I was always dubious about OnLive. I wanted to be an early adopter, but it wasn’t until 2011 when I finally registered and even then I only did so because I got a free game, LEGO Batman.
I’d already pretty much completed LEGO Batman on the Xbox 360, so I wasn’t really that bothered about playing it again. One thing I found out was the stream quality improved if you used a wired connection instead of wi-fi, but I found myself watching people play more than actually playing.
I wasn’t willing to put any money into a cloud-based streaming service, one reason was that I didn’t have a way of keeping the game that I bought. You didn’t get a physical copy or a chance to download and back-up any of the games on the service, you were literally just buying the license to play it.
With Steam and even your console digital library, you can download and back-up software and play them offline. Due to the fact you streamed the games bought on OnLive, there was nothing to download. Imagine if you had sunk £100’s into OnLive, you’re now left with nothing.
This is the unfortunate realisation of people who did are now facing. The difference between paying £34.99 for a game on OnLive to on Steam, but that opens up the argument of what if your system isn’t powerful enough to play the game. Granted, that’s where OnLive shined as you didn’t need a beefy spec computer to play the latest games.
It was only a few years ago the rumour about OnLive shutting down floated around Twitter which then made it on to the rest of the internet. Now it seems it has come to fruition, so was PlayStation in talks with OnLive back then and that email was a pre-emptive strike?
The only OnLive games I had were free ones. One was LEGO Batman and I can't even remember the others, I think there were 2 others…
— Darren ᴀᴄᴇᴍᴀɴ Harris (@MGaceman) April 3, 2015
I just never got into it and thought it a strange way to play games. I understand that if ever Steam went the way of the Dodo, I’d lose everything I have on there, but I would hope they would give you the chance to download and back-up your library with enough time for people to buy enough storage for their needs.
If you have a Press account, well I guess it’s no loss to you since you get all the games for free anyway, but it’s pretty devastating to someone who has taken the time and money to build up an extensive collection.