Yopaz said:
Therumancer said:
Yopaz said:
Ferrious said:
Sounds like I'm the only person who actually LIKES OnLive. For lunch-breaks it's pretty much our company's primary distraction - OnLive runs on practically any of our terminals, so there's no hardware issues there.
We even have one of the little OnLive consoles in the break room attached to the TV. Yes, it pales compared to my real rig, but I don't have my real rig at work, shockingly.
Would be very disappointed to see such a promising service go under, let alone the sudden unemployment of so many people (which has nothing to do with how anyone perceives the service).
I really like the concept, but not the service since it's not come to Europe yet. I have tested the service and it works as it's supposed to, but I don't have any strong feelings on it since I haven't actually been able to do more than brief tests. OnLive is a great way to make game accessible for anyone who doesn't have a great gaming PC, the risk that the service can be shut down and people will be left with nothing is there, but with retail there's the risk of defective discs and discs getting scratched so nothing is perfect.
Well, yes and no, the odds of getting defective discs are pretty low, and if there is actually that kind of damage getting a replacement can be easy, if time consuming.
As I said in my last post, while nothing has destroyed this service yet, it's shown the possibility and what kind of damage it will do for subscribers if it did happen to go down entirely. That is why I have tried to stay away from digital as much as possible, even if it's becoming nearly impossible to do.
I suppose I can see the appeal to those who low-end PCs, but given that Onlive more or less got pwned competitively, it's shown that whatever they were charging it's too little to be viable. I imagine to work this is going to wind up being just as expensive as current methods, but with less power in your hands.
True, the chance of getting a defective disc might not be high, but can we really get odds on a company failing? I have had 4 defective discs and I never got my money back, luckily one of them was a PC games that let me register it online and I could download a digital version. The others were console games which I never got to work, so I can tell you that it does happen. I also did contact GameStop about all those games and they refused to give me a new copy or to replace it. I got what I would get for trading in a used game and it was listed as new since I had never actually used it. So you're right, the process is time consuming and it doesn't always pay off at all.
Now of course the risk of a digital distribution service going bankrupt is present, but really, why do you fear something like that. Take Valve, do honestly believe they will go under any time soon? I'll consider a disc error being more likely than them going bankrupt.
Edit: Cloud gaming isn't only for those with a low end PC, it also makes it possible to play high end games on tablets or phones meaning you can play anywhere you are.
When something like STEAM goes under it's usually relatively sudden for most of the user bases. All it takes is the guys in charge deciding they are done with the business and deciding to sell it or close it down, or simply for them to make some bad investments. To be honest a big part of the entire US economic crisis has been how easy it was for companies to basically run on empty for years at a time with nobody even having a clue. If STEAM was bankrupt right now, none of us would know it. That's the differance between digital and having a physical copy that doesn't require online/digital components (which touches on other issues) if a company goes out of business you can still play your game.
Typically fans of STEAM (which is the most stable, and seemingly likely to survive, which is why it's what I use) will point to how Gabe promised that if STEAM was going down he would ensure everyone could keep access to their games. The problem is that when a company REALLY goes down there by definition aren't time and resources to make good on a promise like that.
I get it, a lot of people like digital because it's easy and conveinent, and as time goes on there are plenty of kids who have never done it any other way, so don't see the big deal. In the end that's what it's all about. People trading security for conveinence, and that's generally not a good thing.
As far as cloud gaming and portables goes, that's pretty much lulzworthy. For all the claims about how great it is to be able to play high end games on a portable device, it's generally not practical which makes such a point pretty funny. If your going to sit down for a 12 hour session of playing a "serious" game, your not going to want to do it on a 3" screen, if you have that kind of time your generally going to be doing it on a TV or monitor with actual gaming equipment. Whether or not the portable device can render it or not is kind of irrelevent, given that portable gaming is something people tend to do while waiting in a doctor's office or when they have like 10 minutes on a lunch break. There are exceptions of course, but that's the general rule.
Cloud gaming DOES make gaming easier and more accessible for a lot of people in a general sense, but again, it comes at the expense of security.
From my perspective I tend to think that games should be sold with both a physical, and digital version like a lot of movies are. That way you CAN download it and use a cloud if you want to, but also have a self-contained, DRM free version that will run without needing any of that stuff. As I've said before in other threads, I personally think we need to start seeing regulation on the trade of virtual items, goods, and services, and providing a physical copy along with a purely digital one should probably be a matter of law, in the interst of protecting consumers in th elong term.
