In March at the GDC conference company Onlive with a pompom announced the gaming service of the same name – the stream distribution service of the video transmitted using the patented data compression technology. Inviting everyone to play in Crysis with maximum settings on the MacBook Air and publishing a long list of "friendly" publishers ( Atari , Codemasters , Electronic Arts , Take-Two , Ubisoft ), the company went into the shadow. Open beta testing scheduled for the summer did not start: they began to accept applications only in September. And when we called them in August, the company representative said that the official launch of Onlive, planned for October-December, could be postponed for 2010 and showed us Onlive refused.
The famous game designer David Perry announced a similar service, Gaikai ("Gaikai"), immediately after Onlive. Gaikai is only a few people, they do not have loud patents, but beta testing is in full swing. And David, creative director of the online publication Acclaim , Investor of several Internet portals, which in the past worked on MDK , EarthWorm Jim And Sacrifice , I kindly agreed to demonstrate to us a “Gaikai” at home – so we became the first journalists who saw “Gaikai” in work.
I want everything to be honest
Without nerves, however, it was not: shortly before our meeting at the house at Perry – in the very center of California, in an elite cottage village with security at the entrance and a view of the Pacific Ocean – the Internet turned off for several hours. To our arrival, fortunately, everything worked.
We are sitting at the table in Perry's office. More precisely, at the tables: they are composed so that they form a square. David and I are sitting inside this square, and monitors are turned to us from all sides. There are nine of them here-this is not the case of the screenwriters of the video forces and some other incomprehensible devices. Everything is seized with wires. David launches Firefox 3.5 and connects to "Gaikai".
The last time you showed Gaikai to the general public on July 1, when you posted a video on your site with a demonstration of technology capabilities (www.DPERRY.COM/Archives/News/DP_BLOG/GAIKAI _-_ VIDEO). What has changed over the past months? From the main menu, I see, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare disappeared, but the Civilization 4 and Second Life appeared.
Games are added at the request of publishers and developers who want to see Gaikai in action. The developers of “civilization” adore, so now we have three of them – the game itself and two addons. Second Life installed because one of the investors wanted to look at it. And we really had a deme of Call of Duty 4, but we bombed it in some ways. Gaikai is not perfect for the shooters, and we temporarily removed the game, now we are finishing. I want everything to be honest.
And for a long time you have to install a game on your server? WITH Mmorpg, probably, is more troubles than with single -user games?
No, approximately the same. With Second Life managed per day … Recently, by the way, the server was replaced. The old one was 600 km from here, in Fremont, the response time was 21 millisecond. The new one stands in Irvin, 33 km, and the response time is 9 ms. True, my provider still sends data to Irvin through Los Angeles, so the road is back and forth not 66 km, but 320 km,-David clicks on the Demo tab and loads World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
After moving to Irwin, everything worked twice as quickly?
No, the winnings are much less. But in any case, we try to watch the video on YouTube in such a resolution (1024×768), we would have been waiting for each next frame in a minute. Streaming graphics like ours will seriously save time for players – WoW has already loaded on the remote server, not even ten seconds have passed. David chooses his character and goes to one of the high -level locations. He says that his hero has not yet grown up to this zone, but David received a “rinse” from Blizzard – to show local beauties. The low -polygonal dungeon of the Wow of Gaidka does not cause difficulties.
Your main character?
No. When the World of Warcraft just went out, I lit up after him until four in the morning. A week, another, third … I realized that he would bring me to the grave! I had to tie it, – the Wow Perry replaces just as quickly loads SPORE. There are no saved games, and we look at pastoral landscapes at the beginning of the second stage of the simulator of evolution – the survival of the creature on land. Landscapes are given “GAKAI” easily, there is no character noticeable to the eye of the fall of frames per second when the character is moving. Background music is not interrupted.
– When we first represented Gaikai to possible partners, they told us: all this, of course, is wonderful, but there will be no work with racing games, for “realistic” driving a too fast response from the server is required. As it turned out, the “realistic” implies a car far from ideal control, for example, drifts, so that the response delay is practically not felt, – Perry leaves the Spore, switches at all Mario Kart 64 And invites you to ride. During the arrival, the delay is felt on the verge of perception.
And the full -screen mode can be turned on?
Here and so resolution 1024×680, stretch the picture for the entire 30-inch monitor before the resolution of 1920×1200 will be dishonest in relation to the game. "Cards" under the window regime was made. Come on better Lego Star Wars Let's try – and we try. On the toy Jedi "Gaikiya" is enough with a margin: the number of personnel per second does not fall below thirty – this, by the way, is a standard for consoles. Graphics of traffic consumption of high settings ranges from 1.2 to 1.5 Mbps. Perry says that the thickness of the Internet channel is enough for someone else to use the Internet in the house. Launch Mario Kart from my laptop through a wireless channel, however, refuses – is ready only from your netbook. Motivates this with the need to introduce certain "special codes".
– I agree, I agree: I have a high -speed channel. Suppose the connection is much worse – Perry changes the settings of graphics to low. The picture in a visible way does not deteriorate, but the load on the channel drops to 0.5-0.8 Mbps. Earlier, David stated that the average game of Gaikai does not require the speed of data transfer above 1 Mbps. It is like the truth. “If you look at the statistics of Steam, the monitor of the average American user PC has a resolution of 1280×1024,” Perry explains, “we are guided by it and focus on it.
Space overload
Perry turns on Eve Online and shows an introductory video. The video does not brake. After loading the game, everything works flawlessly, the only sign of streaming broadcasting is periodically flickering stars, but if David had not suggested to me, I would not notice them. Since only changes in the picture are transmitted through the Internet, traffic consumption varies depending on what is happening on the screen-from 0.7 to 1.2-1.5 Mbps.
I myself am amazed at the speed of the modern Internet! – exclaims David. – the potential of the superbust construction of data is limitless. Let's go to Kongregate.Com , This is a large Flash-IGR portal, 17 million people use it.
In every second interview, you remember him!
So the numbers grow once from once. Here are their most popular game, Warlords: Call to Arms. She has 10.9 million downloads. Only a few clicks with a mouse are enough for launch – as with Eve Online on Gaikai, while my “Eve” even loads faster than me! Think: on Kongregate four dozen games that were loaded 2 million times. Earlier, Eve Online could not even dream of a two millionth audience, and with Gaikai this is a very real prospect – everything that Perry says, he speaks for the publisher. This is the main difference between GAIKAI from Onlive. Onlive will sell the opportunity to play the game without installing it on your computer – and players will pay for this opportunity. Perry is selling the opportunity to give a game without installing it – and the publishers will pay for this. Feel the difference?
And what audience do you focus on?
Gaikai is more likely not for hardcore players who are ready for the sake of HD resolutions and high FPS values to load and install games for several hours. I'm showing you Kongregate – there is our audience. Negeimers are sitting on flash portals who are not ready to bother with the installation of client games, but they want to play. Previously, they bypassed large projects, and now, I think, they will be pleasantly surprised by them.
To the question of HD permits. What is the "nasty" limit?
Permission can be any, the publisher will determine it at his discretion. From us, many, apparently, are waiting for us to follow the ONLive path – we will create our own game portal. But we only plan to license the technology of data transfer to publishers so that they can show the “product” on their sites. The more permission they make, the more people will play on the site and fewer people will buy a full version in the store.
Game YouTube want to create?
When they just started to work on the “Gaika”, then under such a slogan communication with partners began: “We will be for games for what YouTube has become for videos”. YouTube does not oblige you to watch the video only at home, but allows you to integrate the video into any web page. You would watch many videos if every time it was necessary to download them entirely or register on the website of each author? But the game portals are right now and require. It will be different soon. The publisher will be able to pay for an advertisement for his game, say, on Igromania.ru , Buy server capacities from us and publish you on your Gaikai Banner website Tropical Wins sister sites, which people will click on and immediately go into the game. Immediately!
And then what is the difference from Onlive?
If you are the head of the EA, you have in your hands Madden NFL 11 and you want everything to play it tomorrow, then Onlive will allow everyone to play it tomorrow, but your advertising budget will go to attract players to the Onlive website. And the games presented in Gaikai can be posted on any site.
But for Onlive stand Autodesk, Warner Brothers, Maverick Capital, large independent publishers; Otoy supports AMD. And who is financially supported you?
Let's just say that many money offered us. But we are looking for a strategic partner, an alliance with which in itself will be the most important industrial event. Our goals are simple: we want the players to forget the concept of "patch". We want to contribute to the popularization and distribution of games, increase the revenue of publishers and developers and ensure that they all use Gaikai to promote their projects. If the case burns out, we will find incredible success. And if we try to compete with monsters like Microsoft , Sony And Nintendo , They will crush us. Onlive, for example, is trying to compete with them, so on it you will never see your favorite games released by these companies – apparently, Gaikai will not be a real revolution, but velvet, bloodless. In Gaikai, a single network is not planned, where you will have your own account. Gaikai will only take server capacities to publishers so that publishers unscrew the shows of new games on them – that's all. Compared to Onlive, this is an easy development path. Onlive will have to buy a whole park of powerful servers to be prepared for any peak load and withstand the onslaught and Diablo 3 , And GTA 5. Perry will conclude contracts with publishers, purchasing servers as needed.
Distracted from HD permits, David loads Need for Speed: Prostreet. The “Gaikai” can quench the thirst for speed, but so far only with hasty sips: the number of personnel per second during a minute sprint in the desert drops to 15-20 several times. Sensation as from playing the latest shooter on a computer two years ago: tolerant, but I want more. But the Adobe Photoshop CS4 “Gaikai” opens in a one and a half seconds – you will not. David especially notes this:
– Pay attention to how good our compression and data transmission algorithm is. While nothing changes on the screen until we move the mouse, we open the menu and so on, not a single byte is transmitted via the Internet.
Those who want to post non -game programs on the Haikai already?
So far, we are mainly negotiating with game companies, but I see no reason to limit ourselves only by games – the next project in line on an impromptu demo – Civilization 4. The game works fine. Introductory credits, however, twitch. “It's not us, this is the game itself is to blame,” Perry is in a hurry. – Our servers are much more powerful than the "civilization" is required. But sometimes we show projects to players exactly the same as the developers released them!.. I bought it, but I don’t play – I know that I will sit down until the morning.
Arcade machine gun in a quarter
For a long time you have planned this technology?
Rather, I have long known to be able to play games that you can’t afford. When I was a child, I could not buy myself for $ 5000 an arcade machine, but I could play, having paid a quarter. In some way, we, as players, are now returning to this. There are servers for tens of thousands of dollars that we cannot and do not want to buy, there are games for which we are not obliged to pay in order to understand if we need them. Gaikai publishers are beneficial because the value of attracted players is higher than the costs of paying for servers.
And at what point the idea outgrown into the search for investors?
A couple of programmers from the Netherlands contacted me, they talked about their developments in the field of cloud computing and asked to attract attention to them. So I attract, – David laughs cheerfully.
And you have a lot of people in the state now?
We, three founders, and ten more people from around the world. We work remotely.
Follow the Mantra "to outsour everything that you can"?
Nowadays, the world is so arranged: no matter where the talent lives, the main thing is to find and hire it. After that, the difference in time zones is no longer a problem.
How closed beta testing is moving?
We have 26-27 thousand beta testers, this is more than enough for all our needs. We balancing the distribution of loads on processors and video cards. Now we are buying servers for stress testing. We expect that the power of each of our server will be enough to process data from seven users. Open beta testing can begin in California before the end of the year, the launch of the service is expected in the winter of 2010-here Perry offers to try what, according to him, no one has yet: to conduct a multi-user race at Mario Kart 64 from his computer and netbook through Gaikai, that is, increase the load on the home Internet channel. I get Mario, Dave takes Princess Pich. The race takes place without excesses: Mario wins, there is no response delays.
Now you have only one data center for the whole California. And how much is required for the country? Representatives of Onlive claim that they will have enough five.
The question is how fast the connection should be. If our date-center is transferred from Irwin to Los Angeles, then there will be a response not at 9 ms, but in 7 or 8. The delay for living in Northern California will already be 20 ms. On the one hand, the difference is almost not noticeable, on the other, this is not our method. We conclude transactions with local providers throughout the state, so that in every town there is a data center.
The secret of success
At the beginning of 2007, you and ACCLAIM announced the development of an online game under the code name Top Secret. The project was widely publicized, as you attracted game volunteers without experience in developing games to work. They promised to give the position of director for the development of the best assistant. The winner was named in the summer of 2008, but the project itself never came out. Top Secret experiment can be called success or failure?
The development of such a large -scale project by players was more complicated than I expected. Immediately after the announcement, 60 thousand players signed up for the developers. After several months of active 20 thousand there were left, several teams worked on the game, one even completed the demo version. But the quality left much to be desired, and we did not want to release a bad game; If I had a chance to conduct this experiment again, then we would make a game on a flash, where everything is much easier.
Nevertheless, Top Secret was an unconditional success for us to search for talents. Our winner, Mike deputy deputy from Miluoka, is a big fan Guitar Hero. Now he works in Acclaim and produces the project Rockfree , Actually multiplayer Guitar Hero. Two other distinguishing in Top Secret, Paul Lipskob and Matt Edwards, they will manage the game site Thefanhub.Com , which I finance. He is still at the stage of beta version, is ready somewhere by 60%.
Finally, Michelle Montier from Top Secret received the post of head of the localization department of Acclaim. We suggested that her convince players to localize the project 9dragons independently, without hiring localizers, – and she managed! For the in -game currency, the players transferred us hundreds of thousands of lines of the text even once, but three times, after which our translators chose the best option. Over time, we plan to introduce a user translation system into all games Acclaim.
Acclaim has a lot of people employed? I called you to the office, and there is only an answering machine.
80 people, part in Hollywood, many in India, where the staff is smart and cheap. The company’s corporate strategy is simple: do not spend money on anything that does not bring money. Whether the benefits of the secretary justify the costs of excess workplace? We are not sure.
And in microtransaration you believe?
I really believe!
Well, how, with all your employment, you managed to write a 1040-page book on the David Perry on Game Design: a Brainstorming Toolbox?
I managed! – David clicks his fingers. – Five years have gone. I wrote notes for a long time, and once I realized that I myself would never get together to write a book, and asked a friend, Russell Demaria, systematize them. The book is still not over-the second edition seems to be 2000 page.
Are there really no sensible books on the topic?
A lot of books say something like “Be sure to have good characters in the game, they are very important”. And all as you want, so spin with this. They may also indicate that good characters are in such and such games, but this also has little benefit. How to create a good character? It is necessary to carry out brainstorming. I once held a seminar with students, invited them to come up with a unique, before never seen weapons. It turned out to be expectedly complicated. While they thought, I prepared a list of all kinds of ways to die and after some time invited them to supplement it. Immediately everyone had ideas! You understand what I am? I wrote a book because I want to inspire people. By the way, I also had to pay for her publication.
But now you have already achieved everything in your life, probably?
Good question. Maybe I'll be back to programming. In general, as soon as I have interesting ideas, I immediately begin to realize them. I love working on cool technologies. I remember how we showed Sacrifice amazed to the public, many breathed breathing – Perry dreamily leans back on the back of his chair. – For the sake of such moments, it is worth living.