Steam is in trouble

[BobTD]

if this turns out to work as well as it says it does:

OnLive Game Service Overview (http://www.onlive.com/service?autoplay=yes&cpg=odghawx&gclid=CNji3oCwzagCFYEUKgodumEikg)

You can... play games instantly? No download required? How does that even work? And how can you watch other people playing games on this? Is it being played and the data being stored on another computer somewhere?

Someone should research this. I might have to try a month flat rate, because this is scary.

[LiNuX]

They have the game on an external server, so I guess that's why you don't need to download. But I don't know how good the gaming experience will be then. And what do you do when you don't have internet? You have no game.

Looks and sounds cool though. I might try and see how it is for myself.

[Synge]

From what I hear, unless it's been improved vastly in the last couple months, the games look like **** for the majority of users. Plus, if I recall correctly, you don't own the games you buy; You own em for the duration of your subscription, but if you quit the service you lose your games.

I don't think Steam is in any danger yet, in the future if Onlive improve the service, maybe. But people use Steam for the awesome deals and service overall, and people with powerful PCs are gonna use that power, not let their net connection determine the quality of their gaming.

[Ilyich Valken]

Steam's in no danger. You have to stream the games you "buy" in order to play them. This means, unless you have top-tier internet, and never experience any trouble and never plan on playing without an internet connection, it's perfect. But, since that never occurs... Yeah. Games are laggy and have issues since they're streamed.

Good idea, bad execution.

[ROFLBRYCE]

OnLive has been popping in and out of attention for 2 years now. They aren't going anywhere, and Steam is in no trouble whatsoever.

They have an awesome idea, but it's not gonna work out :/

[Fr0stByte]

if this turns out to work as well as it says it does:

OnLive Game Service Overview (http://www.onlive.com/service?autoplay=yes&cpg=odghawx&gclid=CNji3oCwzagCFYEUKgodumEikg)

You can... play games instantly? No download required? How does that even work? And how can you watch other people playing games on this? Is it being played and the data being stored on another computer somewhere?

Someone should research this. I might have to try a month flat rate, because this is scary.

The game would be hosted on another server so you dont need a download....might have to try this out :D even though I wasnt a user of STEAM

[Havoc]

To say steam is in trouble because some fancy gaming service popped up, is like saying Christianity is in trouble just because some new religion popped up.

Really, steam is a behemoth, and unless gaben gets drunk and urinates on the main servers, I don't see anything bad happening to it anytime soon.

OnLive is a fancy idea, but its like adding lag to singleplayer games.
Being able to play games in full detail on a pc that would not out-of-the-box be able to run them, is great, but it requires to basically stream HD video in real-time with only a few milliseconds buffer.

The key problem is that the lag would be different from your default MMO or FPS lag.
In those games the lag causes the synch between player to be slightly off, which can be compensated or doesn't even matter at all if its under 60ms, hell you can play FPS just fine with 100ms.

In MMOs you get a little rubberbanding if the lag is really high. 200ms+

But OnLive has to transmitt your inputs into the game your playing with the, if you're lucky, 30ms delay, then oh dear god the HD, at least 720p video(and even here the game still would look kind of defecated), for a PC game preferably 1080p, this would have to get streamed back to you with no more than 30ms delay.

Do the math because this will hardly ever run as well in reality as it does on paper.
You'd need a monster internet connection, and a semi-decent computer to playback such high-resolution video.

[paecmaker]

One off the only countries that this might work is south corea.

[EpsilonX]

This is like the 4th Onlive topic on GF. The games are played on servers housed by the onlive people, and instantly streamed to you.

it's not doing too well from what i hear. I don't even know where to buy the freaking thing

[Ilyich Valken]

This is like the 4th Onlive topic on GF. The games are played on servers housed by the onlive people, and instantly streamed to you.

it's not doing too well from what i hear. I don't even know where to buy the freaking thing

You just download the program and buy the games from that.

[Saph]

This program I dont think poses any threat to steam. I mean the program sounds pretty idiot made. I mean you stream your games, and you pay for them, but you lose them if for some reason you wanna unsubscribe? So what, you pay for property that they remain in posession of? Yeah, I can almost assure you that that idea wont fly for long.

[EpsilonX]

You just download the program and buy the games from that.

last i checked you can't download physical things.

[Ilyich Valken]

last i checked you can't download physical things.

A program isn't a physical thing... I've tried OnLive before. We're talking about Steam, here, not the 360 or PS3. This means (at this point) strictly computer.

[EpsilonX]

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/965/965535/gdc-09-onlive-introduces-the-future-of-gaming-20090324013909224-000.jpg

It's a console. Unless they turned it into a computer program, i didn't really read the topc (skimmed) and the link on the first post won't load for me...

[Ilyich Valken]

Yes. I know it's a console. However, like I said, we're talking about Steam. Not another console. They have a computer counterpart. Steam's only on the computer. There'd be no reason to compare the console to Steam. lol

[Saph]

Unless steam is soon rich and powerful enough to make a console directly linked to Steam, kinda like my Amazon kindle is directly linked to the Amazon.com kindle store for example.

That'd actually be kinda cool. Download any game you want from Steam directly onto the console and maybe even add some cheap little memory cards that have little digital screens on them that spells out the name of the game(DID YOU SEE THAT!?HAH! AWESOME!)on it, you know, so you actually HAVE the game physically?

That'd be sooooo cool.

Screw Xbox and PS3 if that happened.

That's my 2 cents.

[ZXDarknessfalls]

Unless steam is soon rich and powerful enough to make a console directly linked to Steam, kinda like my Amazon kindle is directly linked to the Amazon.com kindle store for example.

That'd actually be kinda cool. Download any game you want from Steam directly onto the console and maybe even add some cheap little memory cards that have little digital screens on them that spells out the name of the game(DID YOU SEE THAT!?HAH! AWESOME!)on it, you know, so you actually HAVE the game physically?

That'd be sooooo cool.

Screw Xbox and PS3 if that happened.

That's my 2 cents.


Im with Saph, if they did that it would be pretty awesome.

[EpsilonX]

Yes. I know it's a console. However, like I said, we're talking about Steam. Not another console. They have a computer counterpart. Steam's only on the computer. There'd be no reason to compare the console to Steam. lol

I was trying to express confusion in my post, I guess it didn't come across well. I didn't know there was a computer counterpart to it, so I thought he was sayin the console thing was gonna give steam trouble, and i was like uhhhhhhhh

[BobTD]

To say steam is in trouble because some fancy gaming service popped up, is like saying Christianity is in trouble just because some new religion popped up.

Thats... something I wish you could tell pagans durring the initial decades of the Roman Empire. How Ironic that you choose Christianity.

Anyways, you have to take my thread title along with my first sentence because it really says:


Steam is in trouble: IF this turns out to work as well as it says it does.

And was an excellent way for me to draw members into my conversation. The rest of your post thankfully was exactly the kind of information I was hoping to learn about, so thank you.

[LemonRising]

I signed up for their email newsletter ages ago.
Still not really interested in it :\


<3 steam forever

[Shixx]

I tried their free Trial, it was pretty cool I experienced no lag and I could watch whomever I wanted to see what Game I wanted to try. (but I'm sure it takes a pretty good connection)

They let you try a lot of the games for free. and you don't lose your games they're just not playable unless your paying the subscription. Just like steam games aren't playable unless your logged into steam. They just happen to charge you to be able to log in.. unlike steam.

[BobTD]

I can see this being bad for video game developers. How can they make games when you dont have to buy them?

[paecmaker]

Steam will live on, its to good for to be defeated by onlive.
They might adapt but not go under.(and I dont think they would let onlive use their(valves) games.)

[Fr0stByte]

Steam will live on, its to good for to be defeated by onlive.
They might adapt but not go under.(and I dont think they would let onlive use their(valves) games.)

really?....if servers are as powerful as required and youre using a gaming pc i dont understand how onlive can fail. Lovefilm is offering an unlimited movie/game rental package and is killing blockbuster right now.

[Muffincat]

really?....if servers are as powerful as required and youre using a gaming pc i dont understand how onlive can fail. Lovefilm is offering an unlimited movie/game rental package and is killing blockbuster right now.

...wasn't Blockbuster basically brutally murdered by Netflix?

And I'd rather buy my games and have them, rather than pay a subscription and be unable to play those games if I decide not to pay it anymore. I'd also like to not pay a subscription fee in order to rent games for a few days...

People are going to continue to use Steam, because it's better o:

Onlive doesn't appeal to me at all, in any case. Others may have different opinions :P

[paecmaker]

Steam is free but games cost money. This means that you only pay for what you want and only one time.

Onlive from what I know cost per month and you will loose more money in total if you only play one or two games in onlive than on steam.

I think that if you only play a few games for a long time steam is for you.
But if you play many games in short time onlive is for you.

[Ilyich Valken]

Steam is free but games cost money. This means that you only pay for what you want and only one time.

Onlive from what I know cost per month and you will loose more money in total if you only play one or two games in onlive than on steam.

I think that if you only play a few games for a long time steam is for you.
But if you play many games in short time onlive is for you.

Actually, OnLive will cost you more because you have to pay the subscription cost plus the cost of the game.


...wasn't Blockbuster basically brutally murdered by Netflix?


Basically. Netflix, Redbox, Family Video, etc.

[paecmaker]

Actually, OnLive will cost you more because you have to pay the subscription cost plus the cost of the game.

So the (only?) good thing with onlive is that if you got a good connection you can play epic games on a crappy computer.

[Ilyich Valken]

More or less, I suppose.

[BobTD]

Actually, OnLive will cost you more because you have to pay the subscription cost plus the cost of the game.


I dont think you pay the subscription cost plus pay for the game. Its says accounts are free and the $10 is for unlimited access to all their available games.

So the math breaks down this way:

$50 = new game

or

$50 = 5 months access to as many games as you want.

Certainly I suspect that certain games wont be available right away. But I dont see, if you had a very good connection, this would not be appealing. But from my point of view I have spent a lot more on steam alone than just $10 a month.

[Thomas_abeln]

I had some problems with Steam aswell lately, is are firewall not the problem?

[Havoc]

Only thing really appealing on OnLive! would be if you could play console games there. That would mean I could play console games on my computer :3 no more emulators needed.

And Steam is fine btw.