OnLive is a pipedream

I don’t even like the concept that Steve Perlman is trying to showoff at the GDC, but more on that later.  In case you don’t know what OnLive is, it’s a new video game service where you don’t need to use real expensive hardware to play your games. Rather than buying an expensive console to render all your pretty eyecandy on screen, OnLive’s servers will do all the heavy CPU/GPU number crunching for you, and simply send you a compressed video feed. All with little to no lag, and HD quality, and it will seem like you’re playing the game on your own PC/Console.

First, everyone who are experts at video compression/encoding are crying “bullshit” about this concept.  OnLive talks about how it has massive super server farms that will handle all of this, so that it can be done in as little as one millisecond from the moment the player press a button on the controller, to when you see those results on screen.  Having a gigantic rendering server farm to do all of this sounds fine and dandy, but how is a small cigarette box sized device going to be decode that video feed that quickly if it took huge server farm to encode it in the first place?

All encoding (video and audio) needs extra buffer time to compress sufficiently to fit though the pipes, before it can start displaying it.  Your mp3 player does this, your DVR does this, your DVD and BluRay player does this.  So how exactly is this supposed to work properly on a “live” video game where things are changing every fraction of a second? A video game isn’t predictable, unlike a pre-recorded video where it’s already known what the next frame will show.  When you run a video codec on a video file, it takes into consideration what the next frame will show in relation to the previous frame, as sometimes many frames in advanced.  Often video codecs only change a small portion of the screen at any given time, since a scene’s background may not change.   Even with live TV broadcast that isn’t pre-recorded still requires several seconds of delay time before it even hits viewers TV screens (not to mention the extra time they put in for censoring)   Also the encoded sound is also another issue that plays into this latency/real-time stuff, and trying to sync audio and video in real time all in one millisecond is mind numbing, considering it’s probably rendering 30 frames a second, minimum 24fps (movie film speed).

What you see during a video game isn’t predictable. The player has control of the so-called “camera” and the player is the director.  This means the codec will have to render the entire screen (full screen) many many times as the player looks around and changes the view.  Or when the player gets shot at, monsters jump at the player, explosions go off, etc. etc.  The codec will not know what the next frame will be to optimize and anticipate the compression method to use next. If it tries to anticipate the next frame, it might be wrong (or show on-screen artifacts) and start a whole new full screen rendering, which will defiantly add to the magical 1ms delay.

This might work if the player just stands in one position the whole time, but that makes a boring game.  The only way this can really work is if they did little to no actual compression of the video, so there is no depredation to the video quality.  After all OnLive states you need at LEAST a 1.5mbit Internet connection to just get standard definition video quality, and 5+mbit connection for 720p HD. So this means we will have to LOSE video quality just to play our games that we are already playing at 1080p.  If they are using very little compression, it makes sense to me since that reportedly OnLive has been in  “stealth” development for seven years.  Seven years ago we BARELY had enough broadband penetration to stream chunky Youtube videos.  So OnLive was probably just sitting on thier hands all this time waiting for ISPs to deliver faster broadband.

<sarcasm>
Ya know I’ve been working on cold fusion for the past 15 years, I’m just waiting on someone else to improve a different technology so my work can be closer to completion.
</sarcasm>

Now back to the real issue I have with this concept.  This will remove the need to buy games on any media.  OnLive is all about a subscription service you pay for (perhaps by the hour) and play your games. It’s not just multiplayer games, but also single player games.  I just don’t like the idea that I’m paying someone a fee for every hour I play a single player game like BioShock, or Fallout 3.  I can understand that for a multiplayer game, but not when it’s a single player game, and I shouldn’t have to be pressured to finish my game because my time is about to run out.  I should be able to buy a game for $50 and play it any time, and as often as I like with out incurring more fees on a game that I already consider to be overpriced.  I also just don’t like being dependent on my ISP, because if my ISP is having a bad day and goes offline, I can’t play any of my games, including SINGLE PLAYER games.

I think the real reason Steve Perlman is promoting this is the fact that if this concept works, video game piracy would disappear.  As a matter of fact so would the pre-used game market would die (like GameStop), since you will not purchase the games on discs anymore.  So you know gaming companies, and publishers will want to endorse, and pump in HUGE amounts of capital into OnLive to get it off the ground, and promote the hell out of it.

Afterall this was introduced at GDC, which is only for game DEVELOPERS, not common game consumers like us.  I’m quite sure he’s hyping this to entice investments from rich people, and game developers and publishers who still have deep pockets even in this economic climate. Feeding promises to game publishers with something that could end piracy, and aftermarket resales of games.  In this economic climate, this could be just an opertunity for Perlman to get a ton of capital he can then sit on, while waiting for ISPs to improve broadband speeds to home users in another seven years.  Sure, by then we will all have 10terabit internet connections, and then this concept will work!

I hope this dosen’t work.  Common sense tells me it won’t, even if broadband became so fast and ubiqudus in the future, it still dosen’t seem right. It’s like big brother watching over everything, and you have no privacy, and closing out indie game developers from ever getting into this market.

I just don’t want to be a gamer slave to OnLive.

Only 5% of SL is of an “Adult” nature

Obviously LL’s definition of adult content is very narrow, or that SL grid is a lot bigger than I thought it was.  It is amazing to see how much SL has grown in the past five years since Beta ended, but I’ve always seen tons of “adult” content almost everywhere I’ve gone.  But then again I’m almost always going to such places anyway when do explore around for new places.

One thing to keep in mind though is even when I do find an obvious adult/mature area to check out, usually the overly adult content on that land is hidden high up in the sky, or it’s has it hasn’t been built yet.  So the majority of land owners already respect the fact that residents, as they explore, don’t want to see adult pornographic images, huge statues of figures with giant cocks, and tits.  And plus skypads/homes help give one more privacy from those wondering avatars since you can’t fly past the cloud level with out some assistance from a script.

As a matter of fact places like the Shemale Sex Garden had a lot of complaints from it’s neighbors telling the owner to “cover up” all the blatant adult/pornographic materials that is displayed there (since everything is at ground level). So that anyone looking towards that area from their land won’t see it.  Apparently if a enough of your neighbors complain about it, the Lindens can make you change it.  though what ended up happening was the owner used giant prims to cover the place up, which works, but looks absurdly ridiculous with giant over sized prims all over the place like a Lego set gone apeshit. Though I think that was the point, to make it worse than what it already was.

Five percent still seems extremely low, compared to the reputation that SL has. That includes all private owned island estates, not just mainland. If you just counted mainland, then it’s only 3% at most according to whatever measurements LL has used to determine that.  Then they said 95% is of PG, or Mature content.  Well that’s simply what the sims are flagged as.  There are far fewer PG sims than anything else, but a mature sim doesn’t mean adult content.  However isn’t a “PG” sim a bit pointless to have when you need to be 18 years old to have an account in SL?  If you’re 18, you don’t need Parental Guidance (PG); as if your parents are technical enough to know what the hell you’re doing anyway?  As for teens (high school ages 14-18), do they really want or even need guidance from their parents too?  As if they are some how unable to cope with seeing pornographic images these days when it’s so easily obtained from Google image searches?  When I grew up in the 80s, all I had was access to my father’s stash of porno mags in his bedroom, and I handled it very well just using one hand.

As for the adult verification stuff. I did adult-verify my self about two months ago, and it was completely plainless and instant.  As an American citiczen, I simply entered in the last four digits of my Social Security number, my full name, and that was it.  I didn’t have to fully disclose my information over the internet that could have been compormised.  Now anyone living outside of the USA will probably have issues using this since many laws in Europe ban them from transmitting senstitive personal information like this over the internet, encrypted or not.  But LL also seems to be allowing the use of credit card informaiton as another means of verification, which kina defeats the point of adult verification anyway.

A new era of segregation; pack your shit folks!

The latest of the line of bullshit from the ever-wise minds at Linden Labs is making a new attempt at “saving the kids” from the evils of adult content. When will these people just give up?

Basically they want to move landowners containing adult content into a different group of sims, and separate them from the non-adult ones.  This is called segregation, yet LL is doesn’t use that word.  They want to uproot everyone, and move them so some other group of sims that has been deemd as “adult content” and keep them seperate from the rest of the grid so users won’t accidently wonder into land that has giant 10 foot tall cocks, and adverts for giant boobs, and images of nudity, etc.  OMG we must protect the children’s eyes!  Thing is, who the hell logs into SL NOT to find adult content? If you don’t want that, login to There.com and watch a bunch of tweens running around saying OMG! ad nasium over voice chat.  But I digress.

This will not apply to island owners, but landowners who reside on the mainland. The basic idea behind this so someone who’s exploring a “pg” friendly sim, won’t wonder around and find adult content.

They will probably force these land owners to pack their shit up, and move out. Force them to acquire NEW land wherever LL chooses to segregate them at, make them totally rebuild their establishments.  LL will probably just allow a landrush to occur, causing a lot a chaos as to who ends up with what land. I doubt they will simply pick up someone’s land, as-is, and let them put it back the way it was before.  Places like the Shemale Sex Palace, and Sex Garden are owned by two different owners.  They are interconnected with each other to create the place as we know it now.  This will end up splitting and fragmenting that area up, and it will no longer be the same. Assuming either land owner want to BOTHER doing this, after they have been uprooted like this.  And it could take weeks for some establishments to rebuild, possibly loosing sales.

Their blog post also talks about how they will now be able to let users search w/o adult content.  Umm.. we can already DO THAT, by simply unchecking the “include adult content” box in search (the old search, not the crappy useless web search).  They also want to make it so that if you’re “verified” you won’t be able to search for adult content, nor even teleport to such a place. This is especially bad since if a noob isn’t able to SEE what’s available till AFTER they pay for membership, or just buying some L$, they probably never will.  The majority of noobs want to get on.. find someone, have virtual sex, and then log out.  If they can’t do that anymore, then SL will have a hard time keeping their new users occupied long enough to want to pay for more of it.

This is also where “adult verification” rears it’s ugly head YET again. However they also made a point that credit card/payment info verification will ALSO be used to allow users to explore adult areas.  Now what the hell is wrong with this?  Wasn’t the whole POINT of “Adult verification” was the fact that having a credit card doesn’t always mean the card older is 18 years old?  Duh?

Why don’t they just segregate the non-adult content land owners, and move them elsewhere? There’s a lot FEWER of these types and less likely to tare everything up.  Why must they focus on the adult content users, which has to be a huge majoirty of what goes on in SL.  This tastes too much like discrimination, considering the fact the majority of SL’s economy is adult entertainment.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some overly-moralistic right-wing (I know better, so should you!) conservative bible thumping, tight-asses are involved in this.

So what was the point the point of having (PG) and (Mature) sim in the first place way back like 7-8 years ago?  Why didn’t LL simply lay out newer Mature and PG sims already segregated over these years as the grid grew, rather than the randomness they had allowed to occur?  Why do land owners already have the ability to flag their land as having adult content, as well as setting permissions allowing/denying based on criteria such as payment info, and adult verification, if they have to keep putting up with more and more restrictions that don’t work?  Why must they keep pushing this bullshit on such a vast majority of their user base that makes a huge bulk of the money LL makes?

I can understand why they want to segregate.  I mean really it would be nice to wonder around outside the Shemale Sex Palace, and find more deviant areas, sexy shops, groups of horny people and so forth, rather than the boring crap I see now.  Often I see empty lots, or elabrate homes with no one seems to be using.  Shrines to Budah.  Small shops selling crap no one wants. Random lots with just random junk in it since the land owner is a total noob and is clueless.

Thanks to the lack of any forethought of Linden Labs, we have to endure more control tricks.  But keep in mind they are making this an open wide discusstion in the forums, which most people don’t bother to read.  But the people who do read and respond will probably knock this down to the point where it’s not going to be very effective like Adult Verification was.