Lecturer in Programming for the Computer Games and Entertainment Industries
£40,474 to £46,475 pa incl (pro rata)
UK - South East
June US kick-off for PC/Mac streaming service; $14.95 subscription and publisher support; No details on Euro launch yet
Controversial games streaming service OnLive will launch in the US on June 17th backed by Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
Details for the cloud-based gaming service, which was unveiled amidst much attention at GDC last year, are to be given in a Wednesday keynote this morning at the GamesBeat one-day event at the 2010 Game Developers Conference.
The serivce launches on PC and Mac, and costs $14.95 a month, the firm told our sister magazine MCV.
That price "provides access to an ever-increasing library of high-end, new release game content and a host of exclusive community feature such as Brag Clips and massive spectating," said COO Mike McGarvey
"Individual titles will be available for purchase or rental on an a la carte basis. Specific game pricing, including rentals,purchases and loyalty programs, will be announced prior to the consumer launch event at E3. We’ll also be announcing additional loyalty and discount programs for consumers in the coming months."
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Major publishers have already backed the service - and while specific titles, pricing and revenue share models will be made public closer to the E3 launch, McGarvey told us that a few of the launch games include Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II and Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, as well as THQ’s Metro 2033.
At GDC, the firm is also courting independent developers to help hem understand the benefits of distributing their games through OnLive as well as traditional retail and increasingly-prominent download channels.
"We’re seeing the pace of title commitments accelerate dramatically as we approach our consumer launch," said McGarvey.
"We’re very pleased with the degree of publisher support received to date and have seen a rise in publisher interest in the OnLive Game Service as their focus begins shifting dramatically toward digital distribution."
OnLive effectively streams game content direct to computers, without the need for a game download, and effectively cuts down the digital distribution process to its simplest essence.The service launched in a closed beta late last year.
But what about the Micro Console - a small unit which plugs into a TV for those who don't just want to play on computers - which the firm touted at GDC last year. And when does the service head to Europe?
The MicroConsole hasn't been forgotten, said McGarvey - but the firm is focusing on the PC and Mac version first: "For the initial rollout of the consumer service, we are focusing on delivering high-performance games to PCs and Macs and we will be making an announcement regarding our plans for the MicroConsole rollout later on in the year."
As for Europe: "We are very focused on launching the service in the US at the moment, but stay tuned on our European plans," McGarvey told MCV.
A full interview with McGarvey will appear over on MCV very soon.
The biggest draw back I see to this and this streaming trend is this: Yeah, its convienent, but, have fun NOT actually owning what you pay for. Especially for OnLive games, they;re not going to send you a copy when you decide you want to go back to a more traditional way to play games. And if you actually like it, there will come a day when the service stops or the company fails. When this happens, you have nothing to show for all the money you spent. They wont be sending you copies of the games you purchases, be it digital or disc based. Youre just SOL.
i don't see why onlive should fail, i think the cable companies should see this new tecnology as an extended value to their lines, also with the tecnology being capable of adding Commercials, and a low price start point. its an Definatelly winner. also think that you dont spent Electricity on the service, it more like Cable TV in the way you dont own the shows but can enjoy them, also think about youtube (it free) onlive being a paid service has all the opportunity of becoming successful. Finally i think the price will become lower when becomes mass available and includes commercials.
wait.
so i have to pay 15 bucks a month than pay again to play the games?
why would i do this when i can go and buy the games on disk and its cheaper?
pricing is still up in the air.
are they going to charge us a certain price for unlimited access or a time limit before we have to pay again.
and how much will those prices be.
surprise surprise they have not spoken about onlives biggest issue though.
latency, and bandwidth.
given the fact that they have spoken about just about everything else, and its due out in just a few months this has me very worried!
how much download usage will playing say just cause 2 for 3 hours eat up?
ive only got a 25gb download usage to use per month so i really cant see me using this unless its dirt cheap and uses a very small bandwidth amount.
im struggling to stay within my limit as it is, let alone start to play games off of it.
I'm skeptical of OnLive as well, however, I know that no outrageous claims have been made and that the company is fully aware of the possible lag that users may experience. Since, they've had a closed beta, I'm assuming that went well at least for the PC/Mac clients.
The software-based clients are smart though, less overhead. If this really works well, I'll be happy for the company.
It's still the lag that's an issue. I have high-speed cable with Shaw - an ISP in Calgary. The service is very poor and in order to get reliable connectivity and speed, which would work well for OnLive, I'd have to shell out more money per month. That's something that doesn't go over well with most gamers. On the other hand, what's an extra $60 per month for ultra-high speed internet and $15 for OnLive as compared to continually upgrading a big gaming rig every 6 months.
well people that are complaining about the monthly charge dont make sense to me cuase xbox charges around that much to play online plus they said the games will be cheaper and if you rent a game then decide you want to buy it they deduct the rental charge from the price of the game well i dont know about you but that sounds like a good deal to me
This onlive will really be famous in terms of games.Many people will be aware of this and it will be successful.I get tired of Blockbuster,and I hate having to spend $50 to $60 on every new game, never mind practically having to run for payday loans for a console.(Oh, and THEN online playing subscription fees.)I'm subscribing to ,or maybe Instant Action,in the cloud gaming services.They're both coming online soon, and I'm getting pretty sick of worrying about the red ring of death, or rather,getting the red ring of death AGAIN.If gaming gets to be too much more of a pain I'm taking up guitar.
kris, Live is about $60 a YEAR, this is $15 a MONTH! How is that even close to being the same thing.
Plus, when you play on XBox Live, you are playing with YOUR games, that YOU can sell/keep/do what you want with.
If you don't want to play multiplayer on the 360, then you don't have to pay for Live. If you want to play single-player Onlive games, you STILL have to pay the fee... they're not even close to being the same thing.
So considering that it's usually the Sony Defence Force (people like kris no doubt) that complains about $60 a YEAR for Live, I hardly see any of them paying this amount of money.
And Fred, no, it's nothing like Cable TV. Every time you watch a specific cable TV show, you don't have to pay more on your cable bill. If you paid for cable, but then, if you wanted to watch Lost, you had to pay more for every episode, would it still seem such good value?
Especially when you could have the option of buying the DVD box set. Which you could play ANYWHERE and then, if you ever got completely bored with it, you could sell it and make some money back... because it was YOURS.
And I have posted the bandwidth figures before. The average gamer is looking at upwards of 70GB for a months worth of gaming in HD. Kinda kills those with the 25GB bandwidth allowance doesn't it?
