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Sony Buys, Shuts Down OnLive
Jay Maynard writes The OnLive gaming service that rose from the dead and became an inexpensive way to get high-end performance on low-end hardware has now been purchased by Sony Entertainment. Their games, desktop, and SLGo Second Life services will all end on April 30, 2015, and be free to use until then."
And this is why I refuse to buy games that require a connection to some corporate server to play.
and I hope the CEO lost money, but I bet he made out fine. The guy cheated his engineers out of millions. He paid them in stock options while they built the company from nothing and then folded the paper corporation right before the investment money came in.
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If I buy a game, I want to play it on any PC I own - and I'm still playing X-Com and Warcraft (yes - I have those discs :)
Steam sorta got it right - but steam is a gamble cause if it shuts down - anything you bought goes away.
If you want to "rent" the framework to play, not going to bite - sorry.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
On Live filed for an alternate bankruptcy protection status and as part of the process sold assets to Sony. Sony didn't come in heavy handed and Buy On Live then shut it down. The headline it inflammatory.
Oh wait, I wasn't using it. Carry on.
Network latency is going to keep all these remote game solutions as inferior. Even with fiber optic connections becoming widespread is going to be worse than local gaming.
I had two of the excellent Sony HDD 250 DVRs. They are/were better than Tivo until this last generation....well built, and a good first effort. They got data from TV Guide onscreen. Listings, info, and time. TV Guide onscreen was a listing service that would download from an OTA or cable station, interlaced into the signal. It was carried by PBS in the analog era, then CBS when digital transition took place. TV Guide was sold to Rovi (Macrovision). Shortly thereafter, the listing service was shut down. Sony and Rovi were both mute as to those of us who had bought into TV Guide onscreen. I mean, really, who could get screwed by TV GUIDE ???? So much for the old economy and assumptions. We were left high and dry. There was no alternate way to get the listings. Some units with later versions of TV Guide onscreen were internet compatible, but these weren't. Now, I'm not ranting about free listings. These units would not take a time stamp from anything other than a TVGOS source, over the air... So, once the TVGOS service died, your clock did too. No, there was no "clock set" in the menu. Whose idea or requirement this was should be shot. Twice. Some convoluted work arounds were devised, but the simple fact is that you had a random clock when you plugged it in. For the normal person, you just bricked it. No TVGOS signal = no clock = no programming. Thanks Sony.
So where can I get their Bluetooth game controller at a discount? It was the only thing they had that seemed good.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Selling "Cloud Compute Power" for video games doesn't make economic sense.
Kind of like furniture rental, right? You've got to provide locations close to your customers, and your prices have to reflect the additional overhead. You don't have to have lower prices *over time* as long as you have lower prices *right now*. Sell (or better, rent out) a $50 streaming stick+bluetooth gamepad, and offer subscription plans for $20/month, or something. $70 to start playing right now is easier to stomach than a minimum of $250 for a console and $20 for a game, the same way that $50/month (or whatever) for a couch is easier to stomach than $500 to buy the thing outright. It's a good idea in theory, going after the people that can afford a small-ish monthly payment, but can't (or won't) pay a larger upfront fee to actually own the system that they're using.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The engineers wouldn't have jobs? Do you not have the slightest clue how this works? These were top of their field guys with tonnes of job offers who took _less_ pay in exchange for stock options in a company they believed in. They literally invested their lives in the company in place of their dollars. The through some legal slight of hand it was stolen out from under them. AOL did the same thing when they merged with Time Warner. When you have tens of thousands of dollars taken from you you don't "Just shake it off".
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This reminds me so much of when Sony bought Connectix and killed the Virtual Game Station.
Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
We didn't have a lot of games on the Mac in those days, so the CVGS filled a real need. I hated Sony so much for that. >.
Sony: serial killer of the game industry?
This is how I always explain streaming games to people who can't immediately see the horrible problems with it:
Imagine if the Ubisoft always-on DRM were an inherent, unremoveable aspect of the game system rather than just something tacked on to a few individual games after the fact, such that Ubisoft couldn't even begrudgingly neuter it in a patch. Well, a streamed game is even worse than that would be.
All you get is streaming video/audio and all the lag you'd expect (including controller lag), which is a recipe for disaster in North America. And any interruption in the connection that lasts more than a few tenths of a second is going to be behave like the equivalent of a "freeze" or "hang" that you'd NEVER tolerate in a properly local-hosted game. Not even the most twitchy DRM existing today has that problem.
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times. Internet latency is often worse and certainly more unpredictable than LCD monitor response time, and with Onlive, etc. it applies to audio and keyboard/controller/etc input too.
Then there are the bandwidth requirements.
Let's say you're lucky enough to have a 30mb/s connection. Why would you want to use it to transfer your game's video instead of, uh, a DVI cable, which is capable of 4 Gb/s? The people who developed DVI apparently understood that that 1920 x 1200 pixels w/ 24 bits/pixels @ 60Hz results in bandwidth well over 3 Gb/s. The people who developed streamed games seem very, very confused (at best).
Those of us who know anything about bandwidth and compression and (especially) latency can see the enormous technical obstacles facing a service like this, and Onlive never did anything to explain how they intended to solve them. Instead, they did everything they could to lock out independent reviewers with NDAs and closed demonstrations. A friend of mine described it as the gaming equivalent of the perpetual motion scam, and IMO that's spot on (except that Onlive would still have the draconian DRM issues even if it worked perfectly).
Streamed games appear designed from the ground up to benefit the game publishers and fuck the customers, exactly what you'd expect from any DRM system.
P.S. If Microsoft intended 24-hour XBox One check-ins were DOA, how the fuck are mandatory check ins going to fly when measured in milliseconds?
Sony and pretty much Microsoft alike have a predatory, disruptive model of work. Also it is not their best interest to provide a continuity of services, and change things every so often, to create artificial needs for new products. They also do not work for the best interests of the industry or for their customers, but only for their goals. They often also do shadow or questionable moves via proxy firms in order to not tarnish more their reputation. They are not deceiving anyone. Any time they do something like this, they are only being true to their core models. You are just naive and dumb if you do business with them.
I have purchased MSDOS and a Windows 95 dictionary back on the day. Refund? Lawsuit? Read the EULA?
And? Money is money, and there are a lot more poor people than rich ones. Unlike the car or furniture, the streaming service wouldn't even have to send out a repo man if they didn't pay, either. They'd just cut off service.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Sony didn't come in heavy handed and Buy On Live then shut it down. The headline is overly flattering to Sony
FTFY. Seriously, I would praise any company that ruthlessly did what you describe (as long as it didn't benefit the Onlive scamsters, as the typical buyout would).
You all buy DRM'd games, bitch about it, and then buy some more. Is that about it? Or am I missing something crucial here?
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No, Sony bought another company (Gaikai) years ago. This acquisition happened today.
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If sdomebody buy valve they buy ther liabilities with them. That means current contract. Somebody could not simply shut steam down by buying it. Now if there is a valve *bankruptcy* (unlikely on short term) that changes because liabilities and current contract are handled differently, but just in case of buying outside of bankruptcy it is not that simple as "it is mine fuck it now I shut it down".
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Nope.
You licensed use of several games for a maximum period of three years (go read what "lifetime" access was for a game you purchased).
Probably the most you'd ever get back would be a part of the purchase price proportional to the time you've had them (i.e. if you had access to the games for a year maybe you'd get a 2/3rds refund - after you brought in the lawyers).
One of the reasons that systems like OnLive weren't a good idea for consumers.
I tried OnLive because they gave a "full" game at the time without paying a penny. Mainly to see whether it was worth buying properly. When I read the terms and conditions of the "full" game, I realised I'd have to buy it somewhere else anyway as the game could disappear in a few years and I'd have no recourse, so instead I used OnLive purely as a demo and actually bought the game elsewhere.
I agree. This demonstrates there needs to be a law holding the business or its new owner accountable for promises they've made, voiding any agreements the consumer may have made.
Which means if it's a subscription model, then being required to fulfill the subscription or refund the amount paid for the subscription. If you pay someone $120 to do something for twelve months and they only do it for half a month, they're legally obligated (already) to repay you half the money. It breaks down when you have hidden legal agreements that work out of this.
Maybe there is a law out there that does protect people from this. A criminal one against fraud or something, who knows. It just feels wrong than Sony can say, "Well you're boned," and then make off with all the money that people paid to them.
Kind of like furniture rental, right? You've got to provide locations close to your customers, and your prices have to reflect the additional overhead.
Cloud gaming doesn't work in the USA because our internets are bullshit. Only a small slice of the potential market is gonna have a good time.
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This is why people should get pirated copies of ANY game, program, movie, music they pay for.... Corporations are moving towards more and more DRM and subscription based "cloud" models. The more they do it the more you the consumer get screwed. Do you think they are doing this for YOUR benefit? no1 It's for THEIRS! You pay for something you don't "physically" get. Then they can take it away at any time and you get nothing and they got your $$$$. That is PIRACY to me... Yet they are allowed to do it.... So piracy for us is fine well and good in my eyes at this point.....
The simple way to show corporations we won't put up with this and all the DRM cr@p is DON'T BUY IT! If you don't like the DRM cr@p - why are you buying the games, movies etc...? The ONLY thing corporations understand is $$$$$. The more people that "boycott" their products the more they feel it in the pocketbook. Imagine if all the "geeks" that buy video games (with DRM) stopped buying them - how much money do you think companies would lose? What if "geeks" stopped paying for subscription model stuff? Same thing would happen.
I know naysayers will say it's not enough people and that there are too many other sheeple out there that will continue to pay of this stuff. But, "geeks" can take to the internet to put up "protest" sites, put out "protest" articles etc... How many "geeks" have had talks with their non "geek" friends about how bad the DRM and subscription based models are?
Think about it......
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no bankruptcy trustee would ever let that happen really - and more than that would require new agreements from all the publishers anyways
Why a new agreement?! Wasn't this all part of the deal from the beginning?
Is there anyone around having experience with steam about this subject?
I was under the impression that this is part of the agreement between valve and game producers.
As such a trustee *stopping* the release would be a breach of contract and could get class-action sued by the gamers.
That was the case already in other such arrangement, like TrollTech/Nokia/Digia/QtCompany and KDE. I've kind of expected Valve to setup a similar framework.
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You Betcha!
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I love these click bait titles everyone uses these days it's all about spreading FUD cause thats more likely to get all the sheep to click. ONlive shut down after going bankrupt and Sony bought the patents nothing else at least Ars can get the facts right without manipulating the title to be all but a lie
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times.
My $800 inline IPS can apply firewall rules and deep packet inspection to 26GB of traffic per second with a double-digit latency of 10us.
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my $7 pint of IPA will make me drunk enough so that I don't care about screan responce time or filewall rulls.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
because if you _need_ an internet connection to play, it really makes little principal difference if you stream the games or if they run locally.
There's plenty of difference. For example, if your home Internet provider charges per gigabyte, such as most wireless providers, then a delivery method that provides more play time per gigabyte will be superior. And if your home Internet provider has high latency, such as satellite, a DRM paradigm that isn't tightly linked to the game loop will be superior. And not all DRM paradigms that require an Internet connection require it all the time. I would rank these phone-home paradigms from least bad to most bad:
Perhaps they want to be able to play in their living room without having to move their PC.
Then stream over the home LAN from a copy of the game running on your gaming PC in another room to your receiver in the living room. You don't need to stream over your ISP.
My average latency on cable is already 10-15ms, and Fiber should surpass that.
If you happen to be in a different country from the game's publisher, good luck getting anywhere near that sort of latency.
So where can I get their Bluetooth game controller at a discount?
There exist drivers to use a Dual Shock 3 controller with a PC. Pick one up at a resale shop.
You are just naive and dumb if you do business with [the makers of PlayStation and Xbox].
In your opinion, which reputable manufacturer of set-top video gaming devices isn't predatory?
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times. Internet latency is often worse and certainly more unpredictable than LCD monitor response time, and with Onlive, etc. it applies to audio and keyboard/controller/etc input too.
I remember playing Quake back in the day, and I had a single digit ping time with some servers (with an ISDN line), a CRT monitor, and a ps/2 mouse. It probably actually was close to proper single digit lag time between me and the monitor, and I was playing on a remote server.
Now just getting single digit lag times between me and the monitor is next to impossible, let alone if I'm playing on a remote server. I'm not sure why more people aren't more concerned about this.
And if you send a repo man out to the slums, all you're going to get back is a repo man corpse.
In even a halfway-civilized country? Bad parts of town are where they're likely to get more work, anyhow. They're used to it.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
That's a much better argument than the AC made, and it's a fairly valid point (depending on area, of course). It worked halfway-reasonably for me on anything that wasn't a twitch game; with that kind of thing, even the display lag of most LCD monitors can be a downside, so I'd expect cloud gaming to be out of the question, even streaming purely over the local network (like that Steam streaming capability).
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
One thing I haven't seen addressed in any of the news reports is whether OnLive was financially viable. If they were having trouble keeping the lights on and they couldn't find a way to make the numbers work, then I really can't blame them for taking what they could get. On the other hand, if they sold just because somebody put a bunch of money on the table to shut them down, I'm inclined to say that they should have refused the deal.
Do you really imagine EA or Ubisoft (or any other major publisher-developer) would permit Steam to do this with their games?
I was naively think that *THIS* is the exact reason why they have their own ugly DRM/online management system that you need to install even when you download a game from Steam.
(Like: you buy a EA game from steam, download it from steam, and it subsequently installs Origin. I've actually seen this DRMception monstruosity).
Apparently they only make these horrors just because they can.
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