You can have real-time games whose mechanics are designed around latency. My game is one example. In fact, I would assert that for now, you have to design around latency in real-time multiplayer games. Until round-trip latency for your entire userbase is below 40ms, it will be an issue.

I'd say 30ms, not not 40. Because a single frame is 16.6ms, so 30ms round-trip would bring one-way down to below one frame of latency (potentially with a small amount of jitter).

It sounds surprisingly high, but a lot of the population won't notice 40ms round trip. Some of it will know. It also depends on the game's mechanics. Not all games are FPS. Not all games have action significant down to one frame. Some of my favorite real time games involve making decisions about once every 5 seconds which will result in a turning point in another 15 to 30 seconds which will get you killed or leave you victorious.

> I would assert that for now, you have to design around latency in real-time multiplayer games.

Yeah but I believe they mostly do that with client-side rendering using the graphics card, and then reconciling that with what the server side "thinks" things should look like.

That sort of thing wouldn't be possible if you're just working with a video stream.

I'm not advocating working with a video stream.

It levels the playing field and allows players to play with others around the world if streaming servers have better latency to each other than p2p.

The latency from the player to the server still exists though so I dont see how this is going to solve any problems.

50ms player to streaming server + 10ms streaming server to streaming server + 50ms player to server = 110ms is less than 150ms player to player.

and how do you propose a server in Australia is going to achieve 10ms to a server in the US?

Why is the server to server latency going to be less than the ISP's natural routes?

Streaming services have more money than consumers. Replace 10ms with whatever is possible. At some point, the latency will be lower overall.

For real-time "twitch" shooters, gamers will never accept it as a solution. You can't beat the speed of light traveling across earth.