15 bucks a month would be cool for a library of games, no purchases required. But as stated, I would need a free trial, or it better be month to month because if it ended up being crap for my needs, then I want out.
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I think people miss apprehend the coolness of what this could do. Now I don't think that On live will make it, but let me just think out loud. In some review of the beta test for this it sucked for First person shooters because of the latency issues, however all RTS and Strategy games worked fine. Now, and this is the thinking out loud part, if Steam adopted this as an opt in pay service? Access to all of your games wherever you are on whatever hardware you have, so long as it has an internet connection. That could mean Dawn of War 2 at max settings on your smart phone! Because they run the game it does not rely on your hardware or software just so long as they port the interface to your device you have access to all games. Now with all you just read and with the forethought that Steam is coming to Mac, that would mean access to everything off steam for Macs without the pain of porting everything! I can see some neat things happening form this.
What an assload of FAIL. Its not bad enough that they're streaming games like Crysis at you at 720p, but you don't own your saved games. Cancel your subscription? You lose em. That simple.
I like to OWN my games, along with the saves. Baldurs Gate II (among many others) is one game I will drag out at least once a year and try different characters for my party, different stats, races, moral choices, etc. And I own the game and can do whatever I want with it. No rentals for me thanks.
If you buy games on any of the big download sites (Steam, GamersGate, etc) you technically don't own your games either. If those services go down, you are SOL. This has been in place for some time, and people seem to love Steam. The only difference with this service is, they are charging per month for the privilege and the game files are not located on your local machine.
These guys think they can get away with the MMO model with single player games.
Were it $15 per month and no extra cost for games, then I could see it working. But as it stands now? A big fat "no thanks". But then, we haven't seen it yet, so time will tell.
__________________ "If I want to say [George Washington] didn't [have slaves] that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact."
-Stephen Colbert
Being double-billed for this service isn't exactly surprising. The $15 / month is pretty low considering the bandwidth and processing cost involved here.
As for having to buy the games, they're pushing this as a way to play the latest games without the expense of having up-to-date PC hardware, it's really not hard to understand why new PC releases can't be available in a per-month game library.
I think not enough can be said for "owning" a game.
Like the lifetime subscrpitions to MMORPGs for instance... I'm MUCH more likely to pay more than the value of the experience just to be able to "own" the game and not pay monthly.
Monthly fees lead to guilt if they're not used. I don't want to feel guilty for not gaming...
While I'm not expecting Onlive to succeed by any reasonable measure, I am afraid to say that this will be the future of gaming for several reasons.
Console manufacturers will rather operate an Onlive type service instead of losing money on each console sold. They will also prefer a renewing subscription service over a one time sale of a physical product.
It is also the unfortunate future of DRM. When games are available only over a video streaming service, the game code and data is not available to the public and cannot be pirated absent an inhouse leak. Ubisoft is likely creaming their pants over services like Onlive.
In ten years or so, faster internets with (hopefully) be interduced. So expect to see wider integratation of services like onlive as time goes by.
In ten years or so, faster internets with (hopefully) be interduced. So expect to see wider integratation of services like onlive as time goes by.
Did you see my previous post? When grouped, the new CRS-3 router from Cisco will deliver on speeds you haven't even imagined yet. Now we just need the bandwidth.
Quote:
In a statement, Cisco said the new system will allow "the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second; every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously; and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.
Yeah, that's right.
__________________
~B$ Gamertag: legisilverback |Steam Nickname: brandonjclark
...waiting for Firefall
I think not enough can be said for "owning" a game.
My thoughts exactly. I like to own the products I buy, and if at all possible want to pay for them once and be done with it.
This is why I don't buy stuff on credit, only use prepaid services for my mobile, don't play any MMOs and have never taken my XBox "Live". I just don't use these services enough to warrant any kind of subscription. I certainly would not pay a monthly fee for something like OnLive.
I also enjoy building, tweaking and modifying computers too much to give it up in favor of some kind of degenerate netbook.
quick calculation :- roughly speaking, £10 per month x 12 months = £120 per year. Average life span of a console 5yrs. 120 x 5 = £600.
This is roughly the cost of a XBOX or PS3 at release so its comparable BUT,
You have absolutly no resale value to any of it including the software as its not on a physical disk.
So to my mind you may as well buy your console of choice and games etc... and have lag free gaming etc. Then when the next gen machine comes along you can trade in your old stuff towards the new.
