dave-perry posts

Late last week, without much warning, the Gaikai online streaming game service finally showed to the public what it could do. The service let PC gamers try out streaming demos of several games, including some that until now didn't have PC demos at all including Spore, The Sims 3 and Dead Space 2.

With the service, led by famed game developer Dave Perry, now out in the open, Big Download cought up with him to get more info about Gaikai's future, how Perry feels about that other streaming game service OnLive and more.

Editors note: The interview was conducted just prior to GDC 2011 this week

After a couple of years of teases and months of closed beta testing, the Gaikai streaming PC game service is now officially live. The CEO of Gaikai, Dave Perry, announced that the service was open to anyone to try out on his official web site late on Friday.

The streaming service is concentrating only on limited game demos, at least for now (unlike the OnLive service which has full games to play). The official Gaikai web site is offering a streaming demo of Mass Effect 2 (access to the demo pops up on the right hand side of the site after a few seconds). Gaikai is also being used to demo other EA games such as Spore and The Sims 3 which didn't have traditional PC demos released for them. Most interesting is that Gaikai is the only place to play a PC demo of the recent sci-fi horror game Dead Space 2 (after you fill out a survey). We've played it and on our connection it's pretty smooth. There's also a way to try out the quasi-MMO game Second Life via a Gaikai connection.

On his web site Perry states that at GDC next week he will be demoing a Gaikai-powered game running inside a Facebook page. He also states that " ... we will show some really high-end, high-performance games running at 60hz with no work needing to be done by the publishers / developers."

The Gaikai streaming PC game service announced a couple of new people that will join the company's executive team. One is Robert Stevenson who is the company's new Senior Vice President of Interactive Entertainment. Stevenson has worked for many years in the game business including stints at Namco Bandai and Atari. The other new executive is Tim Wilson who has been named as Gaikai's Executive VP of Strategic Relationships. Wilson worked for 16 years at Electronic Arts including the Chief Technology Officer at EA' Redwood Shores studio.

Meanwhile we are still waiting for Gaikai to launch. You may remember that its CEO Dave Perry told our sister site Engadget that he was targeting a December 15, 2010 launch but that date has come and gone. He told us about a month ago that Gaikai decided to take the "difficult route by supporting every browser / operating system configuration (including Linux) in all countries."

[Via email press release]

Some of you may remember that our sister site Engadget did a hands-on preview of the upcoming Gaikai streaming PC game service a few weeks ago. It's CEO Dave Perry told them he was aiming to finally launch the service to the public on December 15 with the caveat that he wasn't making any promises on keeping to that date. It's a good thing he added that bit in because December 15 came and went without Gaikai's official launch.

Big Download emailed Perry himself to get an update on when Gaikai will be available to the masses. While he dodged our question on whether or not Gaikai would launch before the end of 2010 he did give us this general update:

Open Beta is going well. We took the difficult route by supporting every browser / operating system configuration (including Linux) in all countries. That said, progress has been good, no show-stoppers. We will continue this process for the time being as it's giving us time to set up the rest of the global network. (12 Countries live so far.)

Hope you are have a great Holiday!

Gaikai, the upcoming streaming PC game service, is letting more people try it out. In his personal web site Gaikai's CEO Dave Perry announced that on Sunday it begun sending out invites to folks who signed up to beta test the service. Perry calls it "Open Beta" but by our definition that means anyone can try Gaikai. The truth is that the service is sending out invites to people who have signed on to try out Gaikai.

Perry says that the response so far has been positive, quoting beta testers' messages like this one: "Just amazing , I'm a Linux user , i love enjoy my game under my OS. I really want use Gaikai it's really the new way for play without Windows , thank you make my day ." Perry himself says Gaikai will continue to send out invites in waves of 10,000 people until all current issues in the beta are fixed

One of the better known publishing names in games is no more once again for the second time inside a decade. Acclaim, which restarted as a free-to-play MMO after its first incarnation as a PC-console game publisher went bankrupt, is now also no more. The official Acclaim web site is now a bare-bones affair, stating that the MMO games under its watch are no longer available.

The first version of Acclaim started in 1987 as a PC and console publisher. It grew to become one of the largest US game publishers in the 1990s with a string of successful titles such as the Turok first person shooter series. However the first years of the 2000 decade saw a number of Acclaim games become critical and sales bombs. In 2004 the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and shut down entirely.

In 2006 the Acclaim name was used to launch an all new game publisher, this time with the theme of free-to-play MMO titles. The company managed to get well known game designer Dave Perry as its creative director for a while. In May 2010 the social networking game company Playdom acquired Acclaim and its games. However in July Disney acquired Playdom and apparently decided to shut down support for Acclaim's games. With the exception of the title 9Dragons, which will soon be published in the US by GamesFirst, none of Acclaim's games will apparently stay online.

[Via Massively]

While OnLive is now less than a month from launching its PC streaming game service, one of its rival is still securing money to launch a rival service. Today that company, Gaikai, announced that it has now secured over $10 million in funding from a variety of investors. Earlier this year it was revealed that the company had raised $5 million.

Gaikai, who has legendary game designer Dave Perry as its CEO, plans to launch the service in the US "soon". Unlike OnLive, which will charge $14.95 a month to use its service Gaikai plans to make its rival service free to use.

[Via email press release]

The second coming of Acclaim is now entering a new phase. This week the casual game publisher Playdom announced it has acquired the free-to-play MMO publisher and will now join Playdom's many development studios. Specific financial terms were not disclosed. Howard Marks, the now former CEO of Acclaim, will now run the studio for Playdom.

The new Acclaim was first launched in 2006 following the shut down of the original Acclaim company which published a number of well known PC and console titles before filing for bankrupcy in 2004. The new Acclaim developed and published a number of free-to-play games including 2Moons, 9Dragons and The Chronicles of Spellborn. At one time Acclaim had famed game designer Dave Perry as its chief creative officer. Perry has since left Acclaim to be the CEO of Gaikai, the upcoming PC game streaming service.

OnLive's announcement on Wednesday that their streaming online service will cost $14.95 a month when it launches (not including rental or full payment for the games) took a few folks by surprise. However the folks behind one of its main rivals Gaikai told our sister site Joystiq at GDC today that there will be no such monthly fees to use their own service.

As we reported earlier today, InstantAction.com is partnering with Gaikai to use their tech to offer streaming PC games that can be embedded to any web site. Gaikai's founders also said they will have streaming servers at a whopping 300 locations in the US. In addition they say they have got deals with local broadband providers to put in servers at another 900 locations nationally. But when will all this actually go live? Unlike OnLive, who said their service will launch on June 17, there's no word yet on Gaikai's launch date.

While the upcoming streaming PC game service OnLive remains in closed beta testing, one of its rivals has just receive an influx in new money. VentureBeat reports that Gaikai, announced just after OnLive's reveal in March 2009, has gotten $5 million in venture capital funding.

The funding was revealed in a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing but the notice did not mention specifics on who had offered the company their new funds. The company, co-founder by noted game developer Dave Perry, has been pretty silent of late. The service was previously scheduled to go into closed beta in Europe but there's no word on if the beta has actually started.