Parsec: Unveiling Cloud Gaming Prospects, Challenges & Approach

About Parsec

The story of Parsec began back in 2016 when our founders, Benjy and Chris, wanted to play games using their powerful gaming rigs (that were at home) while they were on the road. After some trial and error using existing solutions, they realized nothing out there met the needs of gamers and decided to build something that would. From 2016 to 2020 about 4 million people downloaded and used Parsec completely for free, and then the world changed due to the pandemic. Parsec users from companies like EA and Ubisoft came to Benjy and Chris wanting to use Parsec to enable their artists and engineers to work from home, and soon after, Parsec for Teams was born.

Enhancing the Gaming Experience

At its core, Parsec is a high-performance remote access solution that also supports collaboration. The term “high-performance” is key, as it is Parsec’s low latency and high framerate that make it perfect for gaming and differentiate it from the legacy remote desktop solutions out there. On top of that, Parsec seamlessly integrates gamepads and drawing tablets so that all workflows in the gaming industry are supported.

Unique Approach of the Parsec Solutions

Parsec isn’t so much a cloud gaming solution as a high-performance remote desktop solution that, thanks to its strengths, makes it an ideal solution for cloud gaming. Parsec works equally well whether the machine you’re accessing is under the desk at home or in the office, or in a public cloud provider like AWS or Azure. One of the greatest things about being a software-only solution is the flexibility that it offers. When compared to other cloud gaming solutions, Parsec typically offers a better experience thanks to its minimal latency and industry-leading framerate (up to 240 frames per second).

Successful Cases

We are extremely fortunate to have become the “industry standard” remote desktop solution in the gaming industry over the past ~3 years. Parsec has supported remote development at companies like Blizzard, Sony, Microsoft, and EA since the early pandemic. For example, all of the User Research and playtesting for Halo: Infinite was conducted via Parsec’s “Guest Access” solution. Parsec has also been integral to remote game development and testing at Creative Assembly and helped Ubisoft deliver remote press demos during Ubisoft Forward in 2020.Parsec’s technology powers many studio functions ranging from art & design to development, QA, marketing, and beyond. There is a lot we can’t talk about publicly, but it’s relatively safe to say that Parsec played a key role in the development of most games released in the past 3 years, including your favorites!

Addressing the Challenges of Latency and Lag in Cloud Gaming

While Parsec can’t do anything to address the latency of the public internet (we often say that “we can’t change the speed of light”), we take great care to minimize the latency that we can control: video encoding and video decoding. Parsec always uses hardware acceleration for encoding and utilizes a “zero copy encode pipeline” to capture the screen and send it out to the receiver as quickly as possible, typically in 5ms or less. Parsec also uses hardware acceleration for decoding when available, ultimately resulting in a video processing pipeline that gets everything done in less than one frame.

Ensuring Security and Privacy for the Users

We often say that we have two #1 priorities at Parsec: performance and security. For example, we won’t make a change or add a feature if it would result in compromising either of those two factors. We know that companies use Parsec to access their “crown jewels,” and we take this trust very seriously. Security and related InfoSec “audits” are a regular thing for us, as are ongoing penetration testing and bug bounty programs. To that end, Parsec recently received SOC 2 Type 1 certification and we are in the process of receiving SOC 2 Type 2 certification.

Parsec's Business Model and Pricing Structure

Parsec’s core offerings are “Parsec for Teams” and “Parsec for Teams | Enterprise.” The basic Teams can be used by organizations of all sizes, while the Enterprise plan is our most popular option and is designed for larger organizations and those with stricter requirements around management and security. The Enterprise plan includes a relay server that facilitates a 100% connection success rate, as well as support for a management API, SAML SCIM, audit logging, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Providing Support to Game Developers

Parsec supports the full gamut of integrations and peripheral devices that game studios require to get their work done on time and in high quality. Parsec seamlessly supports Wacom tablets and Cintiq displays, modern DualSense controllers, and gaming consoles/devkits, as well as integrates with SSO (single sign-on) systems and security logging solutions (SIEMs).

Future of Cloud Gaming

We believe that the future of work is “hybrid” and that Parsec is uniquely positioned to enable successful hybrid work across a variety of industries, from game development to film production to architecture. We continue to invest in new features and functionality and maintain regular communication with our customers to make sure we are building what they need to be successful.

Future Plans of the Parsec Team

Parsec’s engineering teams have a full roadmap with years of development ahead to achieve our goals. We plan on enhancing the collaboration experience, supporting more peripheral devices, expanding the platforms that Parsec will run on, and many more things that we are not yet able to share publicly. It’s safe to say that our customers will enjoy valuable updates for years to come!

Vince Auletta, Senior Manager, Partner Engineering at Parsec