LiquidSky raises the ghost of OnLive

OnLive, the ambitious (and some would say deeply flawed) game streaming service may have died in April 2015, but the dream of a subscription gaming platform lives on. Startup LiquidSky just secured $4 million from Samsung and former Sun Microsystems executives Scott McNealy and Bill Raduchel. The promise? Desktop-as-service gaming, just like OnLive, but without all the problems that plagued the previous company. LiquidSky claims to solve the issues of latency, server cost, scalability, and game support. It’s in private beta already with about half a million registered users. Players can either pay for the service via a $0.50 “SkyCredit” per hour of streaming, or opt for a $14.99 or $39.99 monthly subscription plan depending on the amount of storage they need.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2016/09/27/liquidsky-raises-ghost-onlive/

Storage, really? Not bandwidth? That seems weird.

I really hope the market is never ready for this stuff. Talk about a grimdark future for the industry.

Same.

But, it is probably inevitable. most gaming will go to the “Gaming as a Service” to the detriment of all, and the rest of us will remain on GOG/Kickstarter.

The money is too enticing to pass up. Content suppliers want everyone locked into subscription services. It’s the ultimate form of DRM and customer engagement coupled with guaranteed recurring revenue.

The only question is going to be whether some aggregate service like LiquidSky or Steam gets traction in subscription streaming before the direct content suppliers like EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard do it first.

Oh, well if they’ve solved the problems of twitch gaming remotely over the Internet, then I guess we all can queue up for $40/month for a virtual gaming rig.

It appears as if it’s just your own Win (or Linux, as if) PC in the sky. You install Origin, GOG, Steam, what have you and install your own games, that you purchase from the usual suspects. At least the games aren’t tied to LiquidSky.

I don’t see who would pay $480/year for a virtual PC instead of buying a console, though.