I just learned about another upcoming game streaming service..
Antstream - A retro game streaming subscription service coming soon

The Hall of Shame:
Antstream
GeForce Now
PlayStation Now
GameFly
Jump
Utomik

[on the way:
I saw a live demo of EA's new cloud gaming service, and it totally works
Microsoft Is Working on Its Own Game Streaming, Netflix-Like Service

mentioned sites are infested with java scripts ; p

Long live GOG and CD Projekt Red, the only proper way of digital distribution those days!

They can push video game streaming as much as they want but i won't be a part of it and subcription based streaming just leaves a bad taste in my mouth so yes it's better to stay the fuck away.

I don't mind things like local streaming among your own hardware or even streaming over the internet from your PC to say mobile phone. That type of streaming I can get behind, even it's not something I would use a lot. Being able to install Galaxy on my desktop and on my laptop and then stream from my desktop which is more powerful (aka like Steam) would be useful.

As far as subscription based service, it's not something I would ever subscribe to or would want. I know many people would though. So I think it has a place, but I would never want to see it outright replace being able buy a game and downloading it. So I don't care if it exist along side traditional methods. I don't think it will ever get the mainstream attraction that say Netflix did, because streaming a game is a different beast to streaming a movie but who knows 20 or 30 years down the world.

I wouldn't mind if a service offered the ability to buy a actual copy for download along with the ability to stream. Like GOG did with movies there for a while. You can get both in a single purchase that would be fine with me, and I would not mind if say GOG did something like that.

I don't even use streaming for series or movies, I definitely wouldn't leave a single cent for any of these services even if that means to stop playing games 1-2 decades (rough estimation on my backlog) after nothing else exists anymore.

so much this right here. its ok... But I won't like to see it replace more conventional ways to buy and play games.

Technically you're right, but since it's a subscription based service, still kills my way of gaming ; )

Utomik works by downloading games rather than streaming them so it is not like OnLive in that respect. We have a smart downloading system that will download what you need to get started to your own PC, and download the rest as you play As long as we have a choice, however, still teaches bad habits..
Local streaming on the other hand could work for me, some old adventure games could be playable even on a phone. OnLive / Gaikai are already dead and acquired by Sony. Same, never subscribed any streaming services and never will.

I think partial streaming would be good so people could make use of their tablets as an extra touchscreen controller so the main screen could be kept clean of any UI while a tablet could have maps,notes or action buttons on it.

Whats wrong with streaming anyway?

We have streaming music - it did not kill the music industry
We now streaming films and tv - it did not kill off the film industry

I wouldn't mind renting some games on a streaming service when I know I would only play it once and never again, or to try it before I buy it.

I can only speak for myself, but my main problem with streaming is the same as it is with DRM just worse.
Once the service shuts down it's gone you basically spent money for nothing it can also happen that a game just disappears because of licensing issues.
That is especially annoying if it happens mid game.
If you're like me and want to play games again years later or need a long time to finish one for whatever reason that's likely to become a problem at some point.

And there are also the usual issues which result from the need of an internet connection.

Don't waste your breath, the arguments will be exactly the same. Everyone wants it, gotta appeal to the mainstream, avoid being different. It's still optional, well, apart from cyberpunk but that is only alpha and meant to be multiplayer so it's all good, and above all else it's not drm, so it's great for gaming as a whole. There we go, saved some gog defenders a few moments posting.

Of course it didn't kill them. But it changed them. A lot. And it's that exact thing that worries (some) people. Now, we could probably spend days discussing all the many ways in which streaming changed the music, movies and tv industries, and how it might change games, but if nothing else there is one thing common to all of them - errosion of the very idea of ownership, other than of course the big companies owning everything. We might very well be at the dawn of an age where we don't get to own a damn thing, everything is on loan, to be removed or altered as the companies see fit.

It will be interesting to see if they can find a good balance to charge enough for streaming gaming, for it to be profitable for the service/publishers. OnLive failed in it miserably, EA and MS etc. believe they can find it.

Since the service has to provide the computing power for the games, I presume MS/EA/etc. assume people will be happy to pay more for streaming gaming, than what they would pay for game licenses (Steam, GOG, etc.), just for the privilege of not having to buy a gaming PC or a $300 console to play the games, but a cheapo dumb terminal would do.

They might also think that extra profits would also come from a larger userbase, ie. there would be new gamers who were not ready to invest for a gaming PC or console before, but are willing to pay for streaming games without having to buy a gaming system.

We will see if their hopes have any basis to reality. In a way I could see many "non-gamers" to be more open to streaming games, but then they would probably not want to pay a monthly fee for it but just for a shorter time, if their gaming is quite occasional.

The main hurdles I see with streaming gaming becoming successful:

- Unlike movies and music, gaming can be quite time consuming, and you may end up playing only one game even for weeks, or months. It is not like renting a DVD movie for one evening or the weekend from Blockbusters because such games which can be completed within one or two days are relatively rare, outside of indie games at least.

- Or if you consider a "as much as you can eat for a fixed monthly fee"-service similar to Netflix or Spotify, then you really would have to be an eager mass consumer of lots of different kinds of games, constantly swapping between games. If you'd end up just playing Skyrim 2 for two months on such service, you might start questioning yourself was it really worth it to pay two months for the streaming service, in order to play one (or a couple) games. And such person is probably a pretty hardcore gamer already, not minding to buy that console or even a PC to play the game that they could possibly buy quite cheap from a sale.

- If the idea was that there would be new gamers like housewives playing simple casual games on such a service... I am unsure how realistic that is either, as such people tend to play free-to-play games on e.g. their phones. Would these people really be willing to pay a monthly fee to play Candy Crush Saga 3 and Witch Bubbles 5?

I dunno, the streaming services will have to figure all these out by themselves. Good luck I guess, even though I hardly would pay for such a service. Or then it would have to be VERY cheap, like "renting" a game for 50 cents to try it out for a couple of days, in order to make up your mind whether you'd buy that same game for 5-10€ from GOG (or Steam).

One thing is certain: the ONLY reason companies like MS, EA and Ubisoft are pushing streaming gaming is because they believe or at least hope it will increase their profits over what they make from non-streaming games. No other reason, So yeah, either they really believe you and me are ready to pay more per game in a streaming form, or that they would be able to lure many more new gamers from people who don't like buying games at the moment.

With streaming videos and music, you simply download the whole data to your disk temporarily as you consume them. Your internet may die in the middle of a movie, but you would still have at least a part of it, if not the second half, theoretically speaking. In brief, you download something and consume it on the spot, with your device.

With streaming games, a piece of hardware will have to play the game, and send the video and audio over the internet to you. When input is everything in a game, you'll more often than not run into input lag, because in the end, you aren't downloading a specified piece of data that never changes size or form, you're continuously uploading your actions and downloading the results. If your internet dies in the middle of a game, you can't feed the servers your actions, and can't get the results.

Game streaming has got a long way to go, and it definitely won't take anywhere near the time that Ubisoft CEO thinks it would need. That is unless they can start their own ISPs to handle the job. Either way, I hope it never comes to fruition. You cannot deny that the big names would abuse streaming to push their anti-piracy agenda down everyone's throats, what's with not giving you the game files being lucrative to them.