OnLive rumored to close service, entire staff reportedly laid off

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/17/3250066/onlive-cloud-gaming-service-closing-staff-laid-off

Kind of crazy (though guess it still hasn't been 100% confirmed). I was kind of skeptical at first, but seemed like they were really picking up steam here lately.

edit: Maybe someone tricked Fargo:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/17/breaking-employee-email-says-onlive-is-closing-its-doors-today/

 

Gamasutra has an independent source confirming the layoffs:
https://twitter.com/gamasutra/status/236550423585107968

Guess they could be laying off everyone, but not shutting down.

edit: Kotaku also seems to have a source that says something similar (bankruptcy planned?), but I don't like bringing attention to that site, so yeah.

 

OnLive is/was a service that provided for cloud-based gaming. Basically, you could play a game that normally would require a high-end PC, but have it playable on an old laptop or even smartphone/tablet. It was still in its infancy, but seemed like things were picking up quite a bit in the last 12 months or so. They didn't develop any RTS games, but they do offer some as part of their service (presumably, a service like this taking off could lead to more/better RTS games being made).


More updates:
https://twitter.com/martyn_williams/statuses/236564476462243840

He had a few other tweets following up on that.

 

IIRC, Joystiq isn't much better, although Kotaku specifically has bothered me ever since I first visited the site years ago (2005-2006ish maybe? around beginning of this generation). They don't seem to care about getting the facts right, but only getting attention and clicks. Totally cool to post a "Monster Hunter Vita Leak!" article, showing a screen from FRAPs of a cancelled game (not MH) developed in China. If they miss something that obvious, what do you think their track record is on things that might actually require some digging?

And that's after some huge improvements in journalistic integrity over the years (it used to be MUCH worse...like taking images from forum members, cropping them and not giving credit). I do like Stephen Totilo, but Kotaku is still a trash site IMO, despite his best efforts.

I prefer sites like Gamasutra in general. Although for actual news, I usually just go straight to the source.

 

I like the new, updated headline for the VentureBeat link I gave earlier:

Sounds like at least 50% have been laid off in a sudden move. A newly formed, unnamed company (as in, no name for the company has been created) has acquired its assets and all that. They may hire back some of the employees. The VentureBeat article talks a little more about all that, and Gamesutra also has a report saying something similar. Kotaku is probably reporting that OnLive was purchased by Square-Enix, after they cancelled Versus XIII.

 

I don't think this is a very good analogy at all. I'd compare it to CDs vs (heavily compressed) MP3s/cloud music services (with limited selection, technical issues, limited availability, and no real price advantage). I don't even think OnLive is cheaper/pricier than the "traditional" method (they sell their console for cheap, but you could also use their service on something you already own).

I think the idea is good...although I guess the idea wasn't really new. Only thing OnLive did was try to bring it to the market now instead of years from now, which I think is when most were expecting it to be viable. That idea...maybe not so good (especially if they hadn't planned for the huge costs necessary for the first 5 years or so). I think it actually did better than I expected, and got some decent publisher support. That said, I don't know how they've done financially. I assumed better than expected (given all the support they were getting), but this news certainly seems to contradict that. Certainly not cheap to build all this infrastructure, and even if it was doing better than expected, it would be difficult to pay for all that.

I think there is a future for this kind of service (just like other forms of services found in the cloud), but there are some huge technical and financial hurdles that need to be accounted for in order for it to take off (much more so than other cloud services).