And there's the whole 'complete elimination of the secondhand market' thing.
Well, that's probably going to take a heavy hit in the next few years anyway, as pre-packaged DLC and multiplayer content/access codes become more and more popular.
And if getting rid of the secondhand market puts Gamestop out of business then that's a good thing.
That's so stupid. It's stupid if you're serious, and it's stupid if you're trying a "I want to act gamer-cool" sort of thing. Ugh.
Gamestop needs to be put out of business as fast as possible. Not because they're a secondhand store, but because they do an awful job at it. You make next to nothing selling to them and save next to nothing buying from them. They hurt game companies with their business practices.
Hell, they're so greedy right now, Capcom told them to give everyone a free demo of Monster Hunter who asked for it, and they sent out a corporate-wide email that people can't have it unless they preorder. Ridiculous.
And if getting rid of the secondhand market puts Gamestop out of business then that's a good thing.
How asinine. Getting rid of the second had market is a BIG DEAL and one that I don't want to see happen. I won't sacrifice choice and a second-hand market to put a company out of business. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.
And if getting rid of the secondhand market puts Gamestop out of business then that's a good thing.
That's so stupid. It's stupid if you're serious, and it's stupid if you're trying a "I want to act gamer-cool" sort of thing. Ugh.
Gamestop needs to be put out of business as fast as possible. Not because they're a secondhand store, but because they do an awful job at it. You make next to nothing selling to them and save next to nothing buying from them. They hurt game companies with their business practices.
My counter-argument is this is how capitalism works, but why bother explaining that to you? If you don't already know, nothing I say is going to give you an epiphany.
So instead I chose a tongue-in-cheek reply, mainly to amuse myself.
Wet Bandit on
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TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
And if getting rid of the secondhand market puts Gamestop out of business then that's a good thing.
That's so stupid. It's stupid if you're serious, and it's stupid if you're trying a "I want to act gamer-cool" sort of thing. Ugh.
Gamestop needs to be put out of business as fast as possible. Not because they're a secondhand store, but because they do an awful job at it. You make next to nothing selling to them and save next to nothing buying from them. They hurt game companies with their business practices.
Hell, they're so greedy right now, Capcom told them to give everyone a free demo of Monster Hunter who asked for it, and they sent out a corporate-wide email that people can't have it unless they preorder. Ridiculous.
Unless they've changed their policies lately, they also treat their employees like total shit. To the point of doing everything they can to avoid paying them with real money. Several former employees of Gamestop have divulged that their weekly compensation is received on a 'payment card' that can only function at specific locations, and that getting cash out of that card costs money. Some folks also complain that getting direct deposit is a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucratic stonewalling.
Edit: Apparently the direct deposit process varies from store to store. The Consumerist ran a story about this, and a debate broke out in the comments that's more informative than my post.
At this point I'll digress for fear of derailing the topic, though.
And if getting rid of the secondhand market puts Gamestop out of business then that's a good thing.
That's so stupid. It's stupid if you're serious, and it's stupid if you're trying a "I want to act gamer-cool" sort of thing. Ugh.
Gamestop needs to be put out of business as fast as possible. Not because they're a secondhand store, but because they do an awful job at it. You make next to nothing selling to them and save next to nothing buying from them. They hurt game companies with their business practices.
Hell, they're so greedy right now, Capcom told them to give everyone a free demo of Monster Hunter who asked for it, and they sent out a corporate-wide email that people can't have it unless they preorder. Ridiculous.
Unless they've changed their policies lately, they also treat their employees like total shit. To the point of doing everything they can to avoid paying them with real money. Several former employees of Gamestop have divulged that their weekly compensation on a 'payment card' that can only function at specific locations, and that getting cash out of that card costs money. Some folks also complain that getting direct deposit is a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucratic stonewalling.
God...
God DAMN that sucks horribly.
MechMantis on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
My counter-argument is this is how capitalism works, but why bother explaining that to you? If you don't already know, nothing I say is going to give you an epiphany.
So instead I chose a tongue-in-cheek reply, mainly to amuse myself.
Gamestop also violates labor laws on an absurd scale and somehow gets away with it
Ubisoft new games are going to be OnLIVE exclusive.
Pay US$49.99 to buy the game.
And US$14.99 to OnLIVE monthly to play it.
Where exactly are you getting those game purchase costs? Because they specifically say on the OnLive site that the games will sell for lower-than-retail pricing, but do not go beyond that.
I think a lot of what's happening here, in terms of bitching about cost, is people not correctly identifying the market for onlive. I'm pretty sure no rational 'hardcore' gamer is gonna pick this up at current pricing policy, for the reasons that have already been mentioned; i.e, lack of exclusives, high cost relative to one-off purchase of console (even factoring in discounted game prices), a persistent sense of transience about the whole affair (in terms of not actually owning a physical copy of whatever).
But, really, that's by-the-by. 'Hardcore' gamers are the ones who are already willing to pay for the consoles, and as such, this is a largely irrelevant addition to the market to them. However, for the 'casual' gamers, this is something much more; let me demonstrate with an example (me).
I'm a university student. As such, during term time I barely have time for eating in between studying and social events, let alone sitting down to indulge myself in Final Fantasy XIII (as much as I want to), or whatever game has my interest this month. Hence, if I should wish to buy a PS3 for whatever price they're going for these days (~£300 I believe), I simply wouldn't use it most of the time. The marginal utility to me during term time would be next to nothing, and hence it would take a long time for me to extract enough utility from it in order to justify the initial cost of purchase (as we still have to buy games for onlive, I shan't factor in the costs of buying games, as that's common - same with investing in a good tv screen etc.)
However, with onlive, I can (if you pay per month) simply only subscribe during the months where I'll be able to actually use my purchase, and thus my marginal utility from it will be much higher, and I'll be able to justify the purchase in a much shorter period of time. I don't feel my situation is too unique, either; plenty of people simply don't have the time to sit down and invest themselves into an involved game due to work/whatever. Of course, the real test of my hypothesis will come in a couple of months, after people have been able to experience it, but the inherent flexibility of it is undoubtedly it's strongest aspect and I can see it doing very well should the latency/bandwidth problems be sufficiently trivial.
I mean, I'd use it, if they ever came over to the UK.
I imagine the cost of the actual games on top of the subscription is what'll be the snag for many people. From what I've gathered it's not like they'll mail you the disks for your purchases after your subscription is up.
Yeah, that's the real problem: do you have to re-buy the game every month you want to play (I'd guess yes). Do they keep your saves (which you can't make copies of) if you let your subscription lapse? And so on.
The $ calculations needed to see if it makes sense are pretty simple. Let's say a console costs $X, and you anticipate wanting to play for Y months over the life of the console. If X/Y < 15, you're ahead buying. Going with a basic $200 cost for a console (which has the benefit of also playing exclusives), you'd have to want to use it for less than a year total for it to be cheaper per month to use OnLive than just buying a console mid-generation, and that's not allowing for the other benefits (used market to reduce the cost of games, access to platform exclusives, etc). And note that this includes 'if I want to kill a half hour playing Madden 1 day a month', not a month of full playtime.
Sure, you have to pay the console cost up front. Unless you make use of this nifty invention called 'credit'. But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
JihadJesus on
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TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
Agreed. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that OnLive isn't particularly meant for the consumer. It's entirely meant for the developer:
OnLive will probably pull extremely hard to get some developer to go exclusive for their 'platform'. It'll be a tough battle, but if they got a big name to go over to OnLive, and it was the only way to play their game? The market would cave (provided it was reasonably playable). History has shown that no matter what the gaming market complains about, a good portion only care about being able to play the game - so they're not worth listening to when they complain. They'll still give you money in the end, no matter their grumbles.
Developers can see this as a tremendous pot of gold. They don't have to worry about piracy cutting into their sales. They can pretty much fire (or at least trim down considerably) their tech support staff if they abandon everything other than OnLive - The hardware would be pretty uniform and centralized, and I'm assuming OnLive would take the brunt of any tech support calls, since they're the ones customers are going to think of when something goes wrong. Developers would also see money from rentals on a larger scale than they currently do, and they'd eliminate the second hand market for any OnLive exclusive game. That means getting to charge bigger dollars for games that would otherwise be doomed to the bargain bin, where the dev wouldn't see one red cent.
Let's not forget that OnLive exclusivity means never having to pay for retail shelf space or digital distribution, either. You can pretty much cut your expenses entirely when it comes to printing physical product, and you don't have to worry about bandwidth for digital distribution since the code for the game is only landing in one place. The bandwidth issue becomes OnLive's problem, which (from the sound of their market pitch) they are already painting as the customer's problem for having a shitty ISP or living too far from an OnLive center.
As a consumer I can think of a ton of ways that the OnLive model harms me. For developers, it's a wet dream. Because gamers are notorious for going where ever the games are - regardless of where that is or what that entails - OnLive is likely to pitch to the devs along these lines.
But none of this really matters yet, since the one thing that gamers stringently do demand is that the games be playable. We'll have to see how the tech stands up. If early leaks are correct, then something like UT3 or TF2 would be unenjoyable through OnLive, but strategy games are quite doable. [/wall-o-text]
I'd thought this was aimed more at PC stuff, trying to play up that whole idea that having a decent gaming PC is super expensive and requires constant upgrades, so you can just use onlive instead. Don't see why you'd use it to replace a console, which is cheap enough already.
Although the limitations suck I do still see some potential to this. They just need either all you can eat or pay as you go options that make it cheaper than the old way to play games. Also the social features like remote coop and video recording/feeds are kinda neat. They should get some small developer to make some games that come free with the subscription that really take advantage of that. Or partner up with steam and let me play the games I already own there, seems logical to me.
Yeah, that's the real problem: do you have to re-buy the game every month you want to play (I'd guess yes). Do they keep your saves (which you can't make copies of) if you let your subscription lapse? And so on.
The $ calculations needed to see if it makes sense are pretty simple. Let's say a console costs $X, and you anticipate wanting to play for Y months over the life of the console. If X/Y < 15, you're ahead buying. Going with a basic $200 cost for a console (which has the benefit of also playing exclusives), you'd have to want to use it for less than a year total for it to be cheaper per month to use OnLive than just buying a console mid-generation, and that's not allowing for the other benefits (used market to reduce the cost of games, access to platform exclusives, etc). And note that this includes 'if I want to kill a half hour playing Madden 1 day a month', not a month of full playtime.
Sure, you have to pay the console cost up front. Unless you make use of this nifty invention called 'credit'. But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
It's not that simple, really, because whilst the bulk of your analysis does indeed hold when considering a single generation, the costs are stepped every couple of years with new gen consoles/bolt ons for current consoles (or, if we're talking about PCs, the incremental cost of upgrades). In addition, the analysis also presumes a relatively good knowledge of the future, whilst onlive is essentially a pay-as-you-go system.
The issue of 'credit' is largely irrelevant, as you'll still end up paying the full price (or even a lil' more). The timing of the payment isn't the issue here.
As for whether you 'keep' the games/saves, that's a more contentious issue. I would have thought that what games you buy would be logged such that you can access them whenever your subscription is up; buying them again every time you come back just doesn't make any sense, and I don't think that it would be a viable business model at all.
Yeah, that's the real problem: do you have to re-buy the game every month you want to play (I'd guess yes). Do they keep your saves (which you can't make copies of) if you let your subscription lapse? And so on.
The $ calculations needed to see if it makes sense are pretty simple. Let's say a console costs $X, and you anticipate wanting to play for Y months over the life of the console. If X/Y < 15, you're ahead buying. Going with a basic $200 cost for a console (which has the benefit of also playing exclusives), you'd have to want to use it for less than a year total for it to be cheaper per month to use OnLive than just buying a console mid-generation, and that's not allowing for the other benefits (used market to reduce the cost of games, access to platform exclusives, etc). And note that this includes 'if I want to kill a half hour playing Madden 1 day a month', not a month of full playtime.
Sure, you have to pay the console cost up front. Unless you make use of this nifty invention called 'credit'. But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
It's not that simple, really, because whilst the bulk of your analysis does indeed hold when considering a single generation, the costs are stepped every couple of years with new gen consoles/bolt ons for current consoles (or, if we're talking about PCs, the incremental cost of upgrades). In addition, the analysis also presumes a relatively good knowledge of the future, whilst onlive is essentially a pay-as-you-go system.
So? You'd still have to pay for OnLive over the course of that console generation, and it's still going to be more expensive over the long run than just buying the console.
The issue of 'credit' is largely irrelevant, as you'll still end up paying the full price (or even a lil' more). The timing of the payment isn't the issue here.
But that's true of OnLive as well - you still end up paying $15*Y months in the end. The only way in which it's actually cheaper is that it doesn't require to pay upfront; literally the only benefit in cost terms IS the timing of the payments, and even then you can get monthly payments on consumer electronics dead easily anyway. The only real difference in terms of cost is that after a year of sinking payment into OnLive, you walk away with NOTHING if you stop playing instead of a console, meaning that if after a year you still want to play for another year it costs another $200. If you don't you get nothing, instead of being able to sell the console to recoup part of the cost. There's literally no way it's cheaper, in any sense of the word, if you want to have access to a game for more than a month or two TOTAL.
As for whether you 'keep' the games/saves, that's a more contentious issue. I would have thought that what games you buy would be logged such that you can access them whenever your subscription is up; buying them again every time you come back just doesn't make any sense, and I don't think that it would be a viable business model at all.
This would make sense. For you. But it provides an incentive to use and drop their service as big releases come and go, and since we've already established that the system only makes sense if you play for a SEVERLY limited number of months, doing this would make their revenue stream incredibly limited and variable. I don't see any way they could realisitcally survive with a model that requires that to come out ahead you use it for only a few months out of any five year period, i.e. console generation, and provides no disincentive to dropping your subscription.
[Edit]
I guess what I'm saying is that this system only works for OnLive if customers keep up their subscriptions, but it only makes sense for customers if they DON'T plan to keep up a subscription.
Yeah, that's the real problem: do you have to re-buy the game every month you want to play (I'd guess yes). Do they keep your saves (which you can't make copies of) if you let your subscription lapse? And so on.
The $ calculations needed to see if it makes sense are pretty simple. Let's say a console costs $X, and you anticipate wanting to play for Y months over the life of the console. If X/Y < 15, you're ahead buying. Going with a basic $200 cost for a console (which has the benefit of also playing exclusives), you'd have to want to use it for less than a year total for it to be cheaper per month to use OnLive than just buying a console mid-generation, and that's not allowing for the other benefits (used market to reduce the cost of games, access to platform exclusives, etc). And note that this includes 'if I want to kill a half hour playing Madden 1 day a month', not a month of full playtime.
Sure, you have to pay the console cost up front. Unless you make use of this nifty invention called 'credit'. But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
Why would you guess that? It's almost certainly not the case, otherwise it wouldn't be a purchase by any meaning of the word, just a month long rental. I mean, that'd be comparable to an MMO deleting all your characters every time you unsubscribed / when your subscription was up for renewal.
As for your math, there are several factors you're not taking into consideration. That not just one console is involved, and that buying a console mid/late generation won't have a negative impact on the games you want to play (see Chromehounds for a great example), are the two big ones.
For most gamers, I doubt this service would appeal as a replacement for owning their main system of choice. But for wanting to buy a few games that are on a different console (or a PC gamer with no consoles who wants to partake of a bit of console goodness), there's value to be had.
As a consumer I can think of a ton of ways that the OnLive model harms me. For developers, it's a wet dream.
As stated, this system cuts out the second hand market. Just because Gamestop is a horrible horrible company, doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to loan my game to a friend or buy used games from Kajiji or whatnot.
And this system also applies the MMO subscription model to EVERY game. Publishers will be coming so hard they'll have to line their underwear with garbage bags.
One question I have is: Isn't this ONLY for PC games? Or are console games also in the mix too?
So? You'd still have to pay for OnLive over the course of that console generation, and it's still going to be more expensive over the long run than just buying the console.
Assuming you'll carry on gaming for a significant period of the next-gen; it harks back to my remark about knowledge of future consumption. For example, if I were to buy a new console at the start of the period only to find that I didn't want to play it due to rubbish games/exogenous factors, i'd clearly have been better off buying an onlive subscription. At the end of the day, when buying a console, you're making an explicit statement acknowledging that you're going to get at least X amount of hours out of it. For some who lead a more transient lifestyle, it may well be worth purchasing an onlive subscription instead; indeed, the premium they pay in exchange for a greater degree of certainty makes it rational.
Of course, we could also argue the other way. Onlive could also be a good gateway to get casual gamers into more involved gaming - by clocking up X amount of hours they'll find that they have a taste for gaming such that when the next gen of consoles come out, they'll buy one.
But that's true of OnLive as well - you still end up paying $15*Y months in the end. The only way in which it's actually cheaper is that it doesn't require to pay upfront; literally the only benefit in cost terms IS the timing of the payments, and even then you can get monthly payments on consumer electronics dead easily anyway. The only real difference in terms of cost is that after a year of sinking payment into OnLive, you walk away with NOTHING if you stop playing instead of a console, meaning that if after a year you still want to play for another year it costs another $200. If you don't you get nothing, instead of being able to sell the console to recoup part of the cost. There's literally no way it's cheaper, in any sense of the word, if you want to have access to a game for more than a month or two TOTAL.
I disagree; the benefit of OnLive when it comes to payment is it's 'pay-as-you-go' quality - with credit, you will, with certainty, pay £300 or whatever, regardless of whether you use the machine you use. With a subscription plan you may well end up paying less than £300, and if it's more then you may find yourself in the situation I noted above.
This would make sense. For you. But it provides an incentive to use and drop their service as big releases come and go, and since we've already established that the system only makes sense if you play for a SEVERLY limited number of months, doing this would make their revenue stream incredibly limited and variable. I don't see any way they could realisitcally survive with a model that requires that to come out ahead you use it for only a few months out of any five year period, i.e. console generation, and provides no disincentive to dropping your subscription.
I've only outlined one benefit of onlive, that being it's inherent flexibility. In addition, there are smaller benefits - not having to commit to a single gaming system, not having to keep up to date with the latest hardware/bolt-ons (more pertinent in the case of PC's) whilst being able to play the biggest new releases etc. Not game makers by themselves, by any stretch, but it wouldn't be totally surprising to see if people place a value on them such that they would rather pay an extra £Z of subscription fees than buy a console outright.
Of course, that's not to suggest there aren't other costs associated to it as well, but for a more casual, short-term orientated market demographic, I would propose that onlive could well be the gaming vector of choice. Of course, as I've already noted, the true test of my hypothesis will come after a couple of months.
So? You'd still have to pay for OnLive over the course of that console generation, and it's still going to be more expensive over the long run than just buying the console.
Assuming you'll carry on gaming for a significant period of the next-gen; it harks back to my remark about knowledge of future consumption. For example, if I were to buy a new console at the start of the period only to find that I didn't want to play it due to rubbish games/exogenous factors, i'd clearly have been better off buying an onlive subscription. At the end of the day, when buying a console, you're making an explicit statement acknowledging that you're going to get at least X amount of hours out of it. For some who lead a more transient lifestyle, it may well be worth purchasing an onlive subscription instead; indeed, the premium they pay in exchange for a greater degree of certainty makes it rational.
See, but if you have an actual console that you decide you don't like, you can just turn around and sell it to recoup the majority of your investment.
I could understand a gaming service where you lease games, but being force to "buy" a game on top of the service is ludicrous.
And I say this with the disclaimer that I have been a fan of both Rhapsody and now Zune where I lease all of my music. But they don't force me to "buy" the songs first either.
I think this is one of those business experiments that will either succeed better than anyone hoped or it will die a fantastic death.
Ubisoft new games are going to be OnLIVE exclusive.
Pay US$49.99 to buy the game.
And US$14.99 to OnLIVE monthly to play it.
Where exactly are you getting those game purchase costs? Because they specifically say on the OnLive site that the games will sell for lower-than-retail pricing, but do not go beyond that.
Well, if you consider "retail" to be $59.99 nowadays...
korodullin on
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I could understand a gaming service where you lease games, but being force to "buy" a game on top of the service is ludicrous.
And I say this with the disclaimer that I have been a fan of both Rhapsody and now Zune where I lease all of my music. But they don't force me to "buy" the songs first either.
I think this is one of those business experiments that will either succeed better than anyone hoped or it will die a fantastic death.
Yeah, I pay monthly for my Zune Pass, but that gives me unlimited access to most music in the store and I get to keep 10 songs a month too. I pay for my Live access, but that's so I can play online with a friend of mine. I can play my games offline too.
I can see paying $15/mo if I could play any game I want to on the service. Paying $15/mo, then extra per game I want to rent or buy (though, buying seems ridiculous if you lose access when canceling the service), seems a bit steep.
I will pay for one month, rent a game or two and try it out at launch. But unless this works really, really well, I just can't see adding it to my monthly expenses. Perhaps when a new game releases I may pay $15+rental fee for a month to play and try it if the service works well, but I don't see keeping the service around all year. If I want to keep a game, I'll buy it. If I want a game rental service, I'd get GameFly. For the same $15 I can rent as many different games as I want one at a time.
Posts
Horrible ideas are the future of console gaming?
I guess that makes sense...
How is this a horrible idea? Or are you just trolling.
The games industry does seem to grasp horrible ideas as the way forward.
Pages one through twenty-four.
Or, to summarize: input lag, draconian DRM, fundamental unreliability, absurd cost.
Don't forget the inability to create custom maps, mods, etc. (I know you can't do this with console games anyway, I am talking about PC games).
Well, that kind of falls under "draconian DRM". I suppose it could be another point if you want.
And there's the whole 'complete elimination of the secondhand market' thing.
Well, that's probably going to take a heavy hit in the next few years anyway, as pre-packaged DLC and multiplayer content/access codes become more and more popular.
That's so stupid. It's stupid if you're serious, and it's stupid if you're trying a "I want to act gamer-cool" sort of thing. Ugh.
Only $180/yr. to purchase and play all those great PC-exclusive games that your average home computer isn't awesome enough to run now
Like Crysis
And, uh
Hmm
Civilization V, when it comes out
...
Huh
Gamestop needs to be put out of business as fast as possible. Not because they're a secondhand store, but because they do an awful job at it. You make next to nothing selling to them and save next to nothing buying from them. They hurt game companies with their business practices.
Hell, they're so greedy right now, Capcom told them to give everyone a free demo of Monster Hunter who asked for it, and they sent out a corporate-wide email that people can't have it unless they preorder. Ridiculous.
How asinine. Getting rid of the second had market is a BIG DEAL and one that I don't want to see happen. I won't sacrifice choice and a second-hand market to put a company out of business. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Communist.
So instead I chose a tongue-in-cheek reply, mainly to amuse myself.
Unless they've changed their policies lately, they also treat their employees like total shit. To the point of doing everything they can to avoid paying them with real money. Several former employees of Gamestop have divulged that their weekly compensation is received on a 'payment card' that can only function at specific locations, and that getting cash out of that card costs money. Some folks also complain that getting direct deposit is a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucratic stonewalling.
Edit: Apparently the direct deposit process varies from store to store. The Consumerist ran a story about this, and a debate broke out in the comments that's more informative than my post.
At this point I'll digress for fear of derailing the topic, though.
God...
God DAMN that sucks horribly.
Half of those reasons listed are like a publisher's wet dream
Something like this will succeed eventually, if not with Onlive. It's too good an idea to die forever
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Gamestop also violates labor laws on an absurd scale and somehow gets away with it
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Pay US$49.99 to buy the game.
And US$14.99 to OnLIVE monthly to play it.
Where exactly are you getting those game purchase costs? Because they specifically say on the OnLive site that the games will sell for lower-than-retail pricing, but do not go beyond that.
But, really, that's by-the-by. 'Hardcore' gamers are the ones who are already willing to pay for the consoles, and as such, this is a largely irrelevant addition to the market to them. However, for the 'casual' gamers, this is something much more; let me demonstrate with an example (me).
I'm a university student. As such, during term time I barely have time for eating in between studying and social events, let alone sitting down to indulge myself in Final Fantasy XIII (as much as I want to), or whatever game has my interest this month. Hence, if I should wish to buy a PS3 for whatever price they're going for these days (~£300 I believe), I simply wouldn't use it most of the time. The marginal utility to me during term time would be next to nothing, and hence it would take a long time for me to extract enough utility from it in order to justify the initial cost of purchase (as we still have to buy games for onlive, I shan't factor in the costs of buying games, as that's common - same with investing in a good tv screen etc.)
However, with onlive, I can (if you pay per month) simply only subscribe during the months where I'll be able to actually use my purchase, and thus my marginal utility from it will be much higher, and I'll be able to justify the purchase in a much shorter period of time. I don't feel my situation is too unique, either; plenty of people simply don't have the time to sit down and invest themselves into an involved game due to work/whatever. Of course, the real test of my hypothesis will come in a couple of months, after people have been able to experience it, but the inherent flexibility of it is undoubtedly it's strongest aspect and I can see it doing very well should the latency/bandwidth problems be sufficiently trivial.
I mean, I'd use it, if they ever came over to the UK.
The $ calculations needed to see if it makes sense are pretty simple. Let's say a console costs $X, and you anticipate wanting to play for Y months over the life of the console. If X/Y < 15, you're ahead buying. Going with a basic $200 cost for a console (which has the benefit of also playing exclusives), you'd have to want to use it for less than a year total for it to be cheaper per month to use OnLive than just buying a console mid-generation, and that's not allowing for the other benefits (used market to reduce the cost of games, access to platform exclusives, etc). And note that this includes 'if I want to kill a half hour playing Madden 1 day a month', not a month of full playtime.
Sure, you have to pay the console cost up front. Unless you make use of this nifty invention called 'credit'. But there's just NO WAY to come out ahead with any reasonable ammount of use of this system.
Agreed. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that OnLive isn't particularly meant for the consumer. It's entirely meant for the developer:
OnLive will probably pull extremely hard to get some developer to go exclusive for their 'platform'. It'll be a tough battle, but if they got a big name to go over to OnLive, and it was the only way to play their game? The market would cave (provided it was reasonably playable). History has shown that no matter what the gaming market complains about, a good portion only care about being able to play the game - so they're not worth listening to when they complain. They'll still give you money in the end, no matter their grumbles.
Developers can see this as a tremendous pot of gold. They don't have to worry about piracy cutting into their sales. They can pretty much fire (or at least trim down considerably) their tech support staff if they abandon everything other than OnLive - The hardware would be pretty uniform and centralized, and I'm assuming OnLive would take the brunt of any tech support calls, since they're the ones customers are going to think of when something goes wrong. Developers would also see money from rentals on a larger scale than they currently do, and they'd eliminate the second hand market for any OnLive exclusive game. That means getting to charge bigger dollars for games that would otherwise be doomed to the bargain bin, where the dev wouldn't see one red cent.
Let's not forget that OnLive exclusivity means never having to pay for retail shelf space or digital distribution, either. You can pretty much cut your expenses entirely when it comes to printing physical product, and you don't have to worry about bandwidth for digital distribution since the code for the game is only landing in one place. The bandwidth issue becomes OnLive's problem, which (from the sound of their market pitch) they are already painting as the customer's problem for having a shitty ISP or living too far from an OnLive center.
As a consumer I can think of a ton of ways that the OnLive model harms me. For developers, it's a wet dream. Because gamers are notorious for going where ever the games are - regardless of where that is or what that entails - OnLive is likely to pitch to the devs along these lines.
But none of this really matters yet, since the one thing that gamers stringently do demand is that the games be playable. We'll have to see how the tech stands up. If early leaks are correct, then something like UT3 or TF2 would be unenjoyable through OnLive, but strategy games are quite doable. [/wall-o-text]
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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It's not that simple, really, because whilst the bulk of your analysis does indeed hold when considering a single generation, the costs are stepped every couple of years with new gen consoles/bolt ons for current consoles (or, if we're talking about PCs, the incremental cost of upgrades). In addition, the analysis also presumes a relatively good knowledge of the future, whilst onlive is essentially a pay-as-you-go system.
The issue of 'credit' is largely irrelevant, as you'll still end up paying the full price (or even a lil' more). The timing of the payment isn't the issue here.
As for whether you 'keep' the games/saves, that's a more contentious issue. I would have thought that what games you buy would be logged such that you can access them whenever your subscription is up; buying them again every time you come back just doesn't make any sense, and I don't think that it would be a viable business model at all.
But that's true of OnLive as well - you still end up paying $15*Y months in the end. The only way in which it's actually cheaper is that it doesn't require to pay upfront; literally the only benefit in cost terms IS the timing of the payments, and even then you can get monthly payments on consumer electronics dead easily anyway. The only real difference in terms of cost is that after a year of sinking payment into OnLive, you walk away with NOTHING if you stop playing instead of a console, meaning that if after a year you still want to play for another year it costs another $200. If you don't you get nothing, instead of being able to sell the console to recoup part of the cost. There's literally no way it's cheaper, in any sense of the word, if you want to have access to a game for more than a month or two TOTAL.
This would make sense. For you. But it provides an incentive to use and drop their service as big releases come and go, and since we've already established that the system only makes sense if you play for a SEVERLY limited number of months, doing this would make their revenue stream incredibly limited and variable. I don't see any way they could realisitcally survive with a model that requires that to come out ahead you use it for only a few months out of any five year period, i.e. console generation, and provides no disincentive to dropping your subscription.
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I guess what I'm saying is that this system only works for OnLive if customers keep up their subscriptions, but it only makes sense for customers if they DON'T plan to keep up a subscription.
Why would you guess that? It's almost certainly not the case, otherwise it wouldn't be a purchase by any meaning of the word, just a month long rental. I mean, that'd be comparable to an MMO deleting all your characters every time you unsubscribed / when your subscription was up for renewal.
As for your math, there are several factors you're not taking into consideration. That not just one console is involved, and that buying a console mid/late generation won't have a negative impact on the games you want to play (see Chromehounds for a great example), are the two big ones.
For most gamers, I doubt this service would appeal as a replacement for owning their main system of choice. But for wanting to buy a few games that are on a different console (or a PC gamer with no consoles who wants to partake of a bit of console goodness), there's value to be had.
As stated, this system cuts out the second hand market. Just because Gamestop is a horrible horrible company, doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to loan my game to a friend or buy used games from Kajiji or whatnot.
And this system also applies the MMO subscription model to EVERY game. Publishers will be coming so hard they'll have to line their underwear with garbage bags.
One question I have is: Isn't this ONLY for PC games? Or are console games also in the mix too?
Assuming you'll carry on gaming for a significant period of the next-gen; it harks back to my remark about knowledge of future consumption. For example, if I were to buy a new console at the start of the period only to find that I didn't want to play it due to rubbish games/exogenous factors, i'd clearly have been better off buying an onlive subscription. At the end of the day, when buying a console, you're making an explicit statement acknowledging that you're going to get at least X amount of hours out of it. For some who lead a more transient lifestyle, it may well be worth purchasing an onlive subscription instead; indeed, the premium they pay in exchange for a greater degree of certainty makes it rational.
Of course, we could also argue the other way. Onlive could also be a good gateway to get casual gamers into more involved gaming - by clocking up X amount of hours they'll find that they have a taste for gaming such that when the next gen of consoles come out, they'll buy one.
I disagree; the benefit of OnLive when it comes to payment is it's 'pay-as-you-go' quality - with credit, you will, with certainty, pay £300 or whatever, regardless of whether you use the machine you use. With a subscription plan you may well end up paying less than £300, and if it's more then you may find yourself in the situation I noted above.
I've only outlined one benefit of onlive, that being it's inherent flexibility. In addition, there are smaller benefits - not having to commit to a single gaming system, not having to keep up to date with the latest hardware/bolt-ons (more pertinent in the case of PC's) whilst being able to play the biggest new releases etc. Not game makers by themselves, by any stretch, but it wouldn't be totally surprising to see if people place a value on them such that they would rather pay an extra £Z of subscription fees than buy a console outright.
Of course, that's not to suggest there aren't other costs associated to it as well, but for a more casual, short-term orientated market demographic, I would propose that onlive could well be the gaming vector of choice. Of course, as I've already noted, the true test of my hypothesis will come after a couple of months.
See, but if you have an actual console that you decide you don't like, you can just turn around and sell it to recoup the majority of your investment.
And I say this with the disclaimer that I have been a fan of both Rhapsody and now Zune where I lease all of my music. But they don't force me to "buy" the songs first either.
I think this is one of those business experiments that will either succeed better than anyone hoped or it will die a fantastic death.
Well, if you consider "retail" to be $59.99 nowadays...
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Yeah, I pay monthly for my Zune Pass, but that gives me unlimited access to most music in the store and I get to keep 10 songs a month too. I pay for my Live access, but that's so I can play online with a friend of mine. I can play my games offline too.
I can see paying $15/mo if I could play any game I want to on the service. Paying $15/mo, then extra per game I want to rent or buy (though, buying seems ridiculous if you lose access when canceling the service), seems a bit steep.
I will pay for one month, rent a game or two and try it out at launch. But unless this works really, really well, I just can't see adding it to my monthly expenses. Perhaps when a new game releases I may pay $15+rental fee for a month to play and try it if the service works well, but I don't see keeping the service around all year. If I want to keep a game, I'll buy it. If I want a game rental service, I'd get GameFly. For the same $15 I can rent as many different games as I want one at a time.