OnLive Pricing Structure Revealed

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OnLive, a cloud-based gaming service currently open to a small group of early adopters, allows players to experience PC games through a special client that handles interaction with the game. The rendering and processing of the actual game occurs on machines owned by OnLive. Given a good Internet connection, netbooks could conceivably play graphics-intensive games.

While the OnLive service itself will run $4.95 a month, games are not included in this deal. How much will the games cost? Eurogamer has found a list of pricing for 19 games on the service. Options include purchasing the game for the duration of OnLive's current licensing agreement -- through June 17, 2013 -- or renting certain games for 3 or 5 days.

  • AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - $19.95 - Full Purchase
  • Assassin's Creed II - $39.99 - Full Purchase
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum - %6.99 / $4.99 - 5 days / 3 days
  • Borderlands - $29.99 / $8.99 / $5.99 - Full Purchase / 5 days / 3 days
  • Brain Challenge - $4.99 - Full Purchase
  • Colin McRae: DiRT 2 - Demo Only
  • Defense Grid Gold - $13.99 / $6.99 - Full Purchase / 5 days
  • F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin - $19.99 - Full Purchase
  • Just Cause 2 - $49.99 - Full Purchase
  • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 - Demo Only
  • Madballs in Babo: Invasion - $9.99 - Full Purchase
  • Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - $49.99 - Full Purchase
  • Puzzle Chronicles - $9.99 / $3.99 - Full Purchase / 3 days
  • Red Faction: Guerrilla - $19.99 - Full Purchase
  • Shatter - $8.99 - Full Purchase
  • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction - $59.99 - Full Purchase
  • Trine - Demo Only
  • Unreal Tournament III: Titan Pack - $19.99 / $6.99 / $4.99 - Full Purchase / 5 days / 3 days
  • World of Goo - $19.99 / $6.99 / 4.99 - Full Purchase / 5 days / 3 days

OnLive is playable on a PC or Mac. A set-top box is planned to allow for play on a television through a "MicroConsole". The service was even shown running on an iPad at E3 2010.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 22, 2010 1:03 PM

    "Options include purchasing the game for the duration of OnLive's current licensing agreement -- through June 17, 2013 "

    Awesome, so even when you buy it..you don't own it forever.

    • reply
      June 22, 2010 1:07 PM

      i wouldnt feel comfortable buying games off OnLive. much like i wouldnt have when Steam first showed up. however i believe Steam to be around for many many years and dont have any doubts buying games off the digital service.

      • reply
        June 22, 2010 1:14 PM

        The difference between OnLive and Steam is that Steam is a distribution agreement were OnLive is a licensing agreement (between the company and the publisher). With OnLive, even if you "buy" the game, you're limited to the time that OnLive has the license for the game, regardless if the company stays in business or not. With Steam and even XBLA, you have the game as long as the server is up. And, even in those cases, there are legal requirements for the content to be made available for a period of time after the service goes down. I've negotiated a few digital distribution agreements to know.

        • reply
          June 22, 2010 11:44 PM

          It seems that OnLive's game pricing was made by Bobby Kotick Jr. I do agree that the whole hardware probably has a high upkeep, but paying extra for temporary content that I cannot own is a publishers wet dream, nothing more.

    • reply
      June 22, 2010 1:19 PM

      wow - yeah that kinda sucks that you pay 100% full price but if the game suddendly gets removed from the service than ??? I'm guessing they would give you a credit.

      • reply
        June 22, 2010 2:18 PM

        I'd bet money there wouldn't be a credit.

    • reply
      June 22, 2010 1:36 PM

      Also, if your account is inactive for one year, your account and games list are erased from the system.

      • reply
        June 22, 2010 11:46 PM

        This is odd. If all the F2P MMOs did that, they could only talk about 10000 users instead of millions..

    • reply
      June 22, 2010 5:44 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        June 22, 2010 6:23 PM

        They can't promise that, because they aren't actually *selling* you anything. They're renting it to you, the same way Netflix streams movies. They have to have permission from the copyright holder to stream that data at you.

        They should really be legally barred from using the term "purchase" in any of their documentation.

        • reply
          June 22, 2010 8:21 PM

          That's probably why they're not pretending

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