Games as a Service

I watch and follow the YouTube channel called GameHut. It's run by Jon Burton of Traveler's Tales (Mickey Mania, Sonic 3D Blast, Lego [you name it]) and he does a great job of showing behind-the-scenes stuff from many of his games. He even did a really cool project where he developed a patch for Sonic 3D Blast and fixed some control issues and added Super Sonic, among other things. He is definitely a very clever programmer, especially skilled at working within the limitations of gaming hardware. His video on the SEGA logo for Sonic 3D Blast was enough to convince me of his ingenuity. Watch that here.

Today he released a video talking about how his original intent for the channel and the name of it was to launch a games-as-a-service platform for retro games. He cited piracy as a reason for this, and to give developers such as himself a cut of games being enjoyed by users. He talked about how his model was about downloading games, and then he found another company that was developing something similar, only streaming games instead. So after discussions, he agreed to invest money into the company and the service plans to release in just over a month using the name AntStream.

In a previous post I mentioned that I am currently subscribed to Xbox Game Pass as part of a prize package I won, so I am a user of games-as-a-service (I don't want to call it GaaS), but I wouldn't be if it weren't for winning the service for a year. Jon's AntStream apparently has 2000 games ready to play with more on the way. Much of these sound like super old ZX Spectrum games, but there are some other arcade and Sega Genesis games that will eventually be available. These will apparently stream with low latency, and even possibly be lossless with no compression artifacts to get in the way of the games.

2,000 games is a lot of content available to play, and certainly there will be something for everyone available. An available selection like that is not currently available with existing services to the best of my knowledge, especially in a streaming format. One potential problem with this level of service is when a player has to wade through the garbage just to find a good new game to play. Yes, that would happen with emulators and such, but this idea really harkens back to the days when you'd buy CD-ROM that claimed to have 101 games, only to discover they were all crap. 2,000 games is more than I'll bet many have in their collection, and with the overwhelming options, I suspect many will stick with the familiar (but that is their decision).

I doubt you'll see the likes of Popful Mail here. Instead, you're likely to see the same games you always see, and many games that are just no longer that great. Does anyone really love Back to Skool? Do you really lie awake at night wanting to play Minky Monkey? What about that forgettable game from Codemasters that you played that one time at your friend's cousin's house?

I want to discover great retro games, I really do, but I think this service might only appeal to those who were playing games in the late 70s and early 80s. Not only that, but how long will these games keep you entertained? I own Rare Replay and games such as Atic Atac and Lunar Jet Man are a chore. Sure, Gunfright was fun, but that was one in eight or so retro games from that time period that was actually fun and held my attention.

There real issue aside from quality is cost and the fact that it's yet another subscription. According to the GameHut trailer, if you get in on the Kickstarter, then you'll pay less than $0.25/day to play these games all you want. If "less than $0.25 per day" means $0.24 per day, and we figure a month being 30 days, then we're looking at $7.50/month. Yes, you can pay $7.50 per month to play a limited assortment of very old games as an alternative to piracy.

Now, it is at your convenience. You can play on your phone, computer, or whatever. Your saves will be available and it sounds like there will be challenges and things that will act as a bonus and alternative method of play. This is great for keeping older games fresh, and is the exact path that Rare Replay and the NES Remix game took. It works and it breathes new life into your old, dusty games. The options available to the user in terms of selection, playtime, and bonus material, may be worth at least giving the service a trial run.

One idea that I would love about this service is in bringing arcade games that have not been ported to consoles to various platforms. Games such as CarnEvil haven't seen a console port, so playing that would be a treat. The touch screen of portable devices might be good for light gun games like Virtua Cop, and could allow for a resurgence of the genre. Arcades are becoming more and more of a novelty in North America and bringing a wide selection of classic arcade games not available anywhere else would be very appealing to potential customers such as I. If these games were brought to mobile phones, for example, then they would certainly be of higher quality than most of the current mobile offerings. That would be a value proposition to entice me, and hopefully others.

Regardless, I'm certainly not subscribing to another service. I complained about Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon essentially being the new cable industry and that all the streaming services are just driving people back to piracy. I think this service will too. However, it is at the forefront of classic game streaming, and that is something to consider when supporting it. A service like this could spawn others, which would be good for those who demand this level of service.

On a final note, I hate that this project is on Kickstarter. I don't like Kickstarter in general, but this is a company that literally already has investors. It's coming out regardless of Kickstarter money, and it's just being used for presells. I'd rather have people put money toward projects that actually need funding and proof of audience such as Yooka-Laylee and Shenmue III. But whatever. If Kickstarter is going to become GameStop, then so be it. I guess someone needs to fill the coming void.

Watch the video here:

Please forgive any weird formatting of this article. I wrote it in my mobile browser and it didn't want to transfer to my computer.