AfterDawn: News

OnLive acquired, all employees laid off, some re-hired

Over the week, there has been a mystery surrounding cloud gaming service OnLive.

Three days ago, it appeared that the company was set to shut its doors, as all employees were fired with small severance packages. Other reports claimed the service was on the verge of bankruptcy.



Today, it appears that the company has been purchased by a "newly-formed company," with half of the employees being re-hired to the new company. Supposedly, this new company is run by one man with 'substantial funding.' The individual is said to have been very 'impressed' with the idea on OnLive; enough to acquire it.

One report today claims the move was made as a way to eliminate the value of the current employees' stock. Because of the acquisition, staffers will now have value-less OnLive stock.

OnLive was allegedly seeking a $1 billion buyout, and received bids, but none approached that figure. Another report claims OnLive was averaging about 1800 concurrent users, a laughable sum for a company burning through money at a quick pace.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Aug 2012 15:52

• Previous article

• IBM acquires flash memory company TMS

• Next article

• Kids predicted today's Internet offerings, in 1995

• 7 comments

• ROMaster2

  It was an interesting concept, but no one really wanted to buy it.

  18.8.2012 16:03 #1

• i1der

  This is Why...
  You have to start small... This promised too much
  

  18.8.2012 19:41 #2

• nintenut

  O, woe! Who could have foreseen that the business plan of selling games customers can't own for play on hardware likewise would flop? Perhaps not even Nostradamus!
  
  Maybe the same fellow could have predicted the inexplicable appearance of this bag of party hats next to me; or even this mysterious cake. And what of these streamers and balloons? My, my, my.
  

  
  

  18.8.2012 20:36 #3

• deraspdrasd (unverified)

  Originally posted by nintenut: O, woe! Who could have foreseen that the business plan of selling games customers can't own for play on hardware likewise would flop? Perhaps not even Nostradamus!
  
  Maybe the same fellow could have predicted the inexplicable appearance of this bag of party hats next to me; or even this mysterious cake. And what of these streamers and balloons? My, my, my. -_- derp.

  19.8.2012 06:23 #4

• LordRuss

  Seemed to me like another one of those "bubble" buy out ideas. Kinda like what made our economy go down the tubes. You know, buy a POS, run down trailer for $5000, put a coat of robin's egg blue paint on it then run a set of curtains in the living room made out of hamster scrotums.
  
  Then have your uncle help tow the bastard across the tracks, hook up the septic system & then flip the thing for $64000. You know! That kind of "bubble" thing...
  
  I think these guys went in with pissant ball prices & thought they would get rhino ball sale prices. Their dumb ass egos shot themselves in the foot. I.e., the days of super sizing the maximum from the minimum are damn sure over.
  
  Like i1der said, start small, get it under control, get a happy customer base & then expand. Just like eating an elephant.
  

  http://onlyinrussellsworld.blogspot.com

  19.8.2012 15:10 #5

• IguanaC64

  I've tried VNC'ing to a machine playing a game and the framerate was horrible over a gigabit connection. I'm not sure how these guys expect to pass 1920x1080 gaming resolution over a 1.5/3mbit/s connections people still have. Maybe VNC isn't the best option, but it should at least be a decent indicator of what's possible.

  21.8.2012 14:11 #6

• ronatola

  this idea should have remained a PHANTOM.
  
  good idea, but I won't play anything not in HD.
  

  24.8.2012 19:59 #7