First Gaikai demo shows WoW and EVE played via browser
by James Egan 
Jul 1st 2009 at 5:00PM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items, Browser
Gaikai is a new game streaming service that's currently in development, which was first announced at GDC 2009 (and later was apparently previewed by game publishers at E3 2009.) We've since mentioned Gaikai a few times at Massively, and how the service could bring MMOs (and other games) to devices like netbooks that don't have adequate graphics capabilities to run these titles. Gaikai will use "Streaming Worlds" technology to do all the graphics crunching on remote servers and then stream games to your computer via a web browser. In effect, you're playing the game as a video stream. No client install required, no patching needed.
Given the reactions we've seen from gamers in our own comments and elsewhere on the web, skepticism abounds. Perhaps seeing is believing though, as Gaikai's David Perry has put out a video demo of the service today, explaining Gaikai to viewers as he plays several games, namely World of Warcraft and EVE Online. No doubt there will still be skepticism, but it's good to get a first look at the service. Perry makes a few details about the demo and the service itself clear on his blog: the data travel distance in the demo is 800 miles; this is a (non-fiber) home cable connection; it works over wi-fi and with netbooks lacking 3D graphics cards; any clicking sounds heard are only from Perry's wireless headset mic.
We've got a video embed of the Gaikai technology demo for you below, where you can see World of Warcraft and EVE Online played via a browser:
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nob1e said on 5:15PM 7-01-2009
My first question would be, how's the lag? It seems like a cool piece of software and if it lets people play WoW at work it will immediately become golden.
Reply
MCRaider said on 5:49PM 7-01-2009
If they could get compaines like Adobe on board that would be great. Using that kind of software at home and not having to pay a ridiculous amount sounds great to me.
I would defiantly pay for this service if a subscription type system was offered. Like nob1e said, as long as lag is not an issue playing games like Mario Kart and many other titles would be great.
Reply
Fizzl said on 7:34AM 7-02-2009
Adobe are the kings of bloated and buggy software, leave them out of this please!
Zed Fontaine said on 5:50PM 7-01-2009
Never mind at work, I can play Wow on my tiny notebook. Amazing. I do indeed hope this isn't some vapor wear, cause this seems like web 3.0 to me.
Reply
Jaeden said on 6:07PM 7-01-2009
Seems like this isn't half as thought out as OnLive is - although the technology, I think, is the future of gaming. In fact in their FAQs they talk about how they don't worry about high end servers and delivering cutting edge response times in order to keep the cost low. However, that is what is exactly needed in order to play games at a quality resolution and response time. Without it, it would hurt the game play of even games that are over 10 years old like Mario Kart 64.
Also, I'm a little bit worried about the legitimacy of this product. They had a private server of WoW on there as well as a Nintendo game. I have a hard time believing that Nintendo would allow emulators to run their games and reinforce a product that can possibly make their system obsolete.
My hope still rests with OnLive. And as far as MMO's go, my biggest concern about clouding is addons. They obviously won't allow you to install your own - that goes against the way that this works.
Reply
Sean said on 10:38AM 7-02-2009
I very much doubt that was a private WoW server. If you noticed, the Midsummer Fire Festival was occurring as he shot the video. To my knowledge, world events like that are often not emulated on private servers. Moreover, the video must have been shot fairly recently as the event ends in a few days and started a week and a half ago.
nstud32 said on 7:32PM 7-01-2009
It's a proof of concept, what you're seeing isn't what's going to go live commercially. Don't be stupid.
Reply
max said on 8:17PM 7-01-2009
That's the future right there. Hopefully the near future. I can't wait to tell my kids about the 'old days' when I had to drive to Best Buy to buy all my games! I'm skeptical, but the more I see of this the more hyped I get.
Reply
Zediker said on 9:33PM 7-02-2009
What i find interesting is that people are still skeptical that technology like this will work. All the key pieces already exist, HD streaming - Check (Netflix / Xbox Live / PSN), Server Based Game Processing - Check (Any MMO), Audio Streaming - Check (been around since the early 90s), Cloud Computing / Virtualization - Check (Amazon EC2, etc.). All the pieces work, its just a matter of making them work together.
Reply
Sam said on 9:36PM 7-01-2009
I'd consider playing an MMO like EVE on this. with that, you're just targetting and activating modules.
But playing nearly any group pve game, ie raiding - or any pvp, be it arena in WoW, an FPS like Quake or TF2...I couldn't stand it.
Because in those games, you depend on knowing how your computer will perform, and what your latency to the game server is. I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable playing when I don't know anything about average framerates, and how stable the connection is.
Besides, doesn't this stream at 30fps? no matter what? disgusting.you miss out on all the little details with a constant 30 fps ALTHOUGH - 30 constant IS better than 30-60+ spiking.
Reply
drmsucks said on 9:37PM 7-01-2009
Yeah, that's the future, more reasons for game companies to sell you services/subscriptions instead of products that you actually own and control.
I can't believe people think this is a good thing, its a blatant greed move, cloaked in marketing-speak.
If this is the future of gaming, I'll happily go back to all the books on my nightstand.
Greedy bastards.
Reply
SgtBaker said on 11:52PM 7-01-2009
I kinda get your vibe. I used to think like that as well.
But you know, I don't want to own stuff anymore. I don't want to have yet another piece of plastic disc at home. I don't want to get into the CD-DVD.-BlueRay-Whateverthenextformatis. I don't want to be buying and re-buying my collections.
Same goes for music and films - I'd like a streaming service(s) that has everything I need. So that I can pick whatever I want to listen/watch/play freely - for a monthly subscription, if necessary.
And I guess same would go for digital books - except that there are no viable digital readers available (where I live) yet. Damned Amazon, get on with the international Kindle...
I appreciate the "I want my disk-I bought it" and the non-drm viewpoints, but personally I'm done with it - I don't want to own more "stuff". I want to consume digital goods digitally - and having them streamed to you means you don't even have to worry about local storage. Win-win to me.
Sean said on 10:36AM 7-02-2009
Well I'll save myself a couple grand by not building such a beast of a computer for my next upgrade and instead indulge in these services. Seems like a good value proposition when you put it in those terms.
diogo3martins said on 9:59AM 7-02-2009
Actualy I'm more concerned about the hardware stuff than anything. If I get it right, with this program streming the games and programs directly to my machine I'll don't need the cutingedge graphic cards or the most powerfull processor anymore. Just a good speed conection and I'm done. If thats true, what would companys like Nvidia and Intel have to say about it?
Reply
Jaeden said on 12:17PM 7-02-2009
The one that he clicked on wasn't the private server - rather the one in the upper left (with the vanilla wow picture of the NE girl). The one he clicked on was labeled "World of warcraft The Burning Crusade (US)"
Reply
Rambie said on 5:04PM 7-02-2009
The resolution was kinda small, 1280x1024 or maybe even 1024x768, based of how small EVE looked.
WOW without a few mods is annoying, there was more WOW icons than just the one, so maybe they'll make a few different icons that launch the most popular mods in sets.
Reply