Christoph Hartmann, the founder of 2K Games, is a supporter of server-based games and believes that it is the future of gaming.
“What we think the future will be is the market will shift to more server-based games – similar to the movie business where most people just rent instead of view films in the cinema.”
Hartman speaks about the opportunities that OnLive offers like instant gaming and not having to go into a store to try out games.
He had seen a demo of OnLive in its early stage two years ago and was impressed even then. Hartman is convinced that OnLive will be capable of succeeding and points to the people working behind Onlive.
“First of all, there are a lot of people behind OnLive that have incredible track records – you’re always betting on people to some degree, especially in the software world – and we felt also as the market is changing you have to give new people a chance. While we have to help in some form on the product development side, it’s not like we have to put USD 20 million behind [the platform] and then design a completely new game. It’s kind of a calculated bet we could take. We want to support people with new ideas that could take the industry in a different direction.”
2K Games currently have two games planned for OnLive: Bioshock and Major League Baseball.
Eric