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Forums - PC Discussion - OnLive streaming game service will have no monthly fee, ever

tallgnome on 05 October 2010

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/10/04/onlive-just-play-for-free/

OnLive: Just Play for Free!

 

It’s official: There will be no base monthly fee for the OnLive Game Service going forward. WOOT!

Free Instant-play Demos, Free Massive Spectating, Free Brag Clip™ videos, messaging, friending.

No credit card needed, unless you decide to buy a 3-day, 5-day or Full PlayPass. And ongoing access with no monthly fee. Of course, we’ve had a promotion waiving the monthly fee for the first year, so this announcement is confirming what we had hoped—that we can continue without a monthly fee beyond the first year. Although we wish we could have confirmed no monthly fee from the get-go, pioneering a major new video game paradigm is hard: we had to first grow to a large base of regular users before we could understand usage patterns and operating costs. Now that we’ve reached that stage, we can confidently say a monthly fee is not needed, which deserves a double WOOT! WOOT!

We’re excited because this opens the door for the OnLive Game Service to be used by everyone whenever they feel like it, whether for playing a full game on OnLive, or for just instantly playing a demo before buying a game for a console or a PC. Or, even for people just wanting to spectate games in the Arena or friend other gamers. Whatever interests you in gaming, OnLive provides it instantly, without complexity or hassle.

And…stay tuned for some exciting announcements coming this holiday season:

  • MicroConsole™ TV Adapters and OnLive Game Pad Controllers in manufacturing now: Founding Members get first dibs.
  • Just Cause 2 contest going on now. Follow @OnLiveCommunity for more contest news.
  • More international announcements coming. Check out recent ones: www.onlive.be andwww.onlive.lu.
  • Improved video quality and lower latency.

Come one, come all. Just Play!

—Steve Perlman, Founder & CEO

 

Makes the service actually interesting?



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Severance on 05 October 2010

so it became kinda like steam, but not really.



I live for the burn...and the sting of pleasure...
I live for the sword, the steel, and the gun...

- Wasteland - The Mission.

scottie on 05 October 2010

Of course there isn't. Who ever claimed that there would be?

 

Free demos is hardly anything to brag about in today's day and age.

 

It seems like this service will only be worth it if you wanna play one or two PC games, not enough to warrant purchasing a good pc



Slimebeast on 06 October 2010

They failed fast like I predicted. Interest was so bad that they had to cut off their revenue lol.

A horrible, impossable idea from the beginning.



NJ5 on 07 October 2010

That is good, but the image quality and performance is still so low and inconsistent compared to playing a game locally that I don't see the benefit at least for people who can calculate the costs.

I'm curious to see if they grab a portion of the mainstream market though...



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

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kitler53 on 07 October 2010
scottie said:

Of course there isn't. Who ever claimed that there would be?

 

Free demos is hardly anything to brag about in today's day and age.

 

It seems like this service will only be worth it if you wanna play one or two PC games, not enough to warrant purchasing a good pc

onlive claimed there would be.  they said it would be $14.95 per month pluse the cost of games you want to play.

source

OT - this takes onlive from completely uninterested to maybe i can see the potential..for other people.  i still don't want it but it seems more reasonable now.



disolitude on 07 October 2010
NJ5 said:

That is good, but the image quality and performance is still so low and inconsistent compared to playing a game locally that I don't see the benefit at least for people who can calculate the costs.

I'm curious to see if they grab a portion of the mainstream market though...


That really depends... It probably looks better than games running on this 2000 dollar 27 inch IMac with a whopping 5750 videocard :)

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html



scottie on 07 October 2010
kitler53 said:
scottie said:

Of course there isn't. Who ever claimed that there would be?

 

Free demos is hardly anything to brag about in today's day and age.

 

It seems like this service will only be worth it if you wanna play one or two PC games, not enough to warrant purchasing a good pc

onlive claimed there would be.  they said it would be $14.95 per month pluse the cost of games you want to play.

source

OT - this takes onlive from completely uninterested to maybe i can see the potential..for other people.  i still don't want it but it seems more reasonable now.

Well, guess who has egg on his face then...

 

No really, I was eating dinner. I need a napkin... or a towel, it was a lot of egg



NJ5 on 07 October 2010
disolitude said:
NJ5 said:

That is good, but the image quality and performance is still so low and inconsistent compared to playing a game locally that I don't see the benefit at least for people who can calculate the costs.

I'm curious to see if they grab a portion of the mainstream market though...


That really depends... It probably looks better than games running on this 2000 dollar 27 inch IMac with a whopping 5750 videocard :)

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

Lol!

But I'm not so sure. No matter how crappy a graphics card is, it will never result in compression artifacts or stuttering framerates due to lag (as long as the games are played at reasonable settings).

PS: that's actually my graphics card! (except I spent less than half of that on the PC, and I'm not using it with a 27-inch screen)



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957