The OnLive Game Service

After almost 8 years of development, thousands of partner meetings, millions of lines of code, and an uncountable number of all-nighters…

Drum roll please…

On June 17, 2010, during the E3 2010 show, the OnLive Game Service will be available for users in the 48 contiguous United States!

Everyone here at OnLive is just incredibly excited about this milestone. It’s the realization of a dream that we knew would be a huge undertaking, but also one that would change everything.

OnLive fundamentally transforms the way users experience games and interact with each other, and in time, will transform the way games are developed and marketed. By distilling specialized game hardware out of the equation, OnLive will allow games to be played as a pure media experience on virtually any device, with the same flexibility and instant-play experience that we’ve come to expect from online video and music.

For gamers, this means you never have to do anything for your gaming experience to keep getting better. And developers now can unleash unbounded creativity to deliver state-of-the-art gameplay that they know will reach virtually any gamer—instantly.

Today we also announced OnLive’s base service pricing, and a pretty cool special offer.

The base month-to-month service fee is $14.95. Loyalty programs (e.g. multi-month pricing) and other special offers will be announced by the start of E3. We’ve got a great special offer for starters: The first 25,000 qualified people to register on the OnLive Game Service will have their first 3 months’ service fee waived. You’ll find all the important details here, and note that the service fee does not include the purchase or rental of games.

Included in your monthly service fee are OnLive-exclusive features such as instant-play free game demos; multiplayer across PC, Mac and TV platforms; massive spectating; viewing of Brag Clips™ video capture and posting; and cloud-saving of games you’ve purchased—pause, and instantly resume from anywhere, even on a different platform.

Also included in the monthly service fee are features you’d expect from standard online games services such as gamer tags, user profiles, friends, chat, but with a twist: everything is live video. You’ll be friending through multiplay, Spectating, Brag Clips, or by flipping through video profiles of friends of friends of friends. OnLive is delivering the first instant video-based social network. It’s really cool.

Once you are on the service, instant-play, top-tier, newly-released games will be for sale and for rent on an à la carte basis. Specific pricing will be announced as games are released, so you’ll hear about the pricing of the first games by E3, but needless to say, we expect them to be offered at competitive prices. Games are always updated with the latest versions, and purchased game add-ons are playable instantly.

Initially, we’ll be offering the OnLive Game Service for PCs and Macs through a small browser plug-in. Later this year, we’ll announce the public availability of the MicroConsole™ TV adapter. And, we’ll be steadily expanding to other devices over time.

So, there it is. After a long and arduous journey, OnLive will be coming to a screen [really] near you.

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO

Here’s a post for all the game developers out there.

Unreal Tournament 3 on the OnLive Game Service

Hi, Tom DuBois and Joe Bentley here. We’re focused on the OnLive Software Development Kit (SDK) and getting titles on the OnLive platform, so we want to shamelessly plug our upcoming sessions at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), Wednesday at 1:45pm, and Thursday at 10:30am.

If you attended the DICE 2010 Summit (slides) last week or read about the sessions there, you might be wondering, “How did Steve launch Unreal Tournament 3 in under five seconds?” UT3 is the one of the first titles on Beta we ported to the OnLive SDK, to test and maintain integration with the Unreal Engine, the most widely used game engine in the industry.

As Steve explained in his “Server Hopping” post last May, when users launch games on the OnLive service, we actually transition the user from server to server, to provide users with state-of-the-art performance. To create that instantaneous load experience, the game has to be running already, and this is where the OnLive SDK enters the picture, allowing us to dynamically bind in the user’s data, effectively pushing load times down to zero.

We will be providing more details on the OnLive SDK and the functionality that it enables, along with best practices for getting video games onto the OnLive platform at GDC. So stop by and be one of the first kids on your block to learn how to get your games up in the Cloud.

—Tom DuBois, Executive Producer
—Joe Bentley, Director of Games and Media Development

Current OnLive Beta Coverage

Time for another OnLive tech talk. If you want to skip the details, here’s the conclusion: (a) we haven’t figured out how to go faster than the speed of light, and (b) Noobs beware.

We’ve gotten quite a few requests from Beta testers wanting to use OnLive from different locations than their initial setup when first invited to OnLive Beta, and we’ve had to say no for now. Here’s why:

While the production OnLive service will adapt to different configurations each time you connect, during Beta testing each user is setup only to test a specific computer configuration (or MicroConsole™ TV Adapter version), a single Internet provider and, most importantly, a particular location. If you change any of these factors, OnLive Beta may not even run, or if it does, the lag and/or graphics performance may render games unplayable. OnLive will try to detect these conditions and warn you, but when you are using OnLive in a different location, you are not providing us with usable test data.

The reason location is so critical is because of the speed of light. If you are more than 1000 miles from an OnLive data center, then the round trip communications delay (“ping” time) between your home and OnLive will be too long for fast-action video games. As you can see in the above map, OnLive has 3 data centers for its US Beta test, with a blue circle around each showing the 1000-mile range. Your Beta account will only connect to the data center it was originally assigned to. So, if you are assigned to our West Coast data center and then try your Beta account from the Midwest or East Coast, you’ll find the lag impaired to the point where most games are unplayable. And, depending on how your Beta account was configured for the characteristics of your home ISP, you may see degraded image quality or controller/mouse performance on a different ISP.

I want to once again thank OnLive’s Beta testers for helping us test and refine OnLive so that it can be released to the general public. Bear in mind, what you are testing is by no means final, and we are counting on you to help us polish it for public release.

And… BTW, if you were blown away in last night’s Crysis Wars Power Struggle tournament by FragMaster, that was me. (Actually, I think I ended up third to last. )

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO

On behalf of the growing OnLive team I would like to wish all of you and your families a happy and safe holiday season. This week marks the start of Winter 2009, and as we are ramping up toward launch next year, we find ourselves looking back on what a momentous year 2009 has been for OnLive, and we have many of you to thank for helping us make so much progress in such a short period of time.

A special thanks goes out to our community of Beta testers–your feedback has been invaluable in shaping the commercial version of the OnLive game service. Beyond testing various connection and bandwidth configurations, your impressions and opinions have aided in the refinement of key features while stimulating interesting conversations around the water cooler regarding all-new ones. Specifically, we appreciate the feedback on our new Friends view which is featured in the graphic that accompanies this post. You can expect more cool and innovative features in the New Year.

View OnLive friends in the new Friends Ribbon

Also, I hope you more casually inclined Beta testers enjoyed our World of Goo tournament last weekend. Congrats to Chevelle, Verix and Banana for mopping up the competition (including myself!). Stay tuned for more upcoming events for our Beta testing community.

For those of you hoping to join the Beta, please stay tuned–we’re still expanding and may be testing in your area soon. Regardless as to whether you participate in the Beta or not, we’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter to weigh in or get the latest updates.

Looking forward to a fantastic New Year!

—John Spinale, VP of Games and Media

OnLive Works on TVs, PCs, Macs and Cell Phones

Today, I FINALLY get to answer a question that so many people have been asking about: Yes, OnLive works on cell phones, too.

Today, at a Wedbush financial conference in New York I showed OnLive running simultaneously on 2 iPhones, a TV, and a computer. What is really cool is that all 4 devices had access to the full OnLive Game Service, so they could play the same games, spectate on each other’s (and Beta users’) game play, watch Brag Clips, check out Gamer Profiles, etc.

While we only showed a tech demo today, it was great to give people in the audience a chance to try out OnLive on an iPhone. The large tiles that make up the OnLive user interface work perfectly on the iPhone touch screen, allowing easy access to all of the features of the OnLive game service.

That said, it’s important to understand that a cell phone is a very different beast than TV, PC or Mac. And while we’re thrilled about eventually bringing many new games to cell phone platforms, currently, games on OnLive are tuned for TVs and computers. So initially, it’s the Community and Social elements of OnLive that we’re most excited about on mobile devices. It’s amazingly cool whipping out your phone, checking out what your OnLive friends are up to, and then spectating their live game play: Unscripted live user-generated content, available anywhere.

I’m afraid we are not announcing a date for availability of OnLive on particular cell phones just yet. We have further development to do, and we need approvals from some cell phone makers before we can release OnLive to the public. So, for now, OnLive on a cell phone is only a technology demo. But, for those of you who have been asking about OnLive on cell phones, the answer is yes, it is coming. And, it is REALLY cool.

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO

Over the last decade, we’ve seen an enormous upheaval in the media business as the written word, photos, music, and video have been steadily moving away from physical media to online delivery. One major category that still remains largely based on physical discs is fast-response interactive media—in particular, video games. And, of course, OnLive’s goal is to enable that last remaining transition.

We are both pleased and inspired that our investors share this vision with OnLive. Not only do they see the value in OnLive in particular, but they also understand the significance of what OnLive is doing to lead a massive sea change in interactive media distribution. We are grateful that they have not only provided OnLive with their support, but they have also provided OnLive with such a strong endorsement.

All fueled up, there’s only open road ahead.

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO

Steve Perlman

Hey there…

It’s been a very busy and productive few months for OnLive. We’ve been focused on evolving the OnLive technology, installing lots of servers in our data centers and tuning the OnLive® Game Service based on feedback from our internal Beta testers.

And, I’m very excited to say that we are now opening the OnLive Beta to outside gamers who signed up on our website. It’s not too late to sign up if you haven’t already. We are very much looking forward to hearing from gamers all about their experience with the OnLive Service.

But first, let me tell you a little bit about OnLive Beta and how we are rolling it out.

One of the key challenges that OnLive technology addresses is providing a high-quality, fast-response gaming experience over a wide range of situations: different speeds/locations/types of broadband services, a variety of different PC and Mac configurations, several kinds of input and display devices, etc. So, a major focus of OnLive Beta is to test as many of these different situations as we can.

When you sign up for OnLive Beta, you tell us some general information about your ISP, your computer configuration and your location. We use this information to organize Beta testers into test groups so that our engineering team can focus at different times on testing different situations. If you are a potential fit for a particular test group, we’ll send you an invitation email, asking you to run a detailed Performance Test on your network connection and your computer configuration. The results of the Performance Test will then feed back up to OnLive, and if you are a fit for a test group at some point during Beta, we’ll let you install the OnLive plug-in into your browser. Then, we’ll ask you to spend some time playing…um, I mean…testing games OnLive.

As testers interact with the service and play games, OnLive will be constantly logging technical data, and then afterward, we’ll ask testers to give us feedback about their personal experiences with OnLive. This feedback will help us continue to evolve the features and experience of the OnLive Service, so it’s really important we get lots of feedback to bring the gaming community the best videogame platform and service possible.

Another important goal of the Beta is to shake out bugs so we can fix them. So, it’s very important that you let us know what bugs you run into.

Beta is an AWESOME milestone for OnLive, capping many years of work. We’re really looking forward to hearing what you think.

BTW, my screen name is “Steve Perlman”. Hope to see you OnLive.

—Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO

John Spinale demonstrates the OnLive Game Service at GDC.

In his post a few weeks back, our COO Mike discussed the inherent flaws in the video game industry’s economic model. Specifically, he detailed how difficult it is for a publisher to make a profit in the current system, traced the root of these problems and showed how OnLive helps the situation. VentureBeat published a great article on Friday that discussed the same problem from the developer’s perspective. Chris Taylor, founder and CEO of Gas Powered Games, talks about how difficult and cost prohibitive the current system is and how the strains placed on publishers trickles down to the developer community.

As Mike pointed out, while it may seem counterintuitive to question the business model of a thriving industry, in fact, when you crunch the numbers you realize how difficult it is to for publishers to make money on a title. Well, the same is true for Developers, where the standard industry model forces them into a precarious business position, in which even very high-profile developers can find themselves living from game to game. That point is perfectly depicted in the profile of Gas Powered Games, a highly successful independent that has survived and thrived for 11 years. From an outsider’s perspective you’d think it’d be smooth sailing for them, they have a strong, recognized brand and continue to pump out great games. This article shows that that isn’t necessarily the case as developers, regardless of how successful, have struggled to stay afloat in the current economic system.

And, as Chris rightly points out, OnLive doesn’t solve all the issues for developers, but we do really begin to level the playing field quite a bit. Mostly by taking away a ton of the inefficiencies in the existing model — providing a direct channel from development to distribution, simplifying the entire development cycle, and opening up opportunities for games of all sizes. Our goal is to really free up the studios to spend less time and money on the business and logistics side of the equation and focus those resources purely on making great games.

Chris says, “the thing that might fundamentally change the industry, for the artist to get more control, is if the artist community could become more proficient at business and control the money.” I’m happy to say that we’re all moving in that direction and OnLive is the platform that can make that happen.

—John Spinale, VP of Games and Media

John Spinale, VP of Product Development, celebrates after the OnLive press conference. (March 2009)

So far on this blog we’ve talked about the technology behind OnLive and the business side of Games on Demand. Now I’d like to talk about what the OnLive gaming platform means for game developers and how that helps us to deliver a better overall entertainment experience to our audience—all of you gamers out there. Personally, this is what I’m most interested in, having spent the better part of my career both building and playing games.

Ultimately, we’re starting off with the premise that our success as a gaming platform will revolve around the quality of the games we deliver and the overall experience surrounding them. So, how do you make this happen? Fortunately we’re starting with a clean slate, making this one of those opportunities that only comes around once in a lifetime (if you’re lucky!). So time to back up and get a little philosophical…

To start, we acknowledge that great games come from great developers: find the best folks working on the most innovative games and then provide them with an environment in which to be creative and productive. And this goes for developers of all sizes, from tiny little independent teams to big, well-backed studios at major publishers.

Then, provide them with something that they can really innovate around, something fundamentally different. Games on demand open up new doors for developers. Data centers full of high-end gaming hardware create the potential for games done to a level of scale and fidelity never seen before. And since the OnLive platform’s always online, we must really embrace all the network and community aspects, taking note from other platforms both proprietary- and Web-based. Fortunately, the list goes on in this area…

And lastly, you stay out of their way. Don’t make their life harder than it needs to be in terms of process. Don’t pretend you know what the consumer wants more than they do. Align your interests to make a win-win scenario on the business side of things. Keep the relationships simple and clear and don’t compete with them. Make it fun…

These basic rules drive everything we do at OnLive, and we’re confident that this will lead to revolutionary innovations in the space. I’ll spend some time on all of these major themes as we continue the discussion here on the OnLive Blog, as there’s way too much to get into all at once (this one’s already way too long). But suffice to say, we’re working hard on all three of these areas in an effort to bring you the best possible gaming experience. Hopefully you’ll agree as we continue to unveil the results. Stay tuned…

Off to E3 for meetings next week!

—John Spinale, VP of Games and Media

Steve Perlman and Mike McGarvey take questions from the audience at the OnLive press conference.

Hi, I’m Mike McGarvey, OnLive’s Chief Operating Officer, and I’m pleased to be making my first post to the OnLive Blog.

“Why OnLive and why now?” are two of the questions I’d like to explore as we unfold our strategy in the video games space. Due to a number of different factors, which I’ll outline in a moment, the currently available distribution methods for video games present extreme challenges for developers and publishers. This isn’t a new development by any means. For years, industry experts have been monitoring and predicting this outcome. OnLive addresses these challenges by evolving the current game distribution methodologies, establishing a direct channel between the game content and the consumer, thereby enabling a higher overall return on a lower back-end investment.

In many ways, the current quandary the video game industry faces was foreshadowed by the movie business: skyrocketing production costs, a narrow distribution pipeline and static retail prices. Movies got bigger and more expensive, but ticket prices and the methods of delivery did not evolve along with the costs. Video game publishers now find themselves in a similar situation.

While it may seem counterintuitive to question the business model of a thriving industry—it has been projected that video games sales will meet or exceed $60 billion in 2009—there are some fundamental flaws in the economics that we are aiming to address with OnLive.

First off, while the costs associated with video game development, distribution and marketing have increased exponentially over the last ten years, prices have remained static. The average multi-platform game now costs upwards of $30 million to produce and bring to market, but the retail price has remained fixed at approximately $60. That makes the return on investment much more challenging for publishers. Yes, demand is up, but the cost to develop has risen so dramatically that it’s become extremely difficult to break even on a new title, let alone make a profit. Other factors such as used game sales and piracy are also negatively impacting profit margins.

OnLive has the potential to change these dynamics by removing packaging and distribution costs. Because we’ve eliminated physical media and full downloads, there’s nothing to steal and nothing to resell, giving publishers complete control over their product. By providing a powerful end-to-end development-to-distribution model, OnLive can dramatically alter video game economics, increase profit margins and provide new and enhanced monetization channels. Not only does this increase revenue, but it also means that the money typically allocated for high distribution costs can be spent instead on design, development and marketing, leading to better overall product with greater awareness and a better value for the consumer.

So, while retail has been the mainstay for distribution of top video game titles since the industry’s inception, OnLive is now breaking that mold. We will be delivering the same top video games titles exclusively through broadband Internet, in the same release window they are available in retail, but with significant economic, convenience and feature benefits to both publishers and gamers. And, this is the main reason why OnLive won’t have a booth at E3 this year. More than anything, E3 is a retail-oriented conference, both for retail platforms and retail publishers, and OnLive is neither. You’ll hear and see plenty from us this year in the run up to our external Beta and launch, delivered directly to your home through your broadband connection.

In the meantime, I’ll be exploring video game economics in more detail throughout the year in future blogs. This is an exciting time in the game industry; we’re standing on the precipice of several monumental changes and improvements. I look forward to discussing them with you in this space as we move forward.

—Mike McGarvey, OnLive COO