Onlive - A friend to PC gaming?

[ph0b0s123]

Up until now I have been down on Onlive as a service, with the idea that it is a replacement or competitor to PC gaming. It is only today, with the launch of Onlive apps for Android and IOS, that I realized that Onlive, may be PC gamings biggest friend.

Why, because in on move Onlive has just added all mobile users to the ranks of PC gamers. Why, because any money they spend on Onlive goes towards PC game revenue. It's not console versions of the games they are running on that system. PC gaming just got a much much bigger potential user base. If Onlive is successful on mobile it will drive more PC game development.

The only down side might be that developers embrace the service so much that they develop controls that only work well on touch screens.

So yeah, Onlive - a big friend to PC gaming.

Edit: From the comments, people do realise that On-live's service is based on allowing users with dumb clients to remote desktop into powerful PC's to play PC games. I.e anyone who uses On-live on anything but a PC, has effectively become a PC gamer and is contributing to PC game sales.

Edit: For the last time this thread is about the idea that people using the ON-live service on anything other than PC's, is now a PC gamer and contributing financially to PC gaming. Please try and keep on topic and save your comments about how good or bad On-live is as a service or how it compares with playing on a local PC, as this is not the point of this thread. This is purely about the idea that mobile and Google TV (just announced)user will now be contributing to PC gaming via the ON-live service, which is a service based on allowing people to run PC games remotely on dumb clients.

 

[DazZ.]

Any locked down system is not a friend of mine, one of the biggest reasons I play on PC is because I tend to have the freedom to do what I want with the games I buy.

If I didn't care about being locked out and having strict rules about what I can do with my system I'd buy a console, and I can't be any further away from what I want with cloud gaming.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's the ultimate form of DRM worse than anything I could have ever imagined a few years ago and I'm appalled that most people don't regard it as such.

I literally just posted my ire for such cloud-centric services in another topic not 5 minutes ago.

Believe me, we're out there. But I don't think we're all that common; Especially in comparison to the legions of people who want to do more things with their cell phones.

 

[Korten12]

I got an internet that can download at 3 MB/s, yet I tried Onlive and it looked like shit. >.>

 

[omicron1]

Pretty much this: If I can play Just Cause 2 and Darksiders on my phone (with the huge OnLive controller for now, although the mini one shown off at CES, and the iCade Mobile both look excellent), my life is complete.

As for the DRM, there's a reason I only (mostly - I also bought Space Marine for a dollar, Darksiders for $10, and got Batman free) go with the subscription option. That's what OnLive is - a subscription - and I still don't trust it enough to treat it as anything more.

I just wish they'd hurry up with the iOS app...

On more interesting fronts, the OnLive desktop is definitely interesting. Aside from the productivity ramifications, having the ability to install and run random software would be a very, very valuable thing, essentially bridging the last gap present in OnLive's software services. The Witcher 2 on your phone? Why the heck not?

 

[tthor]

Any locked down system is not a friend of mine, one of the biggest reasons I play on PC is because I tend to have the freedom to do what I want with the games I buy.

If I didn't care about being locked out and having strict rules about what I can do with my system I'd buy a console, and I can't be any further away from what I want with cloud gaming.

This, the thought that it (or anything like it) might at some point have the success of Steam is truly outright horrifying, not only do you lose any advantage PC gaming might have over consoles (from being able to Mod your game, to tweaking graphics settings and using any kind of control method you like etc.) and would replace it with a blurry mess full of compression artifacts, banding and input lag at low resolution and with the game on their side running on low or medium graphics settings to save on processing power, but you'd also lose every single consumer right you might still have when you buy a game as a product (with companies being able to revoke your rights to your entire game library over any reason and physically being able to do it).

It's the ultimate form of DRM worse than anything I could have ever imagined a few years ago and I'm appalled that most people don't regard it as such.

now its not all bad, I think Onlive is a great service,

for RENTING games.
I would consider that any game you get through Onlive, you don't own it, you rent it. So if they want me to use it, they better be charging me pennies to rent these games.

Though that might sound sarcastic, I do truly hope Onlive takes advantage of Renting games, rather than selling them. If I could rent a game for a period of time for cheap and stream it over the internet, then I might actually be interested in this service.

..if i had internet that wasn't shit,

Other than renting games and the low initial costs of hardware, I don't see any pros to this. If you wanna game, actually Invest in hardware. if you wanna just rent a game for a weekend, then ya, Onlive will do

 

[ph0b0s123]

Any locked down system is not a friend of mine, one of the biggest reasons I play on PC is because I tend to have the freedom to do what I want with the games I buy.

If I didn't care about being locked out and having strict rules about what I can do with my system I'd buy a console, and I can't be any further away from what I want with cloud gaming.

-snip-

You have all completely missed the point of this thread. On-live being used to play PC games on mobile devices, does not mean any changes to your local PC game playing. The whole reason there is an On-live service is due to PC gaming being open. All that is happening is that a whole new group of users has been given the opportunity to play PC games. And if they do, all that extra revenue goes in the column of more PC sales. Then publishers have less of a case when saying that they cannot be bothered doing good PC games because there is no market. The PC games market just increased by millions of mobile users. Get it....

This is a good thing even if most self respecting PC gamers will not go near the service.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

The PC games market just increased by millions of mobile users. Get it....

No, the (potential) OnLive market just increased by millions of mobile users. There technically isn't any reason they'd have to develop games for the PC in the future, or at least with the PC in mind, if OnLive is successful enough. They could target it directly, just like a console, which would probably make a lot of sense for performance (on the back end/server side) and control reasons, and if we're lucky the "real" PC version will still be just as crappy of a port as it currently is with just as few options. Assuming it still exists. Or at least that's the kind of thing people are worried about. Just because OnLive is successful does not necessarily mean it's good for anyone other than OnLive.

 

[ph0b0s123]

-snip-

-snip-

Cool, I get where you are both coming from now in relation to the topic I posted. It did not come over with your last post and seemed like stock problems with the service rather than issues to do with the mobile roll out. And I don;t have anything to say that disagrees with your sentiments. I am hoping it works out well and that developing games for On-live, if successful, will not harm the games working on PC's in general. But I take both your point that it could end up badly as well.

 

[Lillowh]

I disagree. At least now. Even with my internet connection shown here [http://speedtest.net/result/1678931138.png], the service is not fast enough to run games (I tired homefront and trine) at anywhere near acceptable clairty. If they upped their bandwidth and allowed for higher resolution transfer, I would use it but not as it is now. As for mobile devices, I cannot try it due to having a WP7, but I just don't see the point. If you want to play a PC game, go play a PC game, don't play it on your phone.

 

[Frybird]

I don't see why i should use Services like OnLive if i as a gamer don't really benefit from it.

In terms of graphical quality, the service most likely delivers less due to video compression, and although it's nice to not have download/install times like with Steam, there's no offline play possible vor ANY game.

I really like the concept of streaming games and really like what Gaikai is doing, but at the same time i cannot see ANY way how this would become my preferred choice in purchasing and playing games.

(In Addition i really don't see very many games being any good when played on portable devices, given how few are designed with touchscreen controls in mind)

 

[agent_orange420]

When we all have blisteringly quick internets then it might be a plan.

Until then i'll stick with the PC. If only companies would release more demos, then i might think of buying more games. Have been stung too many times will duff titles that got hyped up before release.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Extra revenue towards PC games is only a temporary upside, Onlive is not intended to be limited to PC games they are just the easiest to interface with servers right now, but the ultimate goal is all games on all platforms.
And cloud games are the farthest things from a PC gaming experience, they have no flexibility, no advanced options, no mods, no community content,... they are the ultimate police state games.
If games go cloud only we are simply fucked and anyone getting pissy over missing stuff ... tough luck chum, the game is not limited to demanding PC gamers anymore it is now available and bought by all audiences, you are the meaningless minority that will at best the best of boycots show a negligible drop in sales.

So no it's not a friend to PC gaming, cloud gaming is the biggest friend to portability and convenience for all platforms, and on a more scary thought they are an even bigger friend to corporations.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

No Onlive is Onlive's biggest friend and they do not particular care for or cater to the PC given the options that they allow for their games.

 

[ph0b0s123]

No Onlive is Onlive's biggest friend and they do not particular care for or cater to the PC given the options that they allow for their games.

Of course thy care about the PC games market. If there is not a strong PC games market, they have nothing to put on their service.

They use the same games we do on our games rigs for their system, so any games they sell / make money from is money that is going into PC game sales. Their service is based on allowing users with dumb clients to remote desktop into powerful PC's to play PC games. Indirectly they are making PC game development an even more profitable proposition. My comment was not about how interesting the service is to existing PC gamers with decent gaming rigs.

The only time this may change is if their service becomes so proprietary that developers need to code just for it specifically rather than PC's in general

 

[ph0b0s123]

Double post