Development Blog

I agree that ideally the service would be like that, but I think it would be harder for them to get publishers on board.

They don't need publishers. They only need game developers.

 

I think it would have the potential to be a lot more profitable for developers. Currently, game development is a game of working two years and investing millions of dollars in a product, and then either recovering or going bankrupt in the first two weeks after release. Long-term recurring revenue streams are much better. Developers could spend their time adding new levels and features to an existing game, instead of going back to the drawing board every two years they don't go bankrupt.

 

Because the incentives would be to create games with high replay value, quality would increase. I can't imagine a more direct way to reward good games than to pay the developer based on how much people play it.

I am surprised it isn't already obvious to them.

 

I can only assume that it's the game companies who wouldn't allow the $50/mo play everything idea. Most likely old school executives reluctant to move away from their model of needing to get $50 per copy.

 

I just read that we needed to purchase the game on top of the monthly fee. Screw that. There is no point in me doing that. I can run new games with the graphics turned down on a 5 year old PC. $5/mo with this in 5 years is $300. I can buy a kick bum new graphics card for that, which will last another 5 years.

 

Sounds like another case of technology moving faster than executives. That sucks.

 

It also seems like from what I gather you are in a pretty populated place with fast internet speed and you even noticed some lag. Me living 45 miles from a major city probably means I'm screwed.

But but wait guys. Maybe it's not so bad. As long as they give the option to download the game that you purchase it might be worth it.

 

For instance let's say an indie company releases a game OnLive for $5.00. Each month they update their game with new content for another $5.00 after that. Like buying a magazaine. If you love the game and want to see what happens next you'd keep buying it all the while being able to play it in social settings with your friends like on your ipad or android or something I guess.

 

Then when you get home from college and you want to play completely lag free you just download to your main PC and keep it there.

 

I don't think the executives at OnLive have to figure that out is more like the developers who are releasing their games. And it could be a simpler pricing model and cheaper too. Cuz Josh's suggestion of 20-$50 a month would take a lot of kids out the market right there. Who might get birthday money or a small allowance from mom and dad.

 

I'm not thinking to critically on this though tbh

 

/devil's advocate

The games don't run with max graphics? That boggles the mind - I thought that was the main selling point of this thing? I can only assume they're trying to recover some of the costs of running those datacenters.

I'm with Josh on this one. I hate the fact that game producers ALREADY think that we don't own the games we buy. I truly hate that business model and it pisses me off. I definitely would NOT use their service with this model they have

I don't mind the lack of ownership so much, but they are still charging for the service as if you are buying something. That doesn't make sense. What if you had to pay a fee to "turn on" every TV show you wanted to watch? How many shows would you end up watching? Probably not many. You just wouldn't bother.

 

How many games do I expect to buy in the next year? Unless I have to get anything specifically for research, maybe 1-2. And they will probably be on sale on Steam. So my expected spending on games over the next 12 months is probably about $60. If I could get a wide selection of streaming games, I would be willing to pay $29.99 each month for that. My expenditures then rise to $360 for the next year. That's six times what I would spend on individual games. Getting the customer to spend more on products would be an advantage for them. The per-game fee inhibits purchases.

 

What they have is a cable service for games, but they are selling it with an old outdated business model. They should think of it more as interactive cable television.

Yeah i've also got the free service and the tech works fine on my end. I come to the conclusion this thing is a great way to demo games, NO DOWNLOADING 1-3GB's! I demo out Just cause 2 for 30 mins and wanted the game, but didn't want to pay full price for a lease after reading the small print that it might not be there in 2 years. Then Steam comes along and has it on sell for $25 I snatched it up.

 

They should take up the Gamefly model or something, they seem to be doing something right and staying in business tho there delivery service is awful slow.

I can only assume that it's the game companies who wouldn't allow the $50/mo play everything idea. Most likely old school executives reluctant to move away from their model of needing to get $50 per copy.

 

The problem is once they drop the price in one place, then people will demand it everywhere and the bottom will fall out of the market. Then it would be no longer be profitable to sell in the real world.

 

Speaking for myself, I'd rather have less customers paying more, than more customers paying less, because support costs per customer, are the same.

 

Long-term recurring revenue streams are much better. Developers could spend their time adding new levels and features to an existing game, instead of going back to the drawing board every two years they don't go bankrupt.

 

A truly crafty developer, would find a way to let their customers improve their games, while paying the developer for the privilege of doing so. In fact some communities have a better understanding of what makes a game a classic, than most devs do.

The problem is once they drop the price in one place, then people will demand it everywhere and the bottom will fall out of the market. Then it would be no longer be profitable to sell in the real world.

 

That would not be a bad thing. I hardly go to stores for my games anyway. Time is just moving forward. Should we keep libraries open as well? I don't like to think so.

I tend to agree with Laurens. I feel the future is where near everything is virtual. Brick and mortar just can't survive the future, and really it shouldn't. By not having physical locations we are reducing our footprint on earth, which is a good thing.

 

A good chunk of what we do today is just because there were no other choices available at the time, but that's not the case today. There are better choices now, but when we change it everything feels like it's wrong or won't work.

 

When someone says library buildings need to go away, people get sad. Why? There are better ways to do a library these days. Less intrusive on the earth and more convenient for us ways. When someone says paper books should go away people think it's a bad thing. Why? We have better ways to present the knowledge than cutting down trees and printing on them now. Let's use those ways.

 

The pricing model of games is the same thought. If this method becomes a better method to distribute games, then we should use it, even if that means things change. There is no doubt in my mind that publishers hate this new method because it doesn't really include them in the capacity that they once were needed.

You'll never get rid of people's desire to have something tangible, otherwise we'd all be sitting in empty rooms.

 

Case in point, some of my most prized possessions, are my favorite games in mint condition boxes, from more than 10 years ago. In those days for a standard price, they made awesome manuals, cloth maps and sometimes put little toys in the boxes. It was all part of the gaming experience. Now days, you have to pay up to $200 for those extras.

 

Fallout Box 1

 

Fallout Box 2

 

Hardcore fans love this stuff and will pay through the nose for it and the big devs know it.

 

I do understand what you guys are saying though and while they may let people rent/buy games once the sales have tailed off, I don't think they will ever sell new games at those prices, for the reasons I posted above.

The problem with having everything Virtual is that we are dependent entirely on the communications industry to use it. If it fails for some reason (a catastrophe or say civil disruption) then our access to knowledge disappears. Hard copy still has something going for it. Even an Oral tradition.