Thoughts on BFG streaming games? (BigFish Unlimited)

[igamedev]

I always wondered how BFG would stay alive in the changing marketplace. Looks like they're making the move to streaming games instead of having to download them. Tried it out and it works fine.

Thoughts? I wonder how much they'll pay per play to the dev. And I also wonder what the technical requirements are for devs.

[lennard]

What's the difference between streaming from BFG or letting folks play Flash games directly on my site?

1. They have more traffic.
2. They take a big cut and my content works to increase their traffic position.

I'm a curmudgeon, I think I'll continue to go it alone and hope to land a title on Steam one day.

[jcottier]

BFG is also getting big on mobile (ios/android). Like Lennard, I like to do it on my own but I did try to publish Anka on iPad with them. I was please with the return, it is hard to get notice these days so I thought I'll get a better return with them. I am also porting Anka to small device now (iPhone) with them.

I don't know that much about there streaming stuff but I don't think there'll be a lot of work involve for the devs.

JC

[Roman Budzowski]

It's not that BFG is replacing download with mobile/streaming or something else. They're just extending their business to new marketplaces.

[Desktop Gaming]

And I also wonder what the technical requirements are for devs.

It's simple - there aren't any. Any standard download game will work on BFG Unlimited without modification (so I'm told, on good authority).

[BantamCityGames]

It's simple - there aren't any. Any standard download game will work on BFG Unlimited without modification (so I'm told, on good authority).

Now I'm intrigued... how the f* are they doing that?

[Desktop Gaming]

As I understand it, the game runs on a remote server, and outputs the video stream to the user's PC, so all they're getting, is video - there is nothing they can pirate, which is the entire point of it. I haven't used it but I assume they have something client-side which receives the video, then reports back with mouse/keyboard events. God alone knows what the processing back-end is like. Very clever, though.

I imagine it to be something like a grand-scale version of RealVNC or similar.

[BantamCityGames]

Ahhh...kinda like OnLive or Spoon... I see

[ajin115]

i think their is no much difference in online games and streaming games, Bigfishgames alive due to their big force of affiliates.

[Desktop Gaming]

You're peddling links to a site about online gaming scripts in your sig, but you don't know the difference between online games and streaming games? (which, incidentally, I explained two posts above your own).

Methinks you may be a spambot.

[Indinera]

My games are in the queue, I can't wait to get started and see if it's effective.

[jcottier]

My games are in the queue, I can't wait to get started and see if it's effective.

Please don't forget to keep us informed

[Indinera]

I will. I just don't know how long it will take for BFG to get to my games. The HOGs are always the priority...

[Roman Budzowski]

Don't get to excited about that, because it's still immature service. 3 or 4 of my games are already there. Revenue wise it perform worse than Mac builds (except one game), but I believe it's growing a bit, so things might improve in the future. Still it's extra revenue for not that much work.

[Indinera]

BFG was so excited about it though... is it underperforming, you'd say?

[Roman Budzowski]

Underperforming? It depends on your expectations. My expectations were that it will make $0, so it's the opposite way Keep in mind that the service is still in beta and that the target market for this service is probably not USA, but countries that pirate games a lot (and with streaming there is no pirating) and it's not yet available outside US.

[tjc]

Still excited.