles. Utilizing cloud gaming services is an economically more feasible option for players in regions where high-end gaming devices are scarce. Regarding VR/XR headsets and controllers, the market offers a wide range of lower-end devices that can be used for cloud streaming. When users pair an affordable VR set with a reasonably priced cloud gaming service, they get access to innovative and highly immersive gameplay experiences for a fraction of the expenses compared to pricey gaming consoles or PCs.
Aethir’s decentralized GPU cloud uses underutilized GPUs and resource pooling to provide cost-effective and highly scalable GPU services in real time. Instead of dedicating a whole GPU to each cloud gamer, Aethir enables cloud streaming platforms to use GPU resources much more efficiently by providing gamers with the exact GPU capacity they need at a given moment. This means that instead of having a player use, let’s say, 20% of a cloud GPU’s capacity and keeping the remaining 80% unused, Aethir takes the remaining idle capacity and channels it to other end users. Aethir’s Indexers, responsible for matching GPU Containers with end-users, are a vital component of our decentralized GPU cloud, allowing Aethir to efficiently channel processing power to where it’s most needed.
Through this resource pooling model, Aethir creates clusters of decentralized GPU resources that can be allocated in real-time according to our gaming client’s needs, in line with their end-users’ demands. By maximizing GPU utilization, Aethir can offer unbeatable service prices to VR and XR game publishers, empowering them to onboard millions of cloud gamers into their respective ecosystems with a combination of immersive gameplay and affordable pricing.
Aethir’s Decentralized Cloud In Action: VR and XR Use Cases
Aethir’s decentralized cloud infrastructure is already being utilized for various VR and XR use cases in the gaming and entertainment industries. Let’s examine two cases of Aethir’s DePIN stack in action.
Aethir and Well-Link: Bringing Mixed Reality Gaming to 200+ Million Potential Users
Aethir joined forces with Well-Link Tech, a leader in real-time cloud rendering technology, to usher in a new era of cloud gaming and metaverse development, focusing on mixed-reality experiences. Well-Link Tech is a pioneer and leader in GaaS (Graphics-as-a-Service), dedicated to becoming a fundamental computing and rendering infrastructure for the future metaverse. With Aethir’s help, Well-Link Tech aims to create an innovative cloud gaming platform designed explicitly for AAA titles and Mixed-Reality developers, enhancing the gaming landscape. Aethir’s decentralized cloud infrastructure can harness the power of underutilized GPUs at scale, enabling Well-LInk Tech to use a vast, globally distributed GPU supply for VR and XR game streaming. Our robust GPU computing supply bolsters Well-Link Tech’s capacity to serve a potential user base of over 200 million players.
Aethir and Meta48: Teaming up for Lag-Free XR Streaming
Aethir has teamed up with Meta48, an extended reality giant making waves in Web 3.0 with its immersive metaverse environment that offers a wide range of gamified user experiences. Aethir is the exclusive GPU cloud computing service provider for Meta48’s mixed reality products. Meta48’s core product is an extensive virtual world that combines different elements of XR, including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Their virtual world requires immense GPU resources to support a rapidly rising Asian user base. To successfully reach their users and provide them with a lag-free streaming experience, Meta48 leverages Aethir's decentralized GPU cloud as a reliable, secure, and scalable cloud computing platform. Aethir’s DePIN stack provides cost-effective GPU computing services to Meta48, with the ability to adapt GPU power consumption to their user’s needs in real time.
Supercharging VR and XR Game Development with Aethir
Mixed reality technologies such as VR and XR have introduced tremendous innovatory potential into the gaming industry, allowing developers to create immersive experiences on an unprecedented scale. However, such gaming titles are highly demanding when it comes to processing power, thus creating a high entry barrier for users without powerful and expensive gaming hardware. With the use of cloud streaming solutions, players can circumvent this barrier. Still, centralized cloud providers can’t provide efficient mixed reality streaming capacity at scale while staying affordable due to GPU usage inefficiency.
That’s what Aethir provides a cost-effective solution for, thanks to our vast, globally distributed GPU cloud with over 43,000 top-quality GPUs and 3000+ advanced NVIDIA H100 chipsets. Additionally, we’ve distributed 25,000+ Aethir Edge devices to users across the globe, enabling them to become service providers in Aethir’s network and support cloud gaming workloads with their Aethir Edge hardware devices. With our decentralized cloud infrastructure that leverages resource pooling to maximize efficiency, Aethir represents an ideal solution for cloud gaming platforms and game publishers looking to maximize the reach of their VR and XR-enhanced gaming titles.
