Trouble At OnLive

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Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 17, 2012 @10:10AM from the not-exactly-blue-skies-in-the-cloud dept.

Lashat writes "News of trouble at cloud gaming provider OnLive is trickling out of various sources. According to Forbes, all employees received their walking papers today. Rumors of a shutdown, buyout, or re-formation as a new company are plentiful, but the company hasn't announced anything yet. The article quotes an email sent to InXile CEO Brain Fargo from an employee within the company: 'I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist. Unfortunately, my job and everyone else's was included. A new company will be formed and the management of the company will be in contact with you about the current initiatives in place, including the titles that will remain on the service. It has been an absolute pleasure working with you and I'm sure our path with cross again.' OnLive's Director of Corporate Communications told Forbes, 'No, let me be clear. We are not going out of business.'" While the question of whether OnLive-as-an-entity will continue is still up in the air, an internal source confirmed to Gamasutra that OnLive's entire staff has been laid off, and OnLive employees were seen outside headquarters with 'moving boxes.' Kotaku says the company has filed for protection against creditors in California (not bankruptcy, but similar).

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LOL by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-17 10:11 · Score: 0, Insightful

Yep, other than idiots pushing cloud buzzwords the rest of us knew this was bound to happen.
1. Re:LOL by Dahamma · 2012-08-17 10:55 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm going to have to agree with the AC... gamers and/or anyone with any reasonable technical knowledge clearly knew this was an F-ed company from the start. The only people who seemed clueless were the investors and various naive media pundits who habitually fall for unproven CES demos...
2. Re:LOL by farble1670 · 2012-08-17 13:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  spoken by someone that clearly has never used the service.
  i'm a subscriber and have purchased several games spanning the spectrum, including defense grid gold (a higher-end tower defense game), osmosis, some permutations of warhammer 40k, and homefront (first person shooter). all of these games were $10 for unlimited play (with the stipulation that the company needs to still be in business i guess).
  i can play all of them on my mac, windows pc, and android tablet. except homefront which required keyboard control to do anything useful. they all ran pretty great as long as i was on fast broadband.
  it was a pretty awesome idea. no more installing gigabytes of crap on your PC. no more compatibility problems. games that just work wherever and whatever platform you are on.
Not "Going out of Business," Persay... by CanHasDIY · 2012-08-17 10:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

More like "Business going out.. of country"

Yea, I'm accusing them of ditching the American staff that grew the company into what it is today, so they can outsource the jobs to the 3rd World.
Here's hoping they prove me wrong.

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
1. Re:Not "Going out of Business," Persay... by wiegeabo · 2012-08-17 10:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  So it's better they just fire everyone and go out of business?
  That makes no sense.
Good riddance by WaffleMonster · 2012-08-17 10:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

I never understood the appeal given many games must really suck to play with all the control latency and video buffering.
How much more can a used xbox/titles really cost over time vs subscription cost of onlive service?
No secret I've always had a negative opinion mostly due to the egregious waste of bandwidth and resources but also for failing to see the market value.
My bet at the time they would be done in three months and they lasted quite a bit longer so excellent job on execution.
1. Re:Good riddance by Onymous+Coward · 2012-08-17 18:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Jesus H. Christ, people! What's so insightful about "I don't get it because I imagine it would suck" when there's a freakin' free trial available?
  Go play the free games and decide for yourself just how good the technology is.
  It's not hard and then you can stop talking out your ass.
The customers have spoken by Hentes · 2012-08-17 10:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

We still don't want computing to be a rentable service.
Re:A shame for Ouya if not kept alive by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-17 11:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

even the 'hard core' gamers (if they can deal with the bit of latency) could get their fill.
No "hardcore" gamer is going to accept heavily compressed and blurry chroma subsampled video streams. Even a low quality video card gives better quality output.
That's what I don't like about Corporatism by rsilvergun · 2012-08-17 12:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

the entire company's about to be gutted but that leadership will come out smelling of roses. How many times have we watch a company collapse and reform as a legal entity with no debt? I wish I (with my large looming debts from years of paycuts) could do that... back to the grind stone, except I don't really have a nose left to grind after 30 years of this $@!T

--
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Re:that is why we need unions in TECH by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-17 15:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Right, so that the investors get screwed instead. Why would someone invest in a company (say, GM) when the company's just going to be handed over to a labor union, stripping the stock from the people who invested and allowed it to exist in the first place?
Re:Still was going to have a real tough time by Onymous+Coward · 2012-08-18 14:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm no anonymous voice. My UID makes that clear, whippersnapper.
A single 2560x1600 screen cap from a video stream over an unknown quality connection? That's your proof? It's like you're saying JPEG and MP3 don't work because they're lossy.

With the reporting and public opinion being heavily against you, one can only wonder what it is that helped you form you opinion.
Experience. I though that was clear. Actual experience. The thing that you don't have. This is what irks me about particular detractors, the ones talking out their asses. They make comments about the service quality without having even tried it. Maybe you can't get it at home, but go visit a friend and try it there, jeez. It's free. And then you'll be able to talk about it knowledgeably.
And you'll see that quality is not a binary thing. All the little factors come together in a complex way to make the gaming experience. You can't just sum latency, framerate, and resolution to get a scalar value of quality, saying the system is good or bad. You have to play it. Conceiving of quality in black and white terms is the same conceptual trap as thinking that there's a "best" product, solution, distro, car, or whatever.
Just give it a try and think for yourself.