OnLive Founder Is Out

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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OnLive Founder Is Out


OnLive founder Steve Perlman, who just a few days ago said he'd stay on as the CEO of the recently-rescued gaming service, is no longer with the company.

It's been an interesting week at OnLive, which was recently bought out [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119158-Venture-Capitalist-Bails-Out-OnLive] by investment firm Lauder Partners after digging itself into a debt hole estimated at $30 to $40 million. Shareholders in the company were left with nothing and more than half its employees were laid off, but founder and CEO Steve Perlman appeared to land on his feet.

"Steve continues as CEO and is currently concentrating on the transition," a statement [http://onlivefans.com/news/2012/08/23/onlives-message-to-onlivefans-perlman-remains-ceo-onlive-heading-to-a-higher-level/] from OnLive PR said late last week. "Once this is complete, he'll be very focused on our next product releases and the vision."

Today, however, the company announced that Perlman is out, replaced by OnLive's former head of operations Charlie Jablonski, who will become COO and acting CEO for the "new" company. Gary Lauder, the managing director at Lauder Partners, will assume the role of Chairman.

"Steve has created an extraordinary company that no one else could have created," Lauder said. "He is a unique entrepreneur and deserves his legendary status in Silicon Valley as a creator of groundbreaking companies."

Such a shockingly quick change in direction could suggest that the decision to leave may not have been Perlman's, but that's purely conjecture at this point. We'll let you know when we find out more.



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gorfias

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This is so sad. Onlive offers gamers yet another great venue to game (supposed to be part of Ouya, which is huge!)

I wouldn't use their service for everything, but it is really good.

Hope the buyout helps.
 

Pipotchi

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GenGenners said:
Are immediate u-turns just in fashion at the moment in the industry?
This industry and most others it seems, how often do you see a sports team owner say so and so will be our manager next season? Then two days later Fired!
 

thiosk

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All I really had to say for onlive was "too soon," and wrong targets for games.

No one was clamoring for this service, before or after its launch. Not everyone even wants to embrace digital distribution, let alone cloud computing. Lets see if anything stems this bleeding.
 

weirdee

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i'm just imagining the robotic 100-yard look in the eyes of the pr person when they announce these things
 

Iron Lightning

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Well, it looks like OnLive is dieing. Fantastic, hopefully their terrible business model will die with them.
 

Something Amyss

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Honestly, I'd be surprised if he didn't manage to pad his way out with a mountain of cash.

DVS BSTrD said:
Good, get him the fuck off the project before he Schillings it up again!
"Schilling" totally needs to be used more as a verb.

Iron Lightning said:
Well, it looks like OnLive is dieing. Fantastic, hopefully their terrible business model will die with them.
The buyout that happened means it probably isn't dying. I'm sorry that this seems to be a downer for you or whatever, but businesses are usually unlikely to buy or bail out a failure. It's not worth pumping money into something that doesn't have a fighting chance. It seems as though the current CEO Schillinged up pretty bad and is the main reason it's in a bad place right now.

So while I can't say for certain, it's a pretty strong possibility that OnLive is here to stay.
 

Lyri

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This is the most I've ever heard about Onlive in one go.

Calling bullshit and this is just Onlive's marketing and PR guys going crazy to bring in the customers.
 

agiganticpanda

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Scrumpmonkey said:
Lyri said:
This is the most I've ever heard about Onlive in one go.

Calling bullshit and this is just Onlive's marketing and PR guys going crazy to bring in the customers.
Really? You think they went practically bankrupt, screwed over ALL their shareholders (some of which are very big, powerful tech companies), fired all their staff and sold their company as a publicity stunt? Really? Fucking really?
I'll second the "Really? Fucking really?"
 

Unit72

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It was indeed too soon. Correct me if im wrong though since i havent heard of onlive in years.
Gamers hate always being connected online to play singleplayer games
Gamers hate (some) digital services like steam becuase they cant physicaly own thier game
Gamers hate paying 60-50 bucks a pop for games becuase "since its digital thats less that needs paying for" (boxes, cases, disk manufacturing, space on a vendor's shelf ect)

All these things (you dont own the game, your always online, its basically the same as retail prices) are still present on onlive and they expected to do well? Im not saying it isnt revolutionary. Wow no more high entry fee for pc gamers, $800-$1600 for a gaming pc and $200-$350 for a GPU every 5-8 years. Its just too soon. Never mind you need a decent and hopefully fast yet affordable net connection to play comfertably without a hitch.

Mabey im wrong but again i havent read too much into its service. But thats what i think.

Signed
Interested consumer but not so interested as to look that far into it.
 

Iron Lightning

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Iron Lightning said:
Well, it looks like OnLive is dieing. Fantastic, hopefully their terrible business model will die with them.
The buyout that happened means it probably isn't dying. I'm sorry that this seems to be a downer for you or whatever, but businesses are usually unlikely to buy or bail out a failure. It's not worth pumping money into something that doesn't have a fighting chance. It seems as though the current CEO Schillinged up pretty bad and is the main reason it's in a bad place right now.

So while I can't say for certain, it's a pretty strong possibility that OnLive is here to stay.
They were recently $30 - $40 million in the hole and had half their employees laid off. That seems like a pretty crippled company to me. The fact that an investment firm is willing to take a risk on it does not mean it's safe. I agree that its survival is possible but I wouldn't say that is a likely scenario at this point.

I wouldn't put all the blame on the CEO. Their business model is a bit weak. Consider their target audience. The clear target is poor gamers who can't afford a proper gaming rig. As they sell their games at the same price which stores normally sell them and charge a subscription fee on top of that they would not get many sales from poor gamers. It would also be good to note that poor gamers are unlikely to have the fast internet connection necessary to use OnLive. They also have the option to simply get older games.

Gamers with some money are likely to already own sufficient gaming rigs and less likely to buy games at the more costly OnLive. They also wouldn't go for OnLive for any convenience value since Steam is cheaper and about as convenient (if they have a connection good enough to run OnLive then they have a connection good enough to download from Steam in a reasonable time.)

Casual gamers who just don't want to bother with building a good rig are mostly in the market for things like Angry Birds and not the AAA games that OnLive is counting on.

Hardcore gamers obviously do not care for OnLive.

Sure, they're getting some business due to their new exciting technology but it seems to me that they're thankfully not going to take the medium by storm if they are even able to stay afloat.
 

MiskWisk

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OnLive is Cloud gaming...
But what is Cloud gaming?

*clicks skip ad* God I hated that
 

Lyri

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Scrumpmonkey said:
Really? You think they went practically bankrupt, screwed over ALL their shareholders (some of which are very big, powerful tech companies), fired all their staff and sold their company as a publicity stunt? Really? Fucking really?
I'm not sure if I should respond to this with surprise that you believed what I wrote or just roll with the fact you believed it and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

agiganticpanda said:
I'll second the "Really? Fucking really?"
I'll third this back at the both of you.

Go back to your rooms and think about what you just did.